Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the United Nations, was killed in an air crash in September 1861.
This programme portrays the events in the Congo and Hammarskjold's attempt to pacify the situation in that troubled country after its Belgian colonisers abruptly pulled out. The story is told through newsreel material, extracts from Hammarskjold's journal, interviews with his biographer Brian Urquhart and scenes from the play "Murderous Angels" which Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote about Dag Hammarskjold after having served as UN special representative in Katanga.