The Developing Role of the Secretary-General

On October 31, 1956, two days after the armed forces of Israel struck across the Israeli-Egytian Armistice line deep into the Sinai peninsula, and the day following the Anglo-French ultimatum to Egypt, Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations Secretary-General, asked for the floor in the Security Council meeting. “Yesterday morning”, he said, “on the basis of the information then available— I would have used my right to call for an immediate meeting of the Security Council, had not the United States Government in the course of the night taken the initiative.