ALVA MYRDAL, NOBEL WINNER, DISARMAMENT ADVOCATE

Author: By William P. Coughlin, Globe Staff

Date: Monday, February 3, 1986
Page: 45
Section: OBITUARY

In recognition of her long effort to bring about disarmament, Mrs. Myrdal was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Mexican diplomat Alfonso Garcia Robles in 1982.

The wife for 62 years of Gunnar Myrdal, who shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1974, Mrs. Myrdal was bedridden for the last two years. The cause of death was not disclosed. However, when she was hospitalized in January 1984, it was reported she had a history of heart trouble.

In an impassioned address in Oslo on Dec. 12, 1982 -- two months after winning the Nobel Prize -- Mrs. Myrdal attacked both the United States and the Soviet Union by name for "creating a cult of violence" threatening global war and breeding urban crime.

"There is no doubt that what the superpowers are planning . . . is precisely the preparation for waging war," she said. . . "The age in which we live can be described as one of barbarism."

Called "The Grand Old Lady of Swedish politics," she resigned her last of many government positions as disarmament minister in 1973, but never abandoned her writing, lectures and public pleas for disarmament until illness restricted her activity.

At Geneva, negotiators thought of her as the "conscience of the
disarmament movement," and on her resignation, tributes came from all sides. Among them, Joseph Martin Jr., the United States negotiator, told the General Assembly's Political Committee: "I bear many scars testifying to her effectiveness." The Soviet member, Aleksei A. Roshchin, recalled many differences with her, and said her contributions were "appreciated."

Jerome B. Wiesner, president emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a telephone interview yesterday that Mrs. Myrdal was "one of the great persons of our period. Though mostly known for her actions against nuclear war and her pro-human rights activities, she was very important in the social development of Sweden, a model, I would say, for everybody.

"A humanist and a political person she contributed very much to the shape of modern Sweden's social programs. Her husband, Gunnar, of course, was equally committed to all these things. He also was a strong person, and they made a fantastically powerful team." Wiesner said.

Mrs. Myrdal's daughter, Sissela Bok, could not be reached for comment as she and her husband, Harvard president Derek Bok, were believed en route to Stockholm.

Mrs. Myrdal held numerous honors, including four peace awards, among them the first Albert Einstein Peace Prize. She also held nine honorary doctorates, five of them at universities in the United States.

"I have never, never allowed myself to give up," she said after receiving the Einstein Prize in 1980, at a time when she had cause for frustration at the absence of progress towards disarmament.

She never lost her conviction and enthusiasm that attracted international attention from the moment in 1961 when she made a plea for the implementation of a nuclear test ban treaty in her first speech as Sweden's delegate to the United Nations disarmament conference in Geneva.

Born Alva Reimer in Uppsala, Sweden, on January 31, 1902, she was raised in a middle-class and socially conscious home in Eskilstuna in south-central Sweden.

Shortly after her graduation from Stockholm University in 1924 with a bachelor of arts degree, she married Gunnar Myrdal, a young economist.

Mrs. Myrdal studied in the United States and Switzerland before obtaining a master of arts degree from the University of Uppsala in 1934.

An expert on population, women's issues and child care, she published her first book, "Crisis in the Population Question," in 1934. It was co-authored by her husband.

During a 20-year teaching career, Mrs. Myrdal was an advocate of feminist causes long before they became fashionable. She was vice chairwoman of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women from 1938 to 1947, and chaired the federation's Swedish chapter for seven years.

In an interview in the Christian Science Monitor in 1975, Mrs. Myrdal summed up her life: "All my life I have been championing the underdog. I have worked for the equality of children with adults, of women with men, of the poor with the rich, of poor countries with rich countries and of lesser powers with strong nations."

Mrs. Myrdal's international career began in 1949 when she was appointed head of the UN Department of Social Affairs. In 1959, she became director of the Department of Social Studies of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The turning point in her life came in 1955, when she went to India as Sweden's ambassador. During her four years in New Delhi, Mrs. Myrdal developed a close friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru, then India's prime minister and grandfather of current Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

That turned her from sociology to the cause of world peace. When Mrs. Myrdal returned home, she became a member of Parliament for the ruling Social Democratic Party in 1962 and head of the Swedish delegation to the UN
disarmament conference in Geneva.

Appointed minister in charge of disarmament in 1966, Mrs. Myrdal became Sweden's third woman Cabinet minister. She resigned in 1973, her hopes of achieving world disarmament unfulfilled, but never contemplating surrender in the face of continuing setbacks.

Funeral arrangments were not announced.

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