Shown here with US delegate Elie Abel and UNESCO Commission Director Asher Deleon at the March 1979 meeting at New Delhi. This Commission was viewed as potentially sensitive and difficult for the U.S. at the time in the context of major international political movements manifesting themselves in UNESCO and the International Telecommunication Union's radio treaty conferences. I was nominated to serve as advisor and was commissioned to write several papers on how emerging technologies were likely to alleviate "balanced information flow" problems between developed and developing countries. It was the start of my becoming a friendly technology consultant and go-between with many leading developing country figures in the international telecom arena.

The most interesting aspect of the Commission work for me, however, was the opportunity to work with Sean MacBride himself. He had received both the Nobel and Lenin Peace Prizes the previous year for his co-creating Amnesty International, the serving as Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists, and significantly shaping the entire international human rights movement. He was one of the most interesting persons I ever met - the son of Maud Gonne who was the legendary Joan of Arc of the Irish Revolution and inspiration of most of love poetry of William Butler Yeats.

Sean MacBride circa 1979

MacBride had spent most of his youth with his mother in Paris as she constantly moved between Dublin and Paris. His father was executed by the British when he was 15 for his role in the Easter Uprising. He grew up among the bohemian Paris artistic community, then returned to a free Ireland where he served as counsel to the IRA and later became Minister of External Affairs. After losing political office, he began a new life advancing the International Human Rights movement. It was truly memorable to stroll the streets of Paris with him as he described his boyhood life. Once, upon encountering a small group of students collecting money for Amnesty International, he leaned toward me, and in his typical way of understating his role, he wispered "you know Amnesty was one of my children." He subsequently died in January 1988. The Irish Amnesty International section is now located in Sean MacBride House in Dublin, and an annual peace prize is awarded in his name by the International Peace Bureau.