AN UNSOLVED `SUICIDE'

K. L. Billingsley uncovers

memories of a man who knew too much

ON 24 November, 1959, a Thanksgiving Day, the body of a man was discovered in a New York City park. There was a bullet hole through his right temple, a pistol in his hand, and a suicide note in his wallet. His name was Povl Bang-Jensen, a former diplomat whom the then Secretary- General of the United Nations, Dag Ham- marskjold, had fired. The events surround- ing his dismissal and death caused a great stir at the time. Now, 30 years — and a Cold War — later they continue to mystify.

Povl Bang-Jensen was born in Denmark in 1909 and became the leader of the Danish Liberal Party's youth movement. He was known as a champion of liberty and a staunch opponent of Nazism.

In 1939 Bang-Jensen came to the United States to study international law; he mar- ried Helen Nolan, an American, in 1939. At the start of World War II, he joined the Danish Embassy in Washington, where he became First Secretary. After Hitler in- vaded Denmark on 9 April, 1940, the country's puppet government demanded that Denmark's ambassador to the United States, Henrik Kauffman, return home. Both he and Bang-Jensen refused, and were tried for treason.

Kauffman set up a government in exile and Bang-Jensen became his key official. One of his biggest coups was the negotia- tion of a base deal, signed on 9 April, 1941, by which American forces gained access to Greenland, effectively preventing Nazi occupation. He also kept Danish ships sailing under their own flag and, as much as possible, serving the Allied cause. Further, Bang-Jensen took it upon himself to direct the Danish resistance forces.

Bang-Jensen remained with the Danish embassy through 1949 and was in- strumental in Denmark's entry into Nato. Although he was anti-communist, he still considered himself a liberal and a strong supporter of the United Nations, then in its evangelical stage.

During the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, a number of Hungarian freedom fighters pleaded with the UN for help, but the organisation did nothing while the tanks were rolling in. The following year, Bang-Jensen became the Deputy Secretary of the UN's belated Special Committee on Hungary. Exiled Hungarians were at first not cooperative, with good reason: rela- tives could be executed in place of those the occupational government called 'traitors'. But when Bang-Jensen, with UN approval, assured the exiles that their identities would remain secret, some came to Vienna and testified. But problems quickly arose.

The UN Secretariat reversed itself by demanding the list which Bang-Jensen had sworn to keep secret.. He knew there was a strong possibility that the names would be leaked to the Soviet Union and lead to savage reprisals. Accordingly, he refused to release the information. On 4 Decem- ber, 1957, a UN official informed Bang- Jensen that, by order of the Secretary- General, he had been suspended, but no reason was given for the action. He was told to tell no one and evicted from the building by guards. Such procedures were in complete violation of UN rules. In addition, UN officials leaked to the press a slanderous report which introduced new charges and described Bang-Jensen as an 'oversensitive, highly emotional man, given to exaggeration and falsehood, who was driven out of his mind by cruel facts and overwork'. The Dane's conduct, the report charged, 'departed markedly from normal and rational standards of be- haviour'.

This was only the beginning of a cam- paign of vilification led by high officials of the UN Secretariat. Bang-Jensen found himself slandered as 'disordered', 'a McCarthyite', an 'alcoholic', a 'psycho- pathic troublemaker', and a homosexual. Rumours were circulated that he had left his government, 'under a cloud'. American Nobel-Prize winner Ralphe Bunch con- tended that Bang-Jensen was 'hysterical', 'mentally ill', and prone to violence.

These wild accusations were strenuously denied by many who had known and worked with Bang-Jensen for years. These included Danish physicist Niels Bohr and a host of other eminent people in America and Europe. But in spite of this, and all Bang-Jensen's invaluable assistance during the war, the United States government sided completely with the UN Secretariat. Eleanor Roosevelt called attempts to de- fend Bang-Jensen 'wicked'.

On 24 January, 1958, Bang-Jensen burned the secret list on the roof of the UN building. At about this time someone offered Bang-Jensen $20,000 to write a book critical of the UN. He refused, still thinking that he would be vindicated through official channels. But during his disciplinary trials before UN bodies he was not permitted to use documents essential for his defence.

On 3 July, 1958, Hammarskjold sacked Bang-Jensen, who got the news in a 19-page letter. Four days later, Hammars- kjold made the letter public even though its many falsehoods and unsupported allegations were damaging to Bang- Jensen's reputation. Five days after the sacking the United Nations held a celebra- tion of its 1948 human-rights' declaration.

On 29 July, Bang-Jensen returned a UN severance cheque for $17,416.65, still hold- ing to the belief that he had acted properly and would eventually be cleared. He even- tually found work with a relief agency at a fraction of his former salary. But through it all Bang-Jensen maintained his reputation among Eastern Bloc dissidents as someone who could be trusted.

Potential defectors gave him evidence that the Soviets completely controlled key UN agencies and also provided informa- tion that Soviet operatives were active in both the CIA and State Department. Since they were unwilling to approach either agency, they wanted Bang-Jensen to take their case directly to the President of the United States. He tried, but the highest he got was to Allan Dulles, and nothing came of it.

On Monday, 21 November, 1959, a neighbour gave Bang-Jensen a ride to the ' bus stop and this was the last time he was seen alive. When he was found dead three days later, many were troubled about the position of the body, which looked as though it had been set carefully in place. It was also neatly dressed and the face cleanly shaved. There were disturbing questions about the time of death and many other details.

The suicide note, for example, was in Bang-Jensen's handwriting and contained a phrase about 'the forces I am dealing with', which his wife testified he had first heard. from a potential defector, who may well have been a fraud. The police were puzzled by the '6A' which had been in- scribed in one corner of the note. It was later revealed that the Hungarian exiles had testified at 6A Wallnerstrasse in Vien-

na. Moreover, Bang-Jensen had written to his wife that 'under no circumstances' would he ever commit suicide. Such an act, he wrote, would be 'completely contrary to my whole nature and to my religious convictions', adding that if any note was found to the opposite effect in his own handwriting, it would be 'a fake'. His psychiatrist, Frederick Freidenborg, con- tended that Bang-Jensen was entirely nor- mal and positively anti-suicidal.

Many believe that he was a victim of a simulated suicide perpetrated by the KGB. One such case was that of the defector Walter Krivitsky, the former head of Soviet military intelligence in Europe. He was found dead in a Washington hotel, with a suicide note in his pocket. But it was widely believed that he had been mur- dered.

Without the UN's smear campaign to distort judgment, this explanation seems the most plausible in the Bang-Jensen case. Motive, means, and opportunity all point to the Soviet Union. Perhaps the case could be re-opened by the United States, the UN and, in the interests of glasnost, the Soviet Union.

And what about Denmark? After sever- al inquiries, I have yet to receive a re- sponse from the Danish government as to its official position on Bang-Jensen and his death. They too would rather forget about Povl Bang-Jensen.