"...to practice the arts of peace": Nobel Peace Prize
"I am but one of many cogs in the United Nations, the greatest peace organization ever dedicated to the salvation of mankind’s future on earth. It is, indeed, itself an honor to be enabled to practice the arts of peace under the aegis of the United Nations."
-- Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, December 10, 1950
Ralph Bunche was in the United Nations Delegates dining room on September 22, 1950, when his secretary delivered the cable informing him that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to secure peace in the Middle East. (Other candidates that year were Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India; Winston Churchill, former prime minister of Great Britain; George Marshall, U.S. secretary of defense; and Harry Truman, U.S. president.) His first impulse was to give the award back, reasoning "peace-making at the U.N. was not done for prizes." However, Secretary-General Trygve Lie persuaded him to accept the award on behalf of the entire organization.
Bunche concluded his acceptance speech with the inspiring words chosen as the title for this exhibit, "May there be freedom, equality and brotherhood among all men. May there be morality in the relations among nations. May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us." Handwritten script for acceptance speech
The following day Bunche delivered his Nobel lecture, entitled "Some Reflections on Peace in our Time." His speech praised the essential role of the U.N. -- "the greatest peace effort in human history" -- in securing international peace, paid tribute to Count Folke Bernadotte -- "a warrior of unflinching courage in the cause of peace, and a truly noble man" -- for his efforts as mediator, and concluded, "There will be no security in our world, no release from agonizing tension, no genuine progress, no enduring peace, until, in Shelley’s fine words, ‘reason’s voice, loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked the nations’."
Loyalty Board Investigation
However, the early 1950s was the era of McCarthyism and Communist witch hunts, and not even a Nobel Peace Prize winner was immune. Allegations of Communist infiltration of the U.N. began to appear in 1950, and President Truman signed an executive order in January 1953 required that all Americans working for international organizations be investigated regarding their loyalty to the United States. On March 10, 1953, Bunche was required by the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to answer questions about Communist Party membership and his relationship with a suspected Communist on the U.N. staff. An investigation by the International Employees Loyalty Board officially began on January 11, 1954.
In his response Bunche rebutted in exhaustive detail each of the "fourteen specific allegations" the loyalty board presented that he had "endorsed the Communist Party, espoused its cause, or supported its ends." Many of the allegations stemmed from Bunche’s involvement with the creation of the National Negro Congress in the 1930s, even though he had dissociated himself publicly from it in 1940, citing the increasing influence of Communists within the organization. The spurious basis of the charges, the board’s lack of firm evidence, and the difficulty of Bunche’s defense was reflected in his statement, "To offset my clear record, therefore, the sinister device of ‘concealed’ Communist is applied in order that it may be contended that my clear record of words & deeds to the contrary would still not suffice to disprove the charge."
A letter to the U.N. Secretary-General delivered the official findings of the Loyalty Board, stating that there was no evidence to doubt Bunche's loyalty to the United States. The U.N. Bureau of Personnel then sent Bunche notification of the letter’s receipt and its contents.
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