Myrdal, Alva Reimer

▪ Swedish diplomat

born Jan. 31, 1902, Uppsala, Sweden

died Feb. 1, 1986, Ersta, near Stockholm

      Swedish diplomat, government minister, author, and advocate of nuclear disarmament. She was the corecipient with Alfonso García Robles (García Robles, Alfonso) of Mexico of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1982.

      Alva Reimer married the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal in 1924. After a career as a teacher, she served as principal director of the United Nations Department of Social Welfare during 1949–50 and became director of the UNESCO Department of Social Sciences in 1951. From 1955 to 1961 she served as ambassador of the Swedish government to India, with related duties in neighbouring Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). In 1961 Myrdal was named special disarmament adviser to the Swedish foreign minister. A year later she was elected to Parliament as a Social Democrat and was named head of the Swedish delegation to the Geneva Disarmament Conference. In 1966 she became minister with portfolio covering disarmament and church affairs, holding that post and the one in Geneva until 1973. Subsequently, she wrote and spoke frequently on behalf of disarmament; her publications include The Game of Disarmament: How the United States and Russia Run the Arms Race (1976). In addition to the Nobel Prize, Myrdal received the West German Peace Prize (1970; jointly with her husband), the Albert Einstein Peace Prize (1980), and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding (1981).

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