Editing U Thant (section)

=== Retirement ===

On 23 January 1971, Thant announced that he would "under no circumstances" be available for a third term as secretary-general. The [[1971 United Nations Secretary-General selection]] was delayed by the anticipated arrival of the People's Republic of China, and the Security Council did not begin voting until two weeks before the end of Thant's term. After every candidate was vetoed in the second round, [[Kurt Waldheim]] accidentally won in the third round when the United States, United Kingdom, and China failed to coordinate their vetoes and all abstained.<ref name="frus247">{{harvnb|FRUS 1969–1976 V|loc=[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v05/d247 Document 247]}}: Telegram From the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State, 22 December 1971, 0356Z.</ref>

Unlike his two predecessors, Thant retired after ten years on speaking terms with all the big powers. In 1961, when he was first appointed, the [[Soviet Union]] tried to insist on a ''[[triumvirate|troika]]'' formula of three secretaries-general, one representing each [[Cold War]] bloc, to maintain equality in the United Nations between the superpowers. By 1966, when Thant was reappointed, all the big powers, in a unanimous vote of the Security Council, affirmed the importance of the secretary-generalship and his good offices, a clear tribute to Thant's work.{{Sfn|Lewis|2012}}

In his farewell address to the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary-General Thant stated that he felt a "great sense of relief bordering on liberation" on relinquishing the "burdens of office".<ref name="NYTObit">{{cite news |last1=Whitman |first1=Alden |title=U Thant Is Dead of Cancer at 65 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/26/archives/u-thant-is-dead-of-cancer-at-65-ut-thant-is-dead-of-cancer-united.html |access-date=6 April 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=26 November 1974 |archive-date=7 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180407182923/https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/26/archives/u-thant-is-dead-of-cancer-at-65-ut-thant-is-dead-of-cancer-united.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Popham |first1=Peter |title=The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi |date=2011 |publisher=[[Rider Books]] |isbn=978-1-61519-064-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ladypeacocklifeo0000poph/page/224 224]|url=https://archive.org/details/ladypeacocklifeo0000poph |url-access=registration |access-date=6 April 2018 |quote=Already unwell, he told the General Assembly that he felt "a great sense of relief, bordering on liberation" at relinquishing "the burdens of office"...}}</ref> In an editorial published around 27 December 1971, praising Thant, ''[[The New York Times]]'' stated that "the wise counsel of this dedicated man of peace will still be needed after his retirement". The editorial was titled "The Liberation of U Thant".<ref>{{cite news |title=The Liberation of U Thant |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/29/archives/the-liberation-of-u-thant.html |access-date=6 April 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=29 December 1971 |archive-date=7 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180407183024/https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/29/archives/the-liberation-of-u-thant.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

After his retirement, Thant was appointed a senior fellow of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs. He spent the last years of his life writing and advocating the development of a true global community and other general themes he had tried to promote while he was secretary-general.{{Sfn|Lewis|2012}} While serving as secretary-general, Thant lived in [[Riverdale, Bronx]], on a {{convert|4.75|acre|ha|adj=on}} estate near 232nd Street, between Palisade and Douglas Avenues.<ref>Dunlap, David W. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5D81731F935A25752C1A961948260 "Bronx Residents Fighting Plans Of a Developer"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090204215614/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5D81731F935A25752C1A961948260 |date=4 February 2009 }}, ''The New York Times'', 16 November 1987. Accessed 4 May 2008. "A battle has broken out in the Bronx over the future of the peaceful acreage where U Thant lived when he headed the United Nations. A group of neighbours from Riverdale and Spuyten Duyvil has demanded that the city acquire as a public park the {{convert|4.75|acre|m2|adj=on}} parcel known as the Douglas-U Thant estate, north of 232d Street, between Palisade and Douglas Avenues."</ref>