Background
Andrew Wellington Cordier was born on March 3, 1901 in Canton, Ohio, United States. He was the son of Wellington J. Cordier and Ida Mae Anstine.
Andrew Wellington Cordier was born on March 3, 1901 in Canton, Ohio, United States. He was the son of Wellington J. Cordier and Ida Mae Anstine.
After graduating from Hartville high school as both varsity quarterback and valedictorian, Cordier enrolled at Manchester College in Indiana and received Bachelor of Arts degree (1922). He then entered the University of Chicago, where he obtained both his Master of Arts (1923) and his Doctor of Philosophy (1926) in history.
He taught history, Latin, and math at Greentown High School.
In 1927 Cordier became chairman of the department of history and political science at Manchester, a position he held until 1944.
During his academic career he served as a Republican county leader and built a reputation as a foreign affairs expert who traveled widely to investigate crises as varied as the Chaco Wars in Paraguay and the Sudetenland crisis. Although Cordier earlier participated in federal educational adult programs and the Office of Price Administration, his major government service began when he joined the U. S. State Department in 1944 as adviser on international security.
In March 1946 Cordier accepted the position of executive assistant to UN secretary-general Trygve Lie with the rank of undersecretary.
Beyond the Assembly, Cordier served Lie as special representative to Korea (1950 - 1952), and acted as Dag Hammarskjöld's envoy in the Mount Scopus affair (1958).
As the UN's representative in the Congo in 1960, Cordier's strong action in closing airports remains controversial since it appeared to place the UN on one side of the murky conflict.
In February 1962 Cordier left the UN to become dean of the School of International Affairs at Columbia University. He presided over a great expansion of SIA's faculty and students, and built an acclaimed fifteen-story building.
Cordier's interest in architectural design and interior decoration allowed him to participate in modeling the structure, even as he had contributed to the shaping of the UN Secretariat.
Late in the 1960's, student anger against the Vietnam War and a controversial gymnasium in a public park swept the Columbia campus and forced President Grayson Kirk into retirement. On August 23, 1968, the university trustees asked the sixty-seven-year-old Cordier to become acting president while they searched for a successor.
Over the next year, Cordier's diplomatic skills found a new arena as he worked twenty-hour days, proclaimed an open-door policy, isolated Columbia's radical fringe, allied himself with liberal reformers, and drew up plans for a university senate. He consulted all factions, noting that "it is almost impossible to listen to someone talk for two hours without finding something you can agree with, " negotiated compromises, and after agreements were won "his word was always good. "
The "Old Man" was cheered by all factions, the university senate declared he had "restored our faith in ourselves and the institution we cherish, " and on August 20, 1969, a grateful board of trustees made him Columbia's fifteenth president. He served only until September 1970 but continued to emphasize educational reform at Columbia while widening ties to the surrounding community.
He dominated the new senate, often acting as "his own rule maker, " but brought stability and calm after the tumult of 1968. In September 1970, he became president and trustee emeritus and returned to his deanship at the School of International Affairs. Cordier's last years were full of accomplishment.
As dean, he withstood a radical charge that SIA had ties to the CIA.
Formally retired after June 1972, he nevertheless served as Director of Development for SIA and in the 1973-1974 academic year was Regents Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. At the time of his death, the workaholic Cordier was living in Great Neck, Long Island, working on his memoirs.
Cordier was a major player in the cadre that kept the UN functioning after Hammarskjold's death, and later said that working for the secretary was his "richest personal experience. " He was instrumental in negotiating the agreement to clear the Suez Canal (1956). He offered a "Marshall Plan" of aid to Vietnam (1972). He chaired the UN Panel on a World University whose proposals were implemented by the General Assembly in December 1973. Cordier served as president of Columbia University.
He drafted preliminary versions of the United Nations Charter, served on the delegation to the San Francisco Conference (April 1945), and joined the Preparatory Commission for the United Nations in London; he also advised Senator Arthur Vandenberg on UN issues.
Cordier believed firmly that the $100 million spent to establish the world organization was the "best investment humanity has made" and as "chef de cabinet" for two secretaries-general became the model of the committed international civil servant. From 1946 to 1962 he was "the man to the left of the president, " successively advising sixteen General Assembly leaders on procedure and precedents. Characterized as a "demon parliamentarian, " Cordier also scheduled meetings, prepared the agenda, supervised UN staff, and mediated delegate disputes.
Cordier thought that a university that "stands still is moving backwards" and pledged that a reemphasis on teaching combined with "freedom from disruptive tactics" would allow Columbia to prosper.
Brian Urquhart remembered a great bear of a man, a "tough, bumbling figure who was always prepared to dive in, no matter how shallow the water. "
He married Dorothy Elizabeth Butterbough on May 23, 1926; they had two children.
