'Halvard Manthey Lange' (
1902 -
1970) was a
Norwegian diplomat, politician and statesman.
He became a member of the
Norwegian Labour Party in
1927. Two years later, in 1929, he earned a Master of Arts degree. He worked as a teacher 1930-35 and lectured at the
University of Oslo 1935-38.
He was arrested by the
Nazi German occupying forces in 1942 and spent the rest of the war in various concentration camps.
He was the
Norwegian foreign minister from
1946 till
1965, except for a month in
1963 during the administration of
John Lyng.
Just before taking the job of foreign minister, he became a member of the Norwegian
Nobel Committee in 1945; although he went on leave in 1946, when he took up the foreign minister's job, he remained officially on the committee until 1948. He was viewed as "right-wing" politician in the Norwegian Labour Party, partially because of his strong support for Western alignment.
Mr. Lange was, together with
Lester B. Pearson and
Gaetano Martino, one of the "three wise men" on the "Committee of Three" advising
NATO on ways to strengthen its non-military cooperation. A result of this work was the formation of the NATO Science Programme in 1957
[1].
His father was Nobel Peace Prize winner
Christian Lous Lange. His brother
Carl Viggo also became a member of Parliament.
External links
★
Nobel committee bio