Episode description

Sometime around midnight of September 17 1961, a plane approached an airstrip near Ndola in what was then northern Rhodesia.

The plane was a DC6, and on board the second ever secretary general of the United Nations, an aristocratic Swede called Dag Hammarskjold. He was on his way to try and mediate a war in the Congo, but the plane crashed and Hammarskjold was killed.

Was it an accident? The debate continues to this day.

Joining Matthew Parris to discuss the life and death of Hammarskjold are the journalist Georgina Godwin and the academic Susan Williams, author of Who Killed Hammarskjold? A dramatic and detailed discussion focuses on the events surrounding his death.

Producer: Miles Warde

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2016.