No Capes, Real Peace: U Thant's UN and What We Lost

Summary

The Gist - “No Capes, Real Peace: U Thant’s UN and What We Lost”

Podcast: The Gist
Host: Mike Pesca (Peach Fish Productions)
Episode: No Capes, Real Peace: U Thant's UN and What We Lost
Date: October 23, 2025
Guest: Thant Myint-U (U Thant’s grandson, historian, author)

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Episode Overview

This episode juxtaposes the fantasy of modern superhero movies with the real-world legacy of U Thant, the once little-known but consequential Secretary General of the United Nations. Mike Pesca discusses the recent biography Peacemaker: U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World with its author (and U Thant's grandson), Thant Myint-U. The conversation explores U Thant’s personal history, diplomatic triumphs and challenges, and the evolution—and perceived decline—of the UN’s role since his era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Mike Pesca Rejects Superheroes (01:00–11:45)

• Pesca’s Case Against Superhero Movies:
  • Critiques the genre’s current commercial bloat and lack of narrative stakes.
  • Misses when superhero stories had “human stakes” or cleverness, e.g., Guardians of the Galaxy, early Spider-Man films.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “What superhero movies have become are exercises in getting you to watch more superhero movies. The IP exists to sell other IP and what was once a fresh story... now it’s all just a coming attraction.” (04:00)
  • “They say not all heroes wear capes. For at least the foreseeable future, none of mine will.” (11:30)

2. Introducing the Real ‘Peacemaker’: U Thant (11:45–12:20)

• Pesca leads into the main topic: real-world heroism found in diplomacy, introducing U Thant, the subject of a new biography by his grandson, Thant Myint-U.

3. Thant Myint-U Discusses U Thant’s Early Days (12:22–15:41)

• Family & Early Impressions:
  • Thant Myint-U shares personal memories of his grandfather—hosting world leaders, meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts, recalling U Thant as a gentle patriarch.
  • Explains Burmese naming conventions—“U” is an honorific, not a family name.

4. U Thant’s Ascension to Secretary General (15:00–19:15)

• U Thant became Secretary General after the death of Dag Hammarskjöld, in a turbulent Cold War context.
• He was a consensus choice:
  • Supported by both the superpowers and newly independent “Afro-Asian” states.
  • First Asian, first non-European Secretary General.
  • Chosen partly because of Burma’s non-aligned, bridge-building reputation.

5. The UN’s Role and Thant’s Diplomacy Record (19:33–26:00)

• Success Stories:
  • India–Pakistan War of 1965: U Thant’s personal mediation and timely intervention, ultimatum threats in Security Council, and boots-on-the-ground peacekeepers.
    • “He gained the trust of both sides. So they both saw him as an honest broker and neutral arbiter.” (21:41)
  • Emphasizes that many significant UN interventions—such as in Congo and Biafra—are little-remembered today, though millions may have benefited.
• The Limits of Power:
  • The UN’s actual stick was often just moral suasion and consensus-building, not force—yet its authority and cachet were high during U Thant’s era.

6. Why Did the UN Lose Its Magic? (26:00–33:00)

• The 1950s–60s UN enjoyed public enthusiasm and global respect, partly from leaders traumatized by world wars.
• Three Factors in the UN’s Decline (per Thant Myint-U):
  • Loss of collective postwar idealism and public support.
  • Member states used the UN cynically; victories under-credited, failures overblown.
  • Pivotal ambitions in the ‘60s–‘70s quietly undercut by shifting international priorities and disillusionment (e.g., Vietnam, funding disputes).
• “Maybe it's three things... First, the men and women of that time... really believed something else had to be tried. Second... no political investment—the UN [is] used cynically. Third... the ‘60s and early ‘70s, the story of him, the story of what happened around Vietnam... that was pivotal.” (26:36)

7. Debating UN Idealism vs. Realism (28:11–31:36)

• Is the UN’s decline simply reality defeating idealism?
  • Thant Myint-U suggests realism might have involved using the UN more (“...in 1963, 1964 after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy embraced the UN... Then Vietnam happened.” 28:58).
  • The US could have “extricated itself” from Vietnam via the UN, arguably saving countless lives.

8. The UN as Debate Society vs. Enforcer (31:36–40:00)

• Evolving Purpose:
  • The UN’s forum function helped legitimize newly independent states, giving them a seat at the table.
  • Over time, the UN became more “talk shop,” with less practical power, especially for the West whose primary interests moved elsewhere.
  • Thant Myint-U: The UN shouldn’t just be a “donor delivery mechanism;” it was meant as a collective security mechanism.

9. Is the UN’s Morality Capped by Its Members? (40:02–41:27)

• Debate over whether the UN can be more moral than the sum of its member states.
  • Thant Myint-U: No—the UN’s culture, legal architecture, and aspirations can (and do) transcend mere national interest at times, but recent decades have failed these aspirations.
  • “The UN is built on this fundamental aspiration that we have to do things differently than has been done throughout human history.” (40:20)

10. Burma/Myanmar: Hopes and Pain (41:27–44:31)

• Pesca: Why is Myanmar so tragic and stuck?
• Thant Myint-U:
  • Not just bad luck; deep legacies of colonialism, post-Independence missteps, military takeover, and civil war—compounded by foreign intervention.
  • “It could have turned around, but… it hasn't, sadly, so far.” (43:53)
  • Personal note: He narrowly avoided being in-country during the coup due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

11. Researching U Thant: New Revelations and Archival Finds (44:31–46:36)

• Access to rare materials:
  • Myint-U’s family archive, previously unseen correspondence (Jackie Kennedy, Bertrand Russell), and confidential documents on major Cold War crises.
  • Role of U Thant in the Cuban Missile Crisis broader than commonly told; mediated between superpowers.
  • “In none of these movies do you see a Burmese mediator shuttling between the two sides and finding room for compromise.” (45:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Pesca on Superheroes:
  • “Superheroes don’t exist, and powers can’t help us. I can get genuine stakes in literally every genre that’s not a superhero movie.” (10:29)
• Thant Myint-U, on U Thant’s reputation:
  • “He gained the trust of both sides. So they both saw him as an honest broker and neutral arbiter.” (21:41)
• Thant Myint-U, on the UN’s original purpose:
  • “The UN was set up as a collective security mechanism. It was meant to help all the countries in the world, including the US and others, prevent a third world war. That was its intent.” (39:08)
• Thant Myint-U on Idealism vs. Realism:
  • “…in 1963, 1964 after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy embraced the UN... Then Vietnam happened.” (28:58)
• On researching his grandfather:
  • “I came across a whole box of letters from Jackie Kennedy, for example… and more importantly… secret documents related to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, Six Day War, all these things.” (44:37)
• On U Thant’s invisible impact:
  • “In none of these movies do you see a Burmese mediator shuttling between the two sides and finding room for compromise.” (45:38)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• 01:00–11:45: Pesca’s anti-superhero monologue
• 12:22: Thant Myint-U joins the interview
• 15:00–19:15: The drama of U Thant's selection as UN Secretary General
• 20:22–23:42: U Thant’s major diplomatic successes
• 26:00–33:00: Why the UN lost public trust and idealism
• 34:17: Interview resumes post-break, focus on decolonization and colonialism in UN & global discourse
• 38:27–41:27: What the UN was for, and how its actual use diverged from its founding ambitions
• 41:27–44:31: Myanmar’s tragedies and personal consequences for Thant Myint-U
• 44:31–46:36: Archival revelations—U Thant’s deeper legacy
• 46:36–end: Closing thanks

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Tone and Style

Pesca’s tone remains witty, skeptical, but ultimately respectful, hovering between cultural critique (the superhero opening) and earnest curiosity during the substantive historical conversation. Thant Myint-U is measured, reflective, and draws on both scholarship and deeply personal experience.

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For Listeners New to the Topic

• This episode offers:
  • A compelling primer on U Thant’s overlooked historical significance
  • Insights into the evolution of the UN
  • Discussion of international idealism vs. realpolitik
  • Reflections on post-colonial history and global governance
• Why listen:
  • Reframes “heroism,” championing the real, sometimes invisible, coalition-building peacemakers of recent history over costumed mythology.
  • Provides a rare, intimate perspective on the life and times of a consequential but forgotten world leader.

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Transcript

[A]

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[A]

AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI [e-mail] that's R U B R-I K.com It's Thursday, October 23, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca and I do not like superhero movies. I could like superhero movies. They are our Greek myths. And Greek myths are great. In fact, they were the only kind of stories we had for a long, long time. But superhero movies as they're currently executed and I also includes superhero TV shows in this, are not just bad, they're bad for particular reasons that make me despair a little bit for storytelling in general. So, quick background. My son and I watched Peacemaker. You want to know why I don't.

[B]

Have a coterie of super villains? Why My coterie of super villains is.

[A]

Six feet fucking under There. You see, Batman doesn't kill people because he's a pussy. He's a dark creature of the night. He's a jackass who wrestles with murderers dressed like clowns and throws them in prison so they can break out of prison and then Murder more people. Real me, this. How many people you think Batman's indirectly murdered by being too much of a candy ass not to kill? These fools who clearly need to be smoked once and for all, you wrinkly Shar Pei looking, dementia infested fuck. Jesus. I was just trying to make the John Cena show about a superhero who kills for peace, but really just wants to be worshiped as a hero. It's got some deep themes. It's written by James Gunn, who's now in charge of the entire DC Universe. Yeah, the universe. It's all a universe. Remember when we used to have settings? Settings were good. Univers, I'm going to say a bit overblown, which is characteristic of the whole superhero genre. Now, Gunn did a great job with Guardians of the Galaxy, another superhero franchise. Franchises are okay. Franchises are distinct. They're not quite universes. But Guardians of the Galaxy was good because it was funny. It was self aware. Now, whatever you do, don't push this button because that will set off the bomb immediately and we'll all be dead. Now repeat back what I just said.

[B]

I am Groot. Uh huh.

[A]

I am Groot.

[B]

That's right. I am Groot.

[A]

No, that's the button that will kill everyone. Try again.

[B]

I am Groot.

[A]

Mm. I am Groot.

[B]

Uh huh. I am Groot.

[A]

No, that's exactly what you just said. How is that even possible? It was human, even when it was about a raccoon. And back then, I liked superhero movies. I liked Infinity War. I liked most of the Spider's Men. Spiderman. Ah. But what superhero movies have become are exercises in getting you to watch more superhero movies. The IP exists to sell other IP and what was once a fresh story, it's now at the end of every superhero movie. It's not. Ooh, I wonder how this might tie into the next. In a delightful way, it's all just a coming attraction. They're like YouTube videos that are never satisfied with watching just one. And they become more and more weaponized until you're spouting statistics that might not be true about the degree that iron melts in the World Trade center or whatever. Something about who has the Infinity Crystal for the Gauntlet of promise.

[B]

There were six singularities. Then the universe exploded into existence and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots.

[A]

Infinity Stone. So many moments in superhero movies are not actually moments that are justified by the logic of the thing you're watching. They're just trying to get you to say, oh, that's the other Guy from that other superhero movie or. Oh, that means some other superhero movie will be cool. I know Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were in Hamlet and we're also in Tom Stoppard's. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. But when there is a cameo from. From the King, that doesn't take the place of Tom Stoppard actually writing drama that works on its own. This whole thing is obviously, it's very commercial. It's a sprawling, out of control, bizarre. The fight scenes are also really unexciting. I loathe the fight scenes in a superhero movie. And you know what else gets to me? The flying. I can't get out of my head. So many questions about the flying raises so many more questions than it answers. Are they concentrating mentally to go fast? It seems like they are. Sometimes you watch their faces and they're all screwed up in concentration. So is it a mental thing that propels them to go fast or is it like physical. Physical exertion? I'm not talking about the superheroes with actual wings that I get. But when these superheroes walk or run, we get how that works. They're expending calories. But is the same thing happening when they're flying through the air? Their bodies aren't moving. How are they propelling themselves? Is it magic in the air but actually walking on the ground? Can they move around through grass magic? Again, this is just one way that superhero movies are the antithesis of actual entertainment. Also, I should say superpowers can't actually solve problems. The makers of the movies know this. If someone had a superpower and the superpower were used, and the superpower always vanquished evil or always delivered goodness, then it just wouldn't be dramatic. So these superpowers are always countered by an evil guy superpowers or the literal kryptonite for Superman. So it really becomes this exercise and okay, I'm going to believe in a superpower. Oh, no. The superpower has been thwarted. But it always gets thwarted because otherwise it wouldn't be interesting, which is my overall general point. It's not interesting. I'd like to see a superhero movie where there's a superhero with a power and the power is amazing and he's the only one who has it, and. And the world is made much, much better for him having. Yeah, yeah, I know. Watchmen was a little like that. I don't care. I don't care about the mythos or the crossovers or the marketing masquerading as meaning I don't care about these superheroes because superheroes don't exist and powers don't help us. I watch the superhero movies. When I do. I told you, I like Guardians of the Galaxy and some of the Spider man movies. I like the cleverness. I like the human stakes. Peacemaker, which I liked until the end was interesting because Peacemaker wanted a family and a real life that he could never get as a costume to hero. That's compelling. But you know what's compelling about it? Everything other than the superhero stuff. I can get that in literally every genre that's not a superhero movie. So thank you. I'm out. I will no longer opt into the Marvel mcu, the DC Universe, the Star wars galaxy, the Hogwarts sphere. You know, they say not all heroes wear capes. And for at least the foreseeable future, none of mine will. Unless, I don't know, Ryan Murphy reboots Elvis. But you know why I mention all this? Because on the show today, after I talk about the superheroes of the TV show Peacemaker, there was a real hero named Usant. He was the Secretary General of the United Nations. And his story, though not told before now, is so much more interesting than a guy who could shoot lasers out of his eyes. And in fact, the name of this new biography of U Thant, written by his grandson Thant Mint U is. And this, I swear to God, is a coincidence. I just realized this after I did my whole spiel in the front of the show. The name of the book is Peacemaker. U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World. Claude is, oh, a pal, my AI assistant who has helped me with many tasks. Tasks that you can see as, say, a gist subscriber or a just listener. So on. On the Mike Pesca webpage, we're starting to put together these little bundles to introduce the kind of interviews I do. I've done 10 years of shows, so I don't know. I don't know about the groupings. I don't know about which were the good interviews. So I started loading information into Claude. I loaded. Luckily, we have a spreadsheet that actually Claude helped make. Loading information in asking Claude to suggest different combinations of different categories. And it's not up yet, but it's gonna get there. And it really would have taken hours more without Claude, and it wouldn't have been really, really good, like I think it's going to be. So it thinks deeper about challenges than I would have. It is the sort of thing sometimes it does orthogonal thinking where I wouldn't have put this military expert and that science guy together and call it oh, thought Leaders. So Claude was. I will divulge one of those services that I decided to pay for before I knew they would even advertise. And when they said, hey, you want to do an ad? I said, yeah. So I could say things like, Claude code is a game changer for developers. It works directly in your terminal and understands your entire code base and handles complex engineering tasks. Ready to tackle bigger problems. Sign up for Claude today and get 50% off Claude Pro when you use my link. Claude AI the gist. That's Claude AI the gist right now for 50% off your first three months at Claude Pro. That includes access to all the features that I mentioned in today's episode. Claude AI the Gist AI Agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI [e-mail] that's R U B I K dot com. The name of the book is Peacemaker, and it's a really apt title for the Life of U thant. U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World. It is written by someone who knows the former Secretary General of the United nations very well, his grandson Thont Mint U. And he joins us right now. Hello. Thanks for coming on.

[B]

Hi. Very good to meet you.

[A]

So your grandfather, when he was Secretary General, you were young, very young.

[B]

Were you?

[A]

Because I know that when he died and there was a funeral, you were in fourth grade and you missed your classes. So were you alive for any of his tenure as Secretary General?

[B]

Yeah, so I'm 59. I was born in 66. So that was in the middle of his 10 years at the helm of the UN. So I was five or something when he retired and eight when he died.

[A]

So do you have any personal memories? A fleeting glance of a Soviet premier? Or maybe even John Lennon?

[B]

No, not John Lennon. Unfortunately, he didn't take me to that, to that lunch. But, I mean, I remember him at home. I remember people coming. I didn't know they were famous people. I remember him certainly as my grandfather. You know, we lived in the same house. I watched TV in his bedroom and swimming with him many times. I do remember one of my earliest memories was going to his office, which we didn't do very often. You know, driving down the FDR drive through the tunnel, seeing the UN on the other side, going up the. The elevators to. To the 38th floor where the Secretary General' and meeting Neil Armstrong and the astronauts, the Apollo 11 astronauts, when they had come back from the moon. So I remember that. I remember less the astronauts themselves. And I remember that he had this huge map of the world that sort of lit up with different cities lighting up in different ways. That was my. One of my earliest memories. Probably I was about three or four at the time.

[A]

And this was your father's father?

[B]

My mother's father.

[A]

Okay. Because I do not understand how names are transferred in Burmese, I recently learned that the U is an honorary. It means Mr. So.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, the Mr. So his only name. But so the Burmese only have personal names. They have no family names. And the. The U or the ooh pronounced you at the front of the name just means mister. And his only name was Thunt. And in Burmese, maybe if you leave the village or town you might take the name of that town or village as well. And in my name, which is at the end of the name, it's different. It just means that I'm the eldest child. It's a different word.

[A]

And sorry, this isn't even what your book's about. But now that I have you, I must ask. And so is the. My Int Mint. Is this a family name or your name?

[B]

It's a family. So my dad is named Tin Myunt U. So when he came to the U.S. he went to Michigan. He had to break up his name and he made my Intu his family name. That's why. And then when I was born, they wanted Thont as part of my name as well. So that's why I became Thot my.

[A]

So your grandfather was thrust into this role after Dag Hammerskold's plane went down. And I suppose this is always a possibility. But was he surprised and was he prepared?

[B]

Yeah, I think he was shocked. And as. As much as anyone except the people who might have been responsible for. For the crash, which is now almost certainly some kind of killing, some sort of foul play was at work there. So he had been. You know, my grandfather was then the ambassador to the un. He'd been there for a few years. I think they all thought maybe Hammerskjold was. Was on his way out, might be resigning. But no one thought he was going to disappear in the middle of Africa in the. In this plane crash. And so no, he wasn't. He wasn't fully prepared at that Time.

[A]

Was he on a short list to become or rumored to be the next Secretary General or when Hammerskold's term naturally ended?

[B]

Yeah, I mean it was a really fraught time. It was the height of the Cold War in a Berlin crisis. American Soviet tanks facing off against each other. No one even KNEW if the UN was going to survive. It was about what, 15 years old at the time. And the Soviets were not funding it. They were threatening to kind of undermine it in different ways. But mysteriously my grandfather's name already kind of cropping up. There is a memo, a secret memo at the time from the US Ambassador to the un, Adlai Stevenson to Washington saying Utant is our man. But that was written I think almost six months before Hammerskold died and a couple of weeks before Hamishol died. There were already kind of press speculations that Utant would make a good future Secretary General. So at least he was on some people's minds. And then when Hammerskold actually was killed, there was a lot of kind of frantic soul searching at the un. There was a lot of Kennedy, everybody else was trying to figure out what to do next. No one knew if the UN was going to survive the coming weeks or months. And eventually over a few weeks, both Washington and Moscow and everyone else decided that Uthant was going to be at least the acting Secretary General. In part he came in not as just a kind of Russian, American compromise candidate, but because all these newly independent countries from Asia and Africa really wanted one of their own at the helm of the UN for the very first time.

[A]

Right. First Asian, first non European Secretary General at the time. Where was Burma positioned vis a vis east and West? Were they part of the non aligned bloc? And how actually non aligned were they?

[B]

I mean the Non Aligned Movement actually began two weeks before Hammarskjold was killed.

[A]

So suspicious.

[B]

Before there was a twirling my suspicious, very suspicious. Before the non line movement was set up, there was a broader kind of third world in the making of these newly independent countries. And they had met in Bandung In Indonesia in 1955, the first time countries, you know, from Africa, Middle East, Asia, without anything in common except this kind of shared experience of colonial humiliation and, and desire to kind of create a post colonial world met together. And at the UN they call themselves the Afro Asians. And in a way that the founders of the UN never predicted or kind of saw, you know, sort of foresaw, they became a near majority at the UN at that time. And Burma was in the lead together with India, Indonesia Ghana, a couple of other countries and being really active at the un, trying to use it to create a whole new post empire international system.

[A]

So he was a candidate that both of the major powers and all five of the Security Council nations could agree on, even the Chinese.

[B]

Well, the Chinese were then represented by Chiang Kai Shek's kind of remnant regime in Taiwan. And so they were not a major player. So it was the four big powers, it was these Afro Asians pushing for him. Then there was these countries, these mutual countries like Sweden, Ireland that he was working with really closely. They were saying he's a good guy, he gets along with everyone he should, he has the diplomatic skills. Hammershold had actually said that without would make a good successor. And then really interestingly Israel weighed in and the Israelis said we want him and not anyone else because Burma was the only Afro Asian country that had good relations with Israel at the time.

[A]

Yeah, and he always went out of his way to talk to Jewish leaders and to talk about the Holocaust and it seemed genuine from what my reading of him was through.

[B]

Yeah, that was the Burmese position and I think that was his personal position as well. He, he wanted, I mean he was friends with Israel and he was friends with the Arab countries as well, the Egyptian Iraqi ambassadors and, and he wanted the Arabs to make peace with Israel, which of course then was the Israel of the pre1965 borders.

[A]

Right. Some of the major conflicts of the era that he inherited and that he was tasked with trying to solve. We of course remember for a couple of reasons. One is they're ongoing, you mentioned Israel. One is that they affected America quite a lot. So Vietnam, that was one. But you know, I don't know how many Americans really remember Congo or Biafra or some of these conflicts that were, I don't want to say solved, but that he really did have an active role and the UN had an active role. And maybe it is the case that we just tend to forget the successes, but your book does not. So just pick a success or two where hundreds of thousands if not millions of people were being killed and the UN had a positive effect.

[B]

Yeah, I mean maybe a classic, I mean Congo is super interesting and maybe we can get back to it. But you know, one classic success where the UN actually worked the way it was kind of meant to work and he played a decisive role was the 1965 India Pakistan War. It was over Kashmir a little bit like what we saw in the confrontation not too long ago, but then that escalated into this all out war. A million people fighting on both sides. It was the biggest kind of land war since World War II. And he went to the UN Security Council. He asked for a mandate. They gave him a mandate. He flew to Pakistan, to Ralpindi. He spent several days with the military leadership there. Ayub Khan. General Ayub Khan. He then flew, which was not very easy in the middle of a war, flew around kind of the. Towards the Indian Ocean and around to Delhi. Spent several days with the Indian leaders and basically negotiated a ceasefire. And he had to kind of figure out, as both armies were moving towards a stalemate, the exact timing of when his intervention would most be effective. He advised the Security Council to ratchet up pressure, threatening sanctions under the enforcement provisions of the UN Charter, which they did. He gained the trust of both sides. So they both saw him as an honest broker and neutral arbiter. And when the ceasefire was finally agreed and the UN Security Council endorsed this, he already had peacekeepers on the ground. Because when you have a million people facing each other, men facing each other with weapons, clashes can easily start again unless you have peacekeepers there, observers, people along, you know, the. The confrontation line. So in many different ways, I mean, there's much more to the story. I mean, the UN and his role was decisive in helping to end that. That war. And that's just one of many examples of successful, sometimes very quiet mediation before war starts and occasionally like this, to actually end a war once it's begun.

[A]

It's very interesting. The Buddhist goes in and brokers peace between the Hindus and the Muslims. But as you write in your book, he kept secret the fact that he was actually born a Muslim. Right.

[B]

He wasn't born a Muslim, but his father was Muslim. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, he was. He was. His father was a Muslim. So you can't mention that if you want to have peace between Pakistan and India. But I think about the kinds of conflicts that lend themselves to UN intervention and something just short of maybe great power conflicts, but things like standing armies, phenomena where each side really does have a lot to lose and actually possibly wants to be pushed out of war. They just need a good excuse for it. Another dynamic, the. This was not a Soviet or communist free world clash, both of these countries, to different extents, or client states of the United States. So Lyndon Johnson could play a role when you're dealing with other conflicts, more intractable conflicts, I would say, conflicts with players where one side has a lot more to lose or less to lose, and maybe that side isn't even a part of the un it becomes very hard for us ont or anyone associated with the UN to solve that conflict. Do you agree with that?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, there's, there, there are conflicts where it's. Both sides, as you say, are looking for. Maybe they're not actively looking for a way out, but they can be persuaded that it's, it's good to find a way out or conflicts that are about to escalate where the UN can play a role in helping to, to de. Escalate if one side or another is, is keen to go all out. The main role of the UN at that point is to try to put pressure and that only works if the big powers on the Security Council are willing to combine forces to put that pressure on, on, on the aggressor country. The thing we have to remember is that, you know, the UN was set up in the beginning as an enforcement mechanism, not as this kind of idealistic forum where you talk about everything. It's, it was meant to be this muscular enforcement mechanism where the big powers acted together. And it never became that except on a few occasions because of the Cold war and the US Soviet divide. And so the way the UN evolved in the 50s and 60s was depend more and more on this person called the Secretary General, who could sometimes go in and mediate and kind of create that space for the different sides to climb down if they wanted to, or to kind of nurture that feeling on.

[A]

Both sides, but all with a carrot and almost no stick. Moral suasion, getting people in a room. So there are some exercises of soft power that the Secretary General has, but it's not much and it's not in keeping with the highest ideal of the United Nations.

[B]

It's more than, it's more than than now in the sense that the UN had a lot of prestige. It was only 15, 20 years old. Republics in America and elsewhere were really behind it. And so for the, you know, countries hadn't stood up to the UN before. So in those days, you know, when the Security Council said something, there was that, that, that included a lot of kind of moral pressure on, on a small country or any country to kind of, to cave in and, and do what the UN was asking.

[A]

Yeah, this is what comes across in the book. The UN was cool. This, the entire book starts with a scene where Jackie Onassis and John Lennon and all these famous people are fetting your grandfather at this, at this banquet, this luncheon. I remember the movie north by Northwest. There's a scene set in the UN and it's Just this Art deco happening place, and that's not what it is anymore. Do you think that's because over decades it became apparent that the UN just couldn't live up to its ideals? Or there are some other factors that might have taken place. One is the funding. Wasn't there the United States, or especially Republicans? The United States never really liked or wanted to fund the un. Another possibility is that quite cynically, diplomats from all over the world use the UN for less than ideal purposes. What do you think took away the un?

[B]

Yeah, I guess it's. Maybe it's three things. I mean, the first thing is in a way, I guess the most obvious, which is that in those days in the 50s and 60s, you know, the men and women of that time who founded the UN who were working there, the leaders of different countries, they were adults when two world wars happened and 80 million plus people had been killed and there had been a Great Depression in between. And I think many of them, or most of them, if not all of them, really believe that something else had to be tried, that we had to have something else than the old kind of politics that led to these world wars. So that's one, I think. Second is what you just mentioned. I mean, there hasn't really been any political investment in the UN Leaders use it cynically. They use it to scapegoat, you know, to kind of hide the blame when good things happen. They don't credit the U.N. so over decades, the U.N. doesn't gain credit. That public kind of enthusiasm isn't maintained in a way that perhaps it could have been. But then third is a specific story. And that's why I, you know, for my book, with my book, I think that story of what happened in the 60s and early 70s, the story of him, the story of what happened around Vietnam, Six Day War, everything else, I think that's part of it. I think it was a pivotal era when the UN kind of worked the way it should have. It was. It was spreading its wings. These newly decolonized countries were embracing it. And then things didn't work out. It was almost quietly kind of undermined because of a mix of different factors that I talk about in my book or different stories that, that come out in the book. And then by the time we're on the other side of it in the late 70s and 80s, the UN is already a much weaker, less prestigious organization in many ways.

[A]

Wasn't. I mean, it could be argued that what this was was just reality imposing itself on idealism for a time. We hope the we hope the United nations would somehow overcome human nature or the self interests of countries. We invested a lot of hope in it. The psychology was we had just been scarred by world wars. But it was never asking you to assess this argument, not that I necessarily agree with with it. It was never really realistic to think that that structure would be strong enough to withstand everyone from Pol Pot to Krushchev to all the horrible forces of the world who had a lot of money and muscle behind them.

[B]

Maybe, or maybe it's the other way around in the sense that the UN was the kind of realistic instrument which was actually in the interests of all these countries to use. And it's in everyone's interest actually to have a war, a world without war, and to focus on, on development and everything else, cooperation on all these other. The environment and everything else. I mean, that's the other argument that one could make and that, you know, in 1963, 1964, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy also embraced the UN Khrushchev, the Russians had kind of mellowed out. Everyone wanted to kind of work through the UN and there was a lot of hope that it could kind of end war. There wasn't that much war going on at that time anywhere in the world. And then Vietnam happened. And one could argue that Vietnam was an idealistic war in the sense that the Americans thought, you know, they could create a kind of mini America in, in, in South Vietnam. And that the realistic choice would have actually been for the Americans not to be involved and to use the UN to kind of extricate itself from, from Southeast Asia and to leave behind an online Southeast Asia. That that was the realistic option. And if that was done, that would have been in America's interest. It would save 50, 000American lives on top of, you know, countless Vietnamese lives, and saved them, you know, us hundreds of billions of dollars as well.

[A]

I would point out though, that there were recent periods, maybe not in the last three years, but perhaps in the last, say 15 overall, where there were hot wars going on in the globe, but not nearly to the extent. I'm not even talking about Vietnam or World War II, but just take the Congo war. So at a time when the UN was at its low ebb in terms of power, also coincided with a time with relatively, or even absolutely less war in the world.

[B]

Well, I guess you can kind of look at it in different periods. I mean, at the height of the Cold War, which is kind of the late 50s and early 60s leading up to the Peak at the, at the Cuban Missile crisis was actually the time when the UN kind of began to find its role in between the superpowers to try to see if, if anything was possible through the un. When the Americans and the Soviets began to talk to each other, then in some ways the UN's importance declined in terms of that superpower conflict. So it's different kinds of periods. In the 1990s when America was all powerful, the UN was used for peacekeeping operations, some failures, some successes, but they were much more of a north to south. You know, it was an American backed western funded operations in Africa and elsewhere. And that's, that was a different kind of incarnation for the UN at that time.

[A]

Has the UN benefited itself by becoming, you made a reference to this, something of a debate society or a place where all of the problems and issues of the world can get a hearing. And by gum they do.

[B]

Yeah, I mean in some ways it's a good thing. It's good to have one place in the world where, you know, sort of everyone, all issues can be discussed. I was just in New York a couple of weeks ago. You had 120 plus, you know, presidents and prime ministers and, and in a way it's, it's good to have a place where the whole world can get together and, and talk once a year about different things. I think the problem is that if they don't solve a lot of these problems or nothing much else gets done. People get cynical and, and people say this is just a talk shop and, and how valuable is that? I think we have to remember though that, you know, for a lot of these countries, newly independent countries, for European countries, it's different. They've always had these common conferences. They've always been at these top tables since 1800s, 1900s. But for these other countries this was key. This was what made their independence meaningful, was to be at the top table alongside the US and the French and the British and everybody else, and to be able for the first time ever, at least in hundreds of years, you know, to be part of an international system where their issues also mattered. I think just that was part of solidifying the international system that we've created over the past 50 years. Then, you know, we've had wars, but it's been really good for most of the planet as well.

[A]

Let's pause it for a second, take a quick break and we'll be back with more in a minute. Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[A]

Welcome back to the gist. When your grandfather was Secretary General presided over the un, as you mentioned, it was a time where all these countries in what was then called, and what you called in your book, because you use the Argo of the times, the third world were gaining their independence, these former colonial states. And one of the biggest conflicts was Algeria, which is a quintessential colonial conflict. So I raised this to just bring up the point that colonialism was tangible. We were talking about colonies that were once a colony and then they're not. And many of them were trying to transition to nation states. Now colonialism is often used more of an ideal. There are still some colonies, I guess south western Morocco, Western Sahara, considered a colony of Morocco, but the actual literal colonies have abated. And yet if you did a graph of mention of the word colonialism, you probably find it more now than when there were actual colonies. Is this good or bad for the United nations or the world to look at the idea of colonialism as this idea rather than this tangible geopolitical question?

[B]

Well, I think it was. I mean, I think it was used a lot in those days as well. I mean, you know, the anti colonial kind of struggles go back to, you know, 19th century, early 20th century. Right, right. And in the.

[A]

But they were literally colonies then is my point exactly. Yeah.

[B]

And then, but then what happened afterwards, and this is maybe the transition. What happened afterwards was that a lot of these countries in the 60s and 70s were really worried that their independence was not going to mean anything, that they had this piece of paper, they had a new flag, maybe they had a seat at the un but that outside powers, the big powers, whether it's the Russians or the Americans or the Europeans, could still intervene as they wanted, that, you know, companies from the outside were still going to control their economies, and they really weren't equal in the ways that they wanted to be. So I think that part of kind of making independence meaningful, creating an international system that they were part of was a big thing. But I think you're right. I mean, what you're talking about now is more colonialism as a, as a. As a way of thinking about things, looking about things. It's an. It's. It's. It's come out of academia to some extent. It's. It's part of scholarship, and then it, it's part of kind of discourse or, or debate and discussion about how to look at the world today, where you have lots of inequalities in them. But that's very different from the kinds of struggles that you had in, in. In all of these countries in the 50s and then the struggles that they had at the UN in terms of trying to make it meaningful in the 60s and 70s.

[A]

Yeah, it seems to me that one is appropriate for the academy and the other is more appropriate for the United Nations. But at the United nations, there's so much talk of what you would normally find in an academic conference. It's not actually advancing peace. It might be interesting or accurate, but it's not really what the United Nations.

[B]

I think it's a problem. I think it's a. There's. There are two kind of things that happen at the same time. One is that these third world countries, whatever you want to call them, you know, Global south now or something else in the 50s, in the 60s and 70s, really wanted to kind of transform the world, right? They wanted a different international economy. They wanted all these things and they didn't get it. And so by the 70s, by the mid late 70s, early 80s, they kept saying the same things, but a lot of it became more rhetorical, performative, that it was their instinct they had to say these things, but they kind of knew they weren't going to get what they wanted through the un. So their investment lesson there wasn't that huge kind of embracing of the UN by leaders like Nehru and the others as there had been in earlier times. And then for the west, it became something different. The UN no longer became a place where their Biggest issues like the Cuban missile crisis were going to be settled. It wasn't about their security anymore. And Instead from the 90s onwards, it just became the place where they could help countries far away. Maybe by funding a peacekeeping operation, maybe by giving aid or. And maybe some of that was good and people liked that, but it meant people at home didn't really care about it that much anymore. It'd be nice to do something good in Sudan or something, but it didn't really matter as much as stuff at home. So it was a very, it became a wafer thin kind of level of support as well.

[A]

And if that was always the purpose of the un, I don't think the UN would have had so much momentum from its major funders in the big countries. I think the big countries would have said, if what we really want to do is something like a pep far program, we'll do it ourselves. They might have been right, they might have been wrong, but it would be in their self interest not to have to go through this organization which will siphon off some of the funds and redirect some of the funds and tell the countries that are giving the funds. No, you have to do it some other way and subject the countries to a little bit of browbeating morally. I mean, if that's the setup, I could definitely see why a major potential funder country of the west would say this is not our most efficient mechanism for actually helping the countries of the world.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think the UN should not be a kind of donor delivery mechanism. Right. Because if countries want to give money, and I'm not saying there aren't, you know, really excellent people in the UN who are doing amazing humanitarian work, but in the broad scheme of things, you know, taking a step back, if you have the money, you can also do it not through the UN, but through other organizations as well, in terms of feeding people and emergencies and everything else. Right. I mean, it's good that some people are doing it now, but it could be done by others. Whereas the UN was set up as a collective security mechanism. It was meant to help all the countries in the world, including the US and others, prevent a third world war. That was its intent. That's its architecture. That's how it was set up. And we've moved so far away from that kind of conception. And I think that's a big problem. And also the conception in the 60s and 70s that it was a way to work together to prevent and end wars all around the world as well.

[A]

The one last question about The UN in general. Then I want to ask you some about Burma and some about researching this book. The best critique of the UN that I've ever heard is it can be no more moral than the collective will of its member states. Do you think that's true?

[B]

No, I don't. I don't think. Because, I mean, if. If the UN was just a conference where everyone gets together once a year and says their thing, then yes, but it's not. It's. It's an organization has certain principles, people agree to certain things back in 1945. It has its own culture way of working. Some of that's not very good, and some of that is. Is. Is ineffective, inefficient, ineffective. There's a culture of doing things that maybe is not the best, but at the same time, I mean, the UN is built on this fundamental aspiration that we have to do things differently than has been done throughout human history. And that led to two world wars and now with nuclear weapons. And not just two or three countries with nuclear weapons like in, you know, the 60s and 70s, but, you know, nearly a dozen countries that this time around, if we have a big war, it's going to be, you know, the destruction of most of the planet. So we have to try things different. That's the fundamental aspiration that has to be based on some kind of respect for individual rights and everything else. That's the idea, and that's what everyone signed up for. The problem is, you know, it hasn't worked out well, especially in recent decades, and the question is, can. Is it worth trying to revive it now?

[A]

Yeah, you make a good point. And using the word culture was, I think, accurate. It's sort of like saying, well, is a nation just the collective goodness or badness of its people? Well, no, that's why you have a culture, maybe some rules and aspirations, and you could direct people to be better than their, you know, primal animal instincts instincts, let's say. So about Burma, I can think of. I know a millionth of what you know about it, but I find it as tragic a place as can be on this earth right now. It's one of the, as far as I could tell, one of the worst places to be randomly born. And this didn't seem like it would be the case. And just in terms of culture or possibility, if you had gone back to the Post World War II period, you could make a case that, you know, Burma should have been one of these Asian tigers and should have been delivering its people peace and prosperity. I'm not going to ask you this giant question like what went wrong? But I'll say that looking at the recent developments in Burma, which I know you've written about, was too much hope pegged on one or two charismatic figures.

[B]

In recent times or in general.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking of Ang Sanctuary SUU Kyi.

[B]

And so, yeah, sure. I mean, I think it's always wrong to kind of, you know, depend on one person or, or a few people. I mean, the, the problems of the country have been so deeply rooted. I mean, some of it is the colonial legacy, but a lot of it is what happened in the 50s, 60s, 70s after independence as well. It was the military regime that took over. It's the persistence of the civil war in the country. It's been, you know, many decades of different kinds of foreign intervention from different directions, including from, from China. So all of these things. And the country's been unlucky as well. I mean, there were different times when it could have moved in a different direction with just a little bit of luck. And, and it didn't. When I was there from 2011 to 2021, it had opened up, sanctions were lifted. It was, was at least had. Was moving in the direction of civilian government, was facing lots of problems, but the economy was one of the fastest growing in the world. And then all of a sudden everything breaks down with the military coup and resurgence of this civil war. So, I mean, it's, it's not in a bad neighborhood. It's actually, you know, in an area where you're surrounded by countries where the economies are growing super fast. And so it could have turned around, but. But it hasn't, sadly, so far.

[A]

Did you have to essentially flee for your life then?

[B]

No, because we were, my wife and I, we were outside the country at the time. She's from Sweden, and we were in Sweden for a couple of months because of COVID We didn't want to be in a second lockdown.

[A]

We were saved by Covid.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean, it wouldn't have been a problem right when the coup happened, you know, and the political violence kind of gained momentum only a couple of months later when there's a huge crackdown on, on peaceful protests, largely peaceful protests, but we were out of the country and then we decided not to go in, but we were displaced in the sense that we didn't go. Go back. And where we had lived for 10 years, we, we. I've not gone. Gone back to ever since.

[A]

In researching the book, did you come across revelations about your family, specifically Yeah, a little bit.

[B]

I mean, because it's, you know, the archive that I looked at which I came across and then decided to write the book is not just the official stuff of his memos and, and office notes and speeches and everything else, but his whole personal archive that my family gave to the US and, and has been largely digitized over the past few years. And that includes everything from really personal letters to medical records to hotel receipts to, you know, catering record, all kinds of different things. And so, yeah, I mean, lots of photographs. So I came across a whole box of letters from, from Jackie Kennedy, for example, a box of letters from Bertrand Russell and then, you know, more importantly in terms of. Into politics at the time. I mean, lots of still secret up until very recently, I mean, secret documents related to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, Six Day War, all these things that I was able to go through. And I think I'm probably the first person to see a lot of these things since, since they were written back in the 60s.

[A]

Well, what's a big headline from either of those conflicts?

[B]

Well, Cuban Missile Crisis, where, you know, in the, in the movies and everything else, it's just a story of the Americans stand tough and the Russians back down. In none of these movies do you see a Burmese mediator shuttling between the two sides and, and finding room for compromise. Right. So I think there's a, there's a, there's a whole story. I mean, that, just that if you think about it, you can tell the story of that period as a story of when these African and Asian countries gain independence, want to remake the world, come into the UN which is Roosevelt's project, make it their own, put one of their own at the head of the un and one of the first things he does is he de escalates and prevents a war between Russia and the United States in the global North. Right. I mean, that's a whole different way of looking at the history of that time. And it's in the details of what exactly happened over those few weeks of the Cuban Missile Crisis in his role where all of that kind of comes out in the context because it wasn't just him. He was in contact with all these leaders in Africa and Asia as well.

[A]

The name of the book is Peacemaker U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World was written by his grandson Thunt Min U. Thank you so much for all your time and this book.

[B]

Thanks very much. It's great to be here. Thank you.

[A]

And that's it for today's show. Cory Warra produces the gist, Ashley Kahn's our production coordinator, Jeff Craig runs our socials and Michelle Pass runs around doing it all Oomperu gpru do Peru and thanks for listening. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads go to libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.