In a recently published memoir called “Secretary of Peace: 25 years with the Nobel Prize”, Geil Lundestad wrote the committee reached a unanimous decision to award Obama the prize.
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Not only is the Norwegian Nobel Committee under constant pressure over the Nobel Peace Prize that it’s charged with awarding, the Nobel Foundation in Sweden has often tried to meddle in its affairs, according to the new book written by the committee’s former secretary.
Lundestad reveals in the book, out Thursday, that members of Obama’s staff probed whether past honorees had ever declined to attend the ceremony to accept the award in Oslo, indicating that the president contemplated not attending.
And that makes sense. As for the Nobel Committee, its only accomplishment was to demonstrate firsthand how worthless it really is.
“The committee hoped the award would strengthen Mr Obama”, said Geir Lundestad in an interview.
Lundestad served for 25 years as the non-voting secretary of the committee.
Lundestad’s book gave a rare inside look into the inner workings of the Nobel committee, whose decision-making process has always been shrouded in secrecy.
The first black president was honoured with the prestigious award just nine months after taking office, while the USA was engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake”, he says.
“In the White House, they quickly realised that they needed to travel to Oslo”, the former Nobel committee official wrote. “In broad strokes, the answer was no”.
Obama ultimately made a lightning visit to the Scandinavian country to collect the prize. The Nobel Peace Prize was developed at the bequest of the Swedish chemist, engineer, and the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, who left much of his fortune for the establishment of the Nobel prizes.
Lundestad also criticises Thorbjorn Jagland, who was the committee chairman for six years and is now a regular member.
In a controversial move in 1994, it awarded the prize to Yasser Arafat, the decades-long leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
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“It was made very clear that they meant to watch until the end”, he said. According to the BBC, Lundestad contends that Jagland “should never have been appointed to the committee, which frequently stresses its independence”.
