Erskine Barton Childers (11 March 1929 – 25 August 1996) was an Irish writer,

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

correspondent and

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

senior civil servant.

Early life and family

Childers was born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

Erskine Hamilton Childers Erskine Hamilton Childers (11 December 1905 – 17 November 1974) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as the president of Ireland from June 1973 to November 1974. He is the only Irish president to have died in office. He also served ...

(Ireland's fourth President) and his first wife Ruth Ellen Dow. His grandparents

Molly Childers Mary Alden Childers (' Osgood; 14 December 1875 – 1 January 1964), known as Molly Childers, was an American-born Irish writer and nationalist. A daughter of Dr Hamilton Osgood and Margaret Cushing Osgood of Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts ...

and

Robert Erskine Childers Robert Erskine Childers (25 June 1870 – 24 November 1922), usually known as Erskine Childers (), was an English-born Irish nationalist who established himself as a writer with accounts of the Second Boer War, the novel ''The Riddle of the Sa ...

and the latter's double first cousin

Robert Barton Robert Childers Barton (14 March 1881 – 10 August 1975) was an Anglo-Irish politician, Irish nationalist and farmer who participated in the negotiations leading up to the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. His father was Charles William Bar ...

were all

Irish nationalists Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cu ...

involved heavily with the negotiation of Irish independence; which ultimately led to his grandfather's execution during the

Irish Civil War The Irish Civil War (; 28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923) was a conflict that followed the Irish War of Independence and accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State, an entity independent from the United Kingdom but within the British Emp ...

. His great-aunt was

Gretchen Osgood Warren Gretchen Osgood Warren (March 19, 1868 – September 13, 1961) was an American actress, singer, and poet. She was the wife of Fiske Warren. The daughter of Dr. Hamilton Osgood and Margaret Cushing Osgood of Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, h ...

. He grew up in a multicultural atmosphere which was to influence his whole life. From an early age, he had an obvious fascination with history and world affairs. He studied at

Newtown School, Waterford Newtown School is a multidenominational, coeducational independent school with both day and boarding pupils in Waterford, Ireland. It is run by a board of management, but owned by the Religious Society of Friends. History Newtown School wa ...

and much later on at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

, and

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. At Stanford, he was actively involved with the

National Student Association The United States National Student Association (known as the National Student Association or NSA) was a confederation of college and university student governments in the United States that was in operation from 1947 to 1978. NSA held annual nati ...

and rose to Vice-president of the organisation by 1949.

BBC and the Arab world

By 1960, Childers was in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

working for the

in both Radio and Television. His broadcasts from the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

ranged on varying topics from the

Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...

and

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

to the

Assassination of John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onas ...

in 1963. He was one of the first presenters at the start of the

TV show

The Money Programme ''The Money Programme'' is a finance and business affairs television programme on BBC Two which ran between April 1966 and November 2010. It was first broadcast on 5 April 1966 and presented by "commentators" (financial journalists) William Davi ...

in 1966. The

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

and

issues would later form the basis of his writing on the subjects. He was distinguished as one of the first mainstream writers in the West to systematically challenge the contention that

Palestinian Arab Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous ...

refugees of the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine and the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

(see

1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – fled from their homes or were expelled. Expulsions and attacks against Palestinians were carried out by the ...

) fled their homes primarily from Arab broadcast evacuation orders (see

Broadcasts Broadcasting is the distribution of audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began with ...

for

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born ...

' article about same), rather than from the use of force and terror by armed forces of the newly forming state of

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

United Nations civil servant

He specialised in UN issues, even serving as a periodic consultant including a special mission in the Congo for Secretary-General

U Thant Thant ( ; 22 January 1909 – 25 November 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (), was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian as well as Asian to hold the positio ...

. In 1967, under the leadership of

Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr. Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr. (February 11, 1904 – March 25, 1987) was an American diplomat and statesman. He was the third Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from 1954 to ...

; Childers was hired to lead a United Nations,

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

UNDP The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

programme called Development Support Communication; or DSCS. In 1968, Childers co-authored a paper with United Nations colleague Mallica Vajrathon called "Project Support Communication," later published in an important anthology about social change. In this paper he wrote, From 1975 to 1988, Childers was based in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

as Director of Information for

. By his retirement in 1989 as Senior Advisor to the UN Director General for Development and International Economic Co-operation, after 22 years of service; Childers had worked with most of the organisations of the UN system, at all levels and in all regions.In Memoriam: Erskine Childers, 1929–1996
/ref>

Ford Foundation and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

After his retirement, Childers continued to work for his ideals. He co-wrote books for the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

and the

Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, () is an autonomous, non-governmental, non-profit foundation established in 1962 in memory of Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Foundation is a based in Uppsala, Sweden, ...

on the reform of the United Nations with his colleague United Nations civil servant, Sir Brian Urquhart. The best known of these publications is ''A World in Need of Leadership''. He continued writing on United Nations matters whilst travelling constantly; lecturing on the Organisation and the many challenges confronting it, such as globalisation and democracy, conflict prevention and peace-keeping, humanitarian assistance, human rights, famine, ageing and development, health, financial arrangement of the United Nations, citizen's rights, female participation, design and perceptions, education, the North-South divide and world economy. In 1995, Childers co-wrote a paper with his international law colleague Marjolijn Snippe called "The Agenda for Peace and the Law of the Sea", for Pacem in Maribus XXIII, the Annual Conference of the International Ocean Institute, which was held in Costa Rica, December 1995. He became Secretary General of the

World Federation of United Nations Associations The World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) (French: ''Fédération Mondiale des Associations pour les Nations Unies'', FMANU) was founded in 1946 as a Federation of national associations. Its objectives are to promote the values ...

in March 1996. He served for only five months, and died on 25 August 1996 during the organisation's fiftieth anniversary congress. He is buried in

Roundwood Roundwood, historically known as Tóchar ( , meaning 'the causeway'), is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. As of the 2022 census, Roundwood had a population of 907 people. Geography Roundwood is located where the R755 road joins the ...

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606 in Ireland, 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces ...

, Ireland.

Early life and family

BBC and the Arab world

United Nations civil servant

Ford Foundation and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

Notes

Further reading