Pilgrimage for Peace

Javier Perez de Cuellar served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1982-1991. During this period, many dramatic developments drew the UN into its new role: the Falkland Islands War; the beginning of the wars in the former Yugoslavia; the Persian Gulf War; the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Afghanistan; the rebirth of Cambodia; and the freeing of the Western hostages in Lebanon. During his two terms, Perez de Cuellar worked side by side with the most powerful world leaders of the time including Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Francois Mitterrand, Saddam Hussein, and F.W. de Klerk. In Pilgrimage for Peace, he shares his impressions of these people, of the roles they played, and of their abilities to lead. The "pilgrimage road" is revealed to be a road scarred by battles, famine and inhumanity and, yet, a road made safer by an increasing common interest in global security, by the end of the Cold War, and by the strengthening of freedom and respect for human rights.