Szeming Sze (; April 5, 1908 – October 27, 1998) was a diplomat for his home country of China who helped build the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

into a specialized

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 ...

agency.

Early life

Sze was born in Tientsin (now

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

), the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. He was the eldest son of Alfred Sao-ke Sze, who became his country's Ambassador to

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

and, later, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. He was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

and

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 250 graduate students. The c ...

(1925 to 1928), and received degrees in chemistry and medicine. He interned in Britain, where he was inspired by his residency at St. Thomas Hospital in a

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 ...

slum to do public service, before returning to China in 1934.Sze Szeming Papers, 1945–2014, UA.90.F14.1
University Archives, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

Career

Early years

He was in the

when

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and he joined the Lend-Lease program for the Chinese Government. Sze attended the San Francisco Conference that gave birth to the

as an official of Chinese delegation and medical expert.

Initiator of World Health Organization

Before the San Francisco Conference on International Organization opened on April 25, 1945, the US and UK delegates had consulted each other and had agreed that no questions in the field of health would be included on the conference agenda. Szeming Sze from the Chinese delegation, de Paula Souza from the Brazilian delegation and Karl Evang from the Norwegian delegation, not knowing of the US-UK consultations, agreed that the question of establishing a new international health organization should be put on the conference agenda. Since China was one of the four sponsoring powers of the Conference, it was thought that Sze should get the Chinese delegation to initiate the proposal for a proposed amendment to the draft Charter which had been prepared at Dumbarton Oaks. Unfortunately, there was not sufficient time left for submission of an amendment. So another approach was tried in the form of a resolution for Commission II, Committee 3, of which Sir Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar of India was the Chairman, calling for an international health conference of Member States which would have as its aim the establishment of an international health organization. The draft resolution was formally submitted as a joint proposal of the Chinese and Brazilian delegations. The resolution got bogged down in the Committee. By another twist of fate, Sze one day found himself sitting next to Alger Hiss, Secretary-General of the Conference, at an official dinner. Sze asked Hiss for his advice, who suggested rewriting the resolution in the form of a declaration, which would not be considered as being under the same interdiction as a resolution. This advice turned out to be very sound, and with overwhelming support the Declaration was adopted. This was the beginning of the future

UN years

Sze became chief of specialized agencies for the Eco-nomic & Social Council of the United Nations. He was greatly disappointed when he was later offered a job at WHO that he couldn't take because of his U.N. commitments. He became U.N. medical director in 1954, taking care of the permanent staff of about 3000, including inoculating them and preparing them for missions abroad. He held the position for 20 years.

Reputation

In 1975, Henry van Zile Hyde, Chief of Health Division during the

Truman Administration Harry S. Truman's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 33rd president of the United States began on April 12, 1945, upon the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been Vice President ...

, said of Dr Sze “... ewas the member of the Chinese delegation. His father had been the Chinese Ambassador to England and the United States. And Szeming Sze was a very brilliant Chinese”. In 1998, at the 51st World Health Assembly, the Norwegian Minister of Health, Mr Dagfinn Høybråten, acknowledged Dr Szeming Sze as “one of the initiators of the WHO”. Mr Høybråten quoted Dr Sze as saying “Of course we can learn from history. We learn from the mistakes made if not from the successes. Learning the reasons why certain things happened often saves us from making the same mistakes again”.

Personal life and posterity

Sze married to Bessie Li (), a pianist in 1934 and he is survived by a daughter, Diane Wei (); a son, architect Chia-ming Sze (); two sisters, Julia Sze-Bailey, and Alice Wang; five grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren. Sze's granddaughter, Sarah Sze (born 1969) won a MacArthur "genius grant" in 2003 for her work as an installation artist. His grandson, David Sze, is a managing partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners.

Death

Sze died on October 27, 1998, at Presbyterian Senior Care, at Presbyterian Medical Center in suburban Pittsburgh at the age of 90.Dr. Szeming Sze, 90, U.N. Health Official
The New York Times, 1998-11-08.

References

External links

Memoirs

Sze, Szeming. ''The origins of the World Health Organization a personal memoir, 1945–1948''. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, Digital Research Library, 2014.

Sze, Szeming. ''Working for the United Nations : a personal memoir, 1948–1968''. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, Digital Research Library, 2014.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sze 1908 births 1998 deaths Physicians from Tianjin Diplomats of the Republic of China Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge 20th-century Chinese physicians