Trygve Halvdan Lie

Nationality

Norway

Date of Birth

1896

Date of Death

1968

Political
Preference

Labour Party

Trygve Halvdan Lie was a Norwegian politician and statesman who served as the Norwegian Foreign Minister in exile in London from 1940 to 1945. He was born in Oslo in 1896, and joined the Norwegian Labour Party in 1911. He was educated in Law at the University of Oslo.

Between 1940 and 1942, Lie was the driving force behind Norway gradual reorientation in foreign policy, which went from neutrality to post-war international cooperation based on strong transatlantic (and predominantly Western) cooperation. Between 1941 and 1943, Lie discussed with Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Eelco van Kleffens and Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak plans about the creation of regional security alliance in order to curb an eventual post-war resurgence of Germany. As a Minister of Foreign Affairs he was also involved in the Comité des Ministres des Affairès Étrangères des Gouvernements alliés, which was created in 1942.

In 1945, Lie was the head of the Norwegian delegation at the United Nations conference in San Francisco in 1945. A year later, he was elected as the first Secretary-General of the UN, leaving behind a legacy of continuous engagement in European and world politics, sending what would become the first UN peacekeeping mission to the former British Mandate of Palestine in 1948.