24 Facts About Soedjatmoko

Soedjatmoko was born into a noble father and mother in Sawahlunto, West Sumatra.

Soedjatmoko was elected as a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Indonesia in 1955, serving until 1959; he married Ratmini Gandasubrata in 1957.

However, as President Sukarno's government became more authoritarian Soedjatmoko began to criticise the government.

In 1978 Soedjatmoko received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, and in 1980 he was chosen as rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo.

Two years after returning from Japan, Soedjatmoko died of cardiac arrest while teaching in Yogyakarta.

Soedjatmoko was born on 10 January 1922 in Sawahlunto, West Sumatra, with the name Soedjatmoko Mangoendiningrat.

Soedjatmoko was the eldest son of Saleh Mangoendiningrat, a Javanese physician of noble descent from Madiun, and Isnadikin, a Javanese housewife from Ponorogo; the couple had three other children, as well as two adopted children.

Soedjatmoko later attended a Hogere Burgerschool in Surabaya, where he graduated in 1940.

Soedjatmoko then continued to medical school in Batavia.

Soedjatmoko stayed in Lake Success, New York, the temporary location of the UN, and participated in debates over international recognition of the new country.

Towards the end of his stay in New York, Soedjatmoko enrolled at Harvard's Littauer Center; as, at the time, he was still part of the UN delegation, he commuted between New York and Boston for seven months.

In 1951, Soedjatmoko moved to Washington DC to establish the political desk at the Indonesian embassy there; he became the Alternate Permanent Representative of Indonesia at the UN.

Soedjatmoko helped to establish the Pembangunan publishing house, which he directed until 1961.

Soedjatmoko joined the Indonesian Socialist Party in 1955, and was elected as a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Indonesia in the 1955 elections until the dissolution of the assembly in 1959.

Soedjatmoko served with the Indonesian delegation at the Bandung Conference in 1955.

In 1960 Soedjatmoko co-founded and headed the Democratic League, which attempted to promote democracy in the country; he opposed Sukarno's Guided Democracy policy.

Soedjatmoko served as vice-chairman of the Indonesian delegation at the UN in 1966, becoming the delegation's adviser in 1967.

Also in 1967, Soedjatmoko became adviser to foreign minister Adam Malik, as well as a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-basedthink tank; the following year he became Indonesian ambassador to the United States, a position which he held until 1971.

Soedjatmoko published another book, Southeast Asia Today and Tomorrow.

Soedjatmoko returned to Indonesia in 1971; upon his return, he became Special Adviser on Social and Cultural Affairs to the Chairman of the National Development Planning Agency.

In 1972 Soedjatmoko was selected to the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation, in which position he served 12 years; in 1972 he became a governor of the Asian Institute of Management, a position which he held for two years.

In 1978 Soedjatmoko received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, often called Asia's Nobel Prize.

Soedjatmoko received the Asia Society Award in 1985, and the Universities Field Staff International Award for Distinguished Service to the Advancement of International Understanding the following year.

Soedjatmoko died of cardiac arrest on 21 December 1989 when he was lecturing at Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta.