A Little History #3 - A First Assignment for UNICEF : Tom McDermott

A First Assignment

During my years as Special Representative in the six countries of former Yugoslavia, an acquaintance once asked when I thought the war in Bosnia might end.  To which I replied something like, “Wars in the Balkans never really end. The participants just grow tired and sleep a while until someone is foolish enough to disturb their slumber.”

Balkan nations have woken, fought, grown tired and eventually slumbered on and off for centuries, and at least since the Ottoman Empire had begun to fracture in the late 18th Century. War and eventual independence of Serbia in 1804 and Greece in 1830  marked two of the many stages of that long and painful breakup of the Empire's Balkan lands. More wars followed, in what we now call the first Balkan War, the second Balkan War, WWI, WWII and, of course, the more recent wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.  

During WWII various regions of Greece were occupied by German, Italian and Bulgarian forces.  In the mountainous areas along what are now the borders of Greece with Albania, Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria, guerrilla movements grew with the support of both the West and the Soviet Union.  The political movement behind the guerrillas, however, was largely communist, and its members fought for the political future of all the Balkan nations, including Greece.    By the time WWII ended, most of these guerrilla forces had coalesced into a movement called the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS).  In theory, fighting between the newly re-established Greek government and ELAS ended in February 1945.  Peace, however, was short-lived, and soon fighting resumed in major cities of Greece and in the north along the borders with Albania and Bulgaria.  

This fighting grew into the Greek Civil War, which can be best described as the first stage of the larger Cold War - with the US and UK backing the new Greek government, and the Soviet Union backing the rebels.  Large numbers of refugees fled south from the hills in the north, many of them gathering in camps around the northwestern Greek city of Ioannina. 

Greece had joined the United Nations in October 1945 and almost immediately began filing complaints to the Security Council that their northern neighbors were supporting rebel forces.  Finally, in October 1947, the UN established its first observer mission, the UN Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB), charged with reporting military activity in the area and trying to negotiate a peace.

1948 Greek Children Waiting for UNICEF milk

UNRRA (the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) had begun assistance to Greece in the Spring of 1945, shipping food and relief supplies from its Middle East headquarters in Cairo.  In a previous article, I commented that UNRRA was a UN agency before there was a UN.  It was set up as a part of the ‘older UN’, the wartime alliance of the US, UK, Soviet Union, and China.  Soon after the war ended, multilateral support for UNRRA collapsed, due to east west tensions. Thanks to quick footwork on the parts of Ludwik Rajchman, UNICEF became the beneficiary of UNRRA's remaining funds, supplies, and offices.  

UNICEF quickly picked up where UNRRA had left off and resumed sending foodstuffs, milk powder and raw materials like leather to make children’s shoes. (UNICEF shoes? - yes, in the end UNICEF provided raw materials and local production costs for 1.8 million pairs of children's shoes in Greece and 10 other countries of Europe and the Middle East).

Greek children making shoes for themselves and for others

UNICEF’s first Representative in Greece was an Australian, Canon W. J. Edwards - so far as I know, the only cleric ever appointed as a UNICEF Representative.  In managing distribution of supplies, Edwards worked closely with the Red Cross, but his main network for distribution and monitoring of supplies relied on the Greek scouting movement.  

1948. Canon W.J. EDWARDS, chief of the UNICEF Mission to Greece, talking to refugees in the camp at Ioannina. At the left is the Chief Scout of Greece. 

The Greek government feared that supplies sent first by UNRRA and later by UNICEF were supporting the rebels.  In 1948 the Greek delegate to the Executive Board filed a complaint.  The Chairman of the Board, Ludwik Rajchman, and the Executive Director, Maurice Pate were concerned that the issue in Greece might soon grow up into the larger Cold War standoff between the US and UK on one side and the Soviet Union on the other.  They were all too aware of the way in which Cold War rivalry had killed UNRRA.  

UNICEF was operating as a short-term ‘emergency’ operation due to end by 1950.  Rajchman, however, was already pushing Board members to support its extension and expansion to other countries.  Maurice Pate was less confident of the need for extension, but he was well aware how Greek complaints could impact US support for UNICEF.  

Funding was a critical concern in UNICEF’s early days.  The agency had inherited only $550,000 from UNRRA, which clearly would not go far.  The first substantial funds came in June 1947 when Rajchman and Pate managed to convince the US Congress to allocate $15 million.  Canada then contributed $5 million.  Any further US contributions were fixed on the ratio of $57 from the US for every $43 contributed by other governments.  Even this formula seemed uncertain, as Cold War tensions rose and the US Congress grew suspicious of support for international agencies. Rajchman and Pate knew that on the one hand, they needed contributions from countries other than the US, but on the other hand, they needed to ensure that the US did not see UNICEF aid as reaching rebels supported by the Soviet Union.

 Rather than send a UNICEF staff member to review and report aid distribution, they decided to send a member of the Board itself.  They settled on the young (age 34) Australian representative on the Board and its deputy permanent representative.   The  delegate was known as an economist who had been a vocal advocate for UNICEF’s work. His government agreed to release him and so he visited Greece from 28 December 1948 to 3 January 1949.   Together with Greek officials he visited Athens, Ioannina and other refugee areas, and on his return to NY, presented a 13 page report of his findings to the Executive Board.

The delegate found no evidence that UNICEF supplies were being redirected to rebel-held areas. The fact that he had traveled everywhere in the country with senior Greek officials, made it difficult to challenge his conclusions that aid was not being diverted.

If you are interested to read his report of the mission to Greece, you can find it by clicking here. 

It would have been easy to stop there, but he went on to consider a more important issue - if there were children living in rebel-held areas, should and could UNICEF aid not also reach them?  If so, how?  He concluded reluctantly that while real needs existed for all children of the country, the settlements in rebel-held areas were only small villages in the hills with no cities from which logistics could be organized.  He also reported that the situation of refugee children remained quite serious and was likely to worsen in the coming year, while UNICEF’s funds and supplies were unlikely to come close to meeting the needs.  

Most members of the Board were pleased by the delegate’s report.  Even more pleased of course were Ludwik Rajchman and Maurice Pate, as the report had defused a thorny issue with Greece, but more importantly, averted a potentially major issue with the US and UK delegations.   

Just a few weeks after the delegate’s return from Greece, in February 1949 Maurice Pate wrote to the Australian Secretary of External Affairs asking that the government release the delegate to work full-time with UNICEF as Deputy Executive Director for Operations.

His name? Eric John Richard Heyward, better known to all as ‘Dick’ Heyward.  

1958 -Maurice Pate (left), Australian PM Robert Menzies, Mrs. Menzies, Dick Heyward

Dick Heyward was born and raised on an apple farm near the village of Koonya (current population 134) on a peninsula which stretches out from the southeast coast of Tasmania.  He told me once that he owed his education not to the local school, but to two elderly Polish sisters living on a nearby farm.  They were French-speakers and taught him the language, but more importantly, they opened his eyes to Europe and the world beyond the apple farm.  He earned his bachelor's degree in Tasmania and then traveled to England to earn a masters degree at the London School of Economics.  

His service with UNICEF continued for 32 years under three executive directors before retiring in 1981.  Even after retirement he continued to travel on missions for UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank.

Dick left a deep imprint on everyone he met and on all of us who worked with him.  He was the intellectual heart and the moral soul of UNICEF and inspired multiple generations of UNICEF staff.  We all miss him and are grateful for the wisdom he shared with us and with UNICEF.

He passed away in 2005 at age 91, leaving his wife, Elizabeth, and two sons - Andrew (then President of CBS News), Peter (lawyer in Washington, DC), and seven grandchildren.  

 

Read previous articles on UNICEF's history