Updated: Missing You - Marco Vianello Chiodo, RIP Sad news from Mehr Khan Williams and Nathalie Vianello-Chiodo
From Nathalie Vianello-Chiodo
I am sure he would be very touched and happy to be remembered by the big Unicef family that he loved so deeply and brought him many joys. He always said that it was the most beautiful and rewarding job he ever had.
Dad passed away on the 9th of July after a brief illness. He was diagnosed mid May with a malignant and very aggressive bile duct tumor. He passed away very peacefully 7 weeks later in his beloved house in Saanen surrounded by his loved ones. He ended his beautiful and very fulfilling life very gracefully and fully alert. A gentleman till the end.
With my kindest regards,
Nathalie
Dad passed away on the 9th of July after a brief illness. He was diagnosed mid May with a malignant and very aggressive bile duct tumor. He passed away very peacefully 7 weeks later in his beloved house in Saanen surrounded by his loved ones. He ended his beautiful and very fulfilling life very gracefully and fully alert. A gentleman till the end.
With my kindest regards,
Nathalie
Note: Funeral is now confirmed for Wednesday, 19 July at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Saanen (Gstaad) Switzerland.
From Mehr Khan Williams
It is with great sadness that I learned of Marco’s death yesterday.
Marco was my boss for many years and after he retired he became my friend for many more years. When my family and I visited him in his beautiful home in Tuscany last year, he seemed to be very well and was a generous and gracious host in his, as always, elegant home.
Marco spoke his mind and said it like he saw it. Fair or unfair, this quality did not endear him to everyone, but for me he was a very good boss. Probably the best! One always knew where one stood with Marco. And when he trusted his colleagues, he would give them his unstinting support. He was always generous in his praise, and very loyal.
The same qualities underpinned his friendships. I treasure the fact that he made an effort to stay in touch with me and we became good friends. I will miss him.”
I am trying to get more information about his death from his daughter, Nathalie, who has written to Nasra Hasan and to me. For anyone who would like to write to Nathalie, her email address is:
nathalie.vianello-chiodo@
Mehr
Marco was my boss for many years and after he retired he became my friend for many more years. When my family and I visited him in his beautiful home in Tuscany last year, he seemed to be very well and was a generous and gracious host in his, as always, elegant home.
Marco spoke his mind and said it like he saw it. Fair or unfair, this quality did not endear him to everyone, but for me he was a very good boss. Probably the best! One always knew where one stood with Marco. And when he trusted his colleagues, he would give them his unstinting support. He was always generous in his praise, and very loyal.
The same qualities underpinned his friendships. I treasure the fact that he made an effort to stay in touch with me and we became good friends. I will miss him.”
I am trying to get more information about his death from his daughter, Nathalie, who has written to Nasra Hasan and to me. For anyone who would like to write to Nathalie, her email address is:
nathalie.vianello-chiodo@
Mehr
Mehr stole the words out of my mouth.
ReplyDeleteWhat a blow.
We were supposed to meet again in Tuscany in early October...
He was in very good health and in an excellent mood when Myung, my wife, and I visited him at his Tuscan house on June 25. As usual, he offered a beautiful lunch that went on for 3 hours. Four days later he came to see us in the nearby Umbrian town of Citta della Pieve where we were staying for another lunch, striking up conversations with just everybody around us at a restaurant. He was in vintage form.
Marco was my friend and boss at UNICEF and the United Nations. He was there to help and support me at every turn. Not a single critical comment in my long years of association with him. A tall giant.
Rest in peace Marco.
I have been in reasonable regular touch with Marco over the years last time a number of months ago. What Mehr wrote summed it up so well, that was Marco, over the many years we could strongly agree and strongly disagree, but we continued to be very good friends.
ReplyDeleteWarm regards Karin
ReplyDeleteRemembering Marco Vianello-Chiodo
So sorry to learn of Marco Vianello-Chiodo's passing. He was a giant - tall and towering -- and I was a midget by comparison. But we made a good pair and joked about it often. We were good friends and colleagues full of mutual admiration.
Marco was instrumental in helping Jim Grant to entice Italy to become a major donor to UNICEF, and in turn, getting UNICEF to recruit many Italian professionals. He was blunt & candid and had a great sense of humour.
I remained in touch with him off and on after both of our retirement from UNICEF and the UN.
In 2013, he shared with me the English version of his book, Under-Soldier which I read with much interest and offered him some comments, which he appreciated. Chapters 29 and 30 of the book describe his experiences at UNICEF and the UN with much candor. The book
brings out Marco’s colorful personality - warts and all - quite faithfully.
Marco tells many tales in a captivating manner. I particularly enjoyed the many anecdotes of how he cajoled many reluctant folks to do the right things.
I found several UN and UNICEF-related accounts in the book fascinating:
- How Marco offered his back as a “table” to let Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the World Summit for Children declaration; and got him to sign a "ukas" declaring children as Russia's first priority!
- How he cajoled Italian Minister Francesco Forte to honour his commitment to UNICEF despite his inclination to retract from his earlier commitment
- I loved Marco’s many limericks, the best among them was one about UN SG Butros Ghali's hubris, and the dedication of his book as a testimony to how hubris destroys the powerful
- Marco’s sense of humour shines in his hilarious description of how sometimes the UN’s Department of Public Information (where he served as ASG) acted as Brezhnev's ministry of propaganda!
- Moving from UNICEF’s informal and collegial environment to the UN HQ’s more protocol-laden environment, Marco noted how everybody at DPI addressed him as "Sir". That reminded me of how everybody at UNICEF was made to address Executive Director Ann Veneman as "Ms. Veneman" - a contrast from the Jim, Marco, Richard, Tarzie, and Carol that we were all used to.
- I regaled at Marco’s gleeful recollection of the inimitable Tarzie Vittachi quotes: "Even Smokers Welcome" and “Everything is about something else!”
- And Marco’s touching accounts of his charming wife Angelika and daughter Nathalie bring out the human dimension of his personality nicely.
May Marco’s beautiful soul rest in eternal peace!
So sad. Our giant Marco.
ReplyDeleteFrom his book
FAREWELL
When I was a child, I sometimes wondered if I would ever live to the year 2000. I would be 67, quite old, who knew if I would ever make it? And then it would, as Gozzano wrote, be the moment of "the horrid old age of false teeth and dyed hair". Instead I got there and the teeth are almost all "real" (I do not even, thanks to modern porcelain techniques, have the "golden smile" which my father would exhibit, only at my request), the hair is white but is mine, the looks are decent and more or less everything works. If I wanted to make an assessment of my life, this could perhaps suffice to make it acceptable.
To dig a bit more (Angelika will be happy), I believe that my early condition of an under-soldier may have been the key to reasonable happiness in every domain. Angelika abhors the German way of saying "man muss sich begnügen", we must be content with what we have. But indeed we must be able to be content, to know how to find the silver lining behind every cloud, not to be in a hurry, enjoy the passing moment, learn from one's mistakes, reach out to others and especially not put on airs and not think of having "power" to defend; power which is never sweet when one has it or thinks one has it, because one is afraid of losing it, and never so bitter as when it is lost.
I worked hard because my parents raised me with the sense of duty but I was not a "workaholic", as I have demonstrated by not doing anything, in utmost serenity, since my retirement. I have never yielded on principles and have never run after the powerful, and have all the same been able to have beautiful jobs, and now even have the "feather in my cap", of the grade of ambassador (even if only on an honorary basis and, as it were, with a small "a" compared to many "Important" Ambassadors). But I was not like the young diplomat to whom the blue-haired fairy gives the ball of yarn of his life, and he pulls it faster and faster, for ever more prestigious positions, until the ball is finished and nothing is left: instead I have many extraordinary memories, of moments big and small, important and not, far and near, all precious because I lived them, and then remembered them, one by one. I have naturally made many mistakes but I tried not to persevere, but to analyze them and, once recognized, to learn from them. I was often stubborn and uncompromising but not out of hubris, rather out of passion and impatience, which also are sins but (I hope) not capital ones, because they are sins of generosity, not greed. I have been able to change my mind, for example taking the diplomatic examination after shouting over the rooftops that diplomats are all idiots: forty years later, it is a profession that I would try again, because it is an intelligent and positive way to seek peace, to settle differences, to see the reasons of others. I have also been able to go and do a different job, like when I went to UNICEF to catch butterflies (as a former colleague of mine said, not very gently). If ever one day St. Peter will ask me what I did that was good, I will tell him of the seduction of Francesco Forte and the money for immunization, which has saved millions of lives and helped to improve this difficult world.
I do not know if I have "served the Lord", but I tried to do it "in laetitia", and I'm grateful to Him for having given me extraordinary parents, an extraordinary wife, a daughter who also is extraordinary (and for that I am also grateful to her mother, without whom I would not have had her), a beautiful and interesting life and the ability to appreciate its true value, and be grateful.
Now I have even written a book! Really, I cannot complain.
One of our more enjoyable exchanges with MVC was sending Limericks to each other. Herewith a couple of new ones from me:
ReplyDeleteThere was this tall Italian from Venice,
His name was Marco Vianello (dash) Chiodo, not Dennis.
He used his multiple special abilities,
To enhance UNICEF's child survival capabilities,
But he was not good at playing tennis.
The DED for external relations was MVC
Due to his height he was easy to see,
While raising money for children was his job,
He stood out among others in the same mob
Because he did it with so much glee.