Bunche served as a State Department adviser to the U.S. delegation at the 1945 San Francisco conference, where the UN was born, and the following year joined the organization itself, back when it was still occupying temporary headquarters at Hunter College in the Bronx. In 1949, he spent eighty-one days negotiating an Arab-Israeli armistice—an experience that won him the Nobel Peace Prize. After Hammarskjöld became secretary-general, Bunche became his most trusted deputy.
