Halvard Manthey Lange (16 September 1902 – 19 May 1970) was a Norwegian politician and diplomat, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1946-1963 and again from 1963-1965. He was also the longest serving Foreign Minister to date, having served a total of 19 years. He became a member of the Labour Party in 1927. Two years later, in 1929, he earned a Master of Arts degree. He worked as a teacher 1930-35 and lectured at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

1935-38. He was arrested by the

Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

occupying forces in 1942 and spent the rest of the war in various concentration camps. He was the Norwegian foreign minister from 1946 till 1965, except for a month in 1963 during the administration of John Lyng. Just before taking the job of foreign minister, he became a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in 1945; although he went on leave in 1946, when he took up the foreign minister's job, he remained officially on the committee until 1948. He was viewed as "right-wing" politician in the Norwegian Labour Party, partially because of his strong support for Western alignment. Lange was, together with

Lester B. Pearson Lester Bowles Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian politician, diplomat, statesman, and scholar who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. He also served as Leader of the Liberal Party of C ...

and Gaetano Martino, one of the "three wise men" on the "Committee of Three" advising

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

on ways to strengthen its non-military cooperation. A result of this work was the formation of the NATO Science Programme in 1957. His father was Nobel Peace Prize winner Christian Lous Lange and his great-grandfather was the historian Christian C. A. Lange. His brother Carl Viggo also became a member of Parliament.

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External links

Nobel committee bio
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lange, Halvard 1902 births 1970 deaths Ministers of foreign affairs of Norway Nazi concentration camp survivors Labour Party (Norway) politicians Academic staff of the University of Oslo Members of the Storting 1965–1969 Members of the Storting 1961–1965 Members of the Storting 1958–1961 Members of the Storting 1954–1957 Members of the Storting 1950–1953