QUESTIONS:
1. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has been in the news lately. Since the UN was founded in San Francisco in 1945, how many secretaries general has it had?
2. Three UN secretaries general have been denied re-election by permanent members of the Security Council. Can you name them?
3. Who is the only UN secretary general to have died in office?
4. Two former secretaries general sought elective office in their respective countries after their tenure at the UN was up. Can you name them?
5. Who was the last surviving signer of the UN charter?
ANSWERS:
1. Seven.
2. Trygve Lie, who resigned in 1952 after the U.S.S.R. announced plans to veto his re-election; Kurt Waldheim, denied a third term in 1981 by Red China; and Boutros-Boutros Ghali, vetoed for a second term by the U.S. in 1996.
3. Dag Hammarskjold, killed in a plane crash in September 1961.
4. Waldheim, who was president of Austria from 1986-94; and Javier Perez de Cuellar, who ran unsuccessfully for President of Peru in 1995.
5. Harold Stassen, who died in 2001 at age 93. He was a member of the U.S. delegation to San Francisco.
