1996 United Nations Secretary-General selection a term beginning 1 January 1997. The 1996 selection marks the only time that a sitting Secretary-General was denied a second term. The elderly Boutros-Ghali initially intended to serve only one term, but he ran for a second term in 1996. Traditionally, the Secretary-General is entitled to run unopposed for a second term. No sitting Secretary-General had ever been denied a second term by a veto. In the 1950 selection, Trygve Lie was vetoed by the Soviet Union, but he was re-appointed by the General Assembly without a recommendation from the Security Council. In the 1976 selection, Kurt Waldheim received
1953 United Nations Secretary-General selection Nationalist China abstaining. Just before the meeting, Ambassador Lodge "dragooned" the Latin American delegates into voting for a man whom they had never heard of before. Hammarskjöld was caught by surprise when his phone rang in Stockholm shortly after midnight on 1 April 1953. Upon being told that he had been named the Secretary-General of the United Nations, he replied, "This April Fool's Day joke is in extremely bad taste." He finally believed the news after the third call. After consulting with the Swedish government, he cabled the President of the Security Council, "I do not feel I can refuse