19 September 1961: UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold dies in plane crash
When the plane carrying the United Nations secretary-general crashed in Zambia the world mourned the loss of a charismatic statesman. Within days, suspicions of foul play began to surface. Read how the Guardian reported the events
19 September 1961
The day after the disaster, the Guardian reported on the confusion surrounding the crash, which occurred while Hammarskjold was on his way to peace talks over Katanga. The mineral-rich breakaway state had split the previous year from newly independent Congo - a move opposed by the UN but backed by Belgian business interests and troops.
In the same issue, the paper ran an editorial that captured the worldwide sense of loss, noting: "The void left by Dag Hammarskjold's death is a measure of what he had managed to do in the eight years since his appointment ... he was the servant of a world unborn - a world in which collective action should stand in the path of war and which he did all he could, by his own modest yet firm and dedicated effort, to bring into being."
21 September 1961
Within the week, a piece in the Ghanaian Times alleged British complicity in the crash.
30 September 1961
By the end of September, the Swedish press had begun to question the official version of Hammerskjold's death.
17 January 1962
When a Rhodesian inquiry opened in January 1962, eyewitness accounts did little to resolve confusion over the cause of the crash.
19 May 1980
In 1969, a former Swedish air force crash investigator again questioned the accepted version of events. Then, in 1980, a Swedish TV documentary claimed to have solved the mystery.
11 September 1992
In the early 1990s, the mercenary theory was lent credibility with a letter to the Guardian from two diplomatic heavyweights. Conor Cruise O'Brien and George Ivan Smith had been UN representatives in 1961 in Katanga.
25 September 1992
Conor Cruise O'Brien (who edited the Observer from 1979-81) followed up with a forensic dissection of the case.
5 March 1993
Less than a year later, a Swedish government report reached an altogether more prosaic conclusion.
20 August 1998
37 years after the crash, as time caught up with key players and eyewitnesses, the Hammarskjold case was more likely to feature in the obituaries than on the news pages. Then, in 1998, the Guardian reported on disputed new evidence from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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