Niels Haagerup
 Niels Haagerup      (politician, editor) | |
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| Born | Niels Jørgen Haagerup 21 October 1925 |
| Died | 29 June 1986 (Age 60) |
| Nationality | Danish |
| Alma mater | Aarhus Cathedral School, University of Aarhus, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy |
| Spouse | Kirsten Minni Binzer |
| Member of | International Institute for Strategic Studies |
| Interests | NATO |
Journalist and close collaborator of Erik Seidenfaden, NATO press secretary, Daily leader of the Danish Foreign Policy Institute. Strong champion of "the need to limit national sovereignty in favor of supranational schemes that can ensure international freedom and stability". | |
Niels Jørgen Haagerup was a Danish journalist and and close collaborator of Erik Seidenfaden. He also worked as NATO press secretary, Daily leader of the Danish Foreign Policy Institute, and Member of the European Parliament.
Background
As a high school student at the Aarhus Cathedral School during the German occupation he went into the illegal magazine business, and after graduating in 1944 he became a student journalist at the left-wing magazine Aarhus Amtstidende but had to go underground, and was for a time a student at Askov Folk High School.
Career
After the end of WW2 in 1945, Niels Haagerup returned to Aarhus Amtstidende where he was employed until 1958, as in 1948-52 he also studied law and history at the University of Aarhus, who in 1953 employed him part-time as a research assistant. He had then during a stay in USA 1952-53 taken the Master of Arts degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts.
During the occupation, he stated he had derived "a fundamental experience of the need to limit national sovereignty in favor of supranational schemes that can ensure international freedom and stability", something [1]
In 1956 he published The Security of the United Nations and Denmark as a result of research work by Professor Max Sørensen. The security policy problems - which he for Denmark believed could only be solved in NATO - occupied him more and more. Conveniently his beliefs and his career matched, and in 1958 he became a press officer at NATO's northern command with an office in Copenhagen.
In 1963 he returned to newspaper business, first as a commentator at Information in close collaboration with the foreign policy editor-in-chief Erik Seidenfaden, then from 1965 as Berlingske Tidende's Paris correspondent. In 1968 he joined the Berlingske editorial office in Copenhagen as a lead writer specializing in foreign and security policy.
From the outset, Berlingske was declared a supporter of Danish affiliation with the European Community and was elected in 1979 to the European Parliament for the liberals, after which his permanent affiliation with Berlingske Tidende ended.
In Parliament he specialized in political cooperation, in 1981 became First Vice-Chairman of the Political Affairs Committee and the Delegation for relations with the United States[2]. Haagerup did not stand for re-election in 1984.
He was both author and co-author of a number of publications on security policy and was an internationally known name in the field. In 1961 he founded the Danish Security Policy Study Group, in 1963 he became a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, from 1975 as Danish member of the board.
He was a regular lecturer at the Royal College of Defense Studies in London and the NATO Defense College in Rome. In 1968-75 he edited the foreign policy magazine Fremtiden. He was a widely used speaker and argued both orally and in writing energetically for his views. From 1977 he was secretary of and daily leader of the Danish Foreign Policy Institute in Copenhagen and from December 1, 1984 also director of the Danish Foreign Policy Society.
Event Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilderberg/1973 | 11 May 1973 | 13 May 1973 | Sweden Saltsjöbaden | The meeting at which the 1973 oil crisis appears to have been planned. |
