Presidents, peace deals and how to win a Nobel prize

0:00How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Coming up on The Daily, as Donald Trump basks in the praise for his Gaza peace plan, talk turns once again to the Nobel Peace Prize. So what is it and what are the chances he'll actually get it?

0:44How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

1:19Question. Does Donald Trump really want the Nobel Peace Prize? You know, I got nominated for three Nobel Peace Prizes. Can you believe me? Remember when Obama got it right at the beginning and he didn't even know why he got it? It was the biggest story of ever. Do you deserve the Nobel Prize, do you think? Everyone thinks so, but I would never say it. I think I'm going to get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things, if they gave it out fairly, which they don't. It would be a great honor, certainly, but I would never politic. I'm not doing it for that. I'm doing it because of, I really, number one, I want to save lives.

1:56Ah yeah, turns out the president really, really wants it. And with Hamas and Israel agreeing to the first stage of his peace plan, it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. Recipients over the course of its almost 125-year history have included the great and the good, along with, as you'll hear, the decidedly not so great and good. But in fact, that is somewhat appropriate for an award that was set up by Alfred Nobel. Yep, he was a chemist, a businessman, a philanthropist, but he also invented dynamite and gelignite, both of which were used as much as military explosives as for any commercial purpose.

2:34So, as President Trump clears a bit of space on his gold-plated mantelpiece, let's dig into the history of the Nobel Peace Prize.

2:45Jay Nordlinger is the author of Peace, They Say, a history of the Nobel Peace Prize, the most famous and controversial prize in the world. Jay, just explain the origins of the Nobel Peace Prize. Alfred Nobel, the testator, as we call him, he wrote a will. He was an inventor, a scientist, an industrialist, and he willed these prizes, including one for peace, which is given in Norway, and the other Nobel Prizes are given in Sweden, which was Nobel's home country. Nobel, in his will, wrote out three criteria for the Peace Prize. The first and foremost is fraternity between nations. Who has done the most or best work during the preceding year, which is interesting, for fraternity between nations?

3:32That's the main criteria. And so how does one become a recipient of the prize? Well, there's a committee of five Norwegians and they accept nominations and then they deliberate. And there are many nominations from all over the world. Most of the nominations are controversial. Most of the decisions are controversial. Rare is the prize. Rare is the decision that is universally acclaimed. And how does one become one of the judges for the Nobel Peace Prize? You're elected by the Norwegian legislature, which is called the Storting. You could put it in these terms. The Norwegian people elect their legislators in the Storting, and the Storting elects the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

4:17Therefore, the Nobel Peace Prize reflects Norwegian political culture, which in the main is social democratic. Let's talk about the history of the prize. from, I think, it began at the very beginning of the 20th century. It, in essence, provides a bit of a potted history of the 20th century and 21st century so far. It does. It's really a wonderful subject because it gives you an overview, a survey of world affairs throughout the 20th century, and now a quarter into the 21st. There were two recipients the first year, 1901, and that was controversial in itself. The testator, Alfred Nobel, had died.

4:55He never said anything about multiple recipients. And one was the founder of the Red Cross, Henri Dunant or Henri Dunant. That was very controversial, that choice. Look, the prize was supposed to be for peace, not for writing humane laws of war. You weren't supposed to pretty up war. You were supposed to abolish it. And the other winner was a man named Passy from France, a longtime peace campaigner. So this Nobel Peace Prize has been controversial right from the very first decision in 1901. Well, it strikes me then that at various points over the course of its history, the definition of peace has seemed somewhat fluid.

5:38Yeah, that's fair. That's a nice way to put it. It has been elastic. What is peace? That is a great question. And over the decades, this definition of peace, this meaning of peace or concept has become broader and broader to include, for example, environmentalists. Yes. So I suppose peace is in the eye or the mind of the beholder. There are traditional statesmen, there are human rights activists, political prisoners, and others. Let's focus then on a couple of those categories. I mean, statesmen, as you mentioned, have been decently represented in the Peace Prize. Yeah. Well, lately we've been thinking of US presidents, haven't we?

6:20And Theodore Roosevelt won the prize in 1905 for a variety of reasons, but mainly for his mediation in the Russo-Japanese War. So that was a very controversial prize because TR across the world was seen as belligerent. And here he was receiving a prize for peace. Barack Obama won in 2009. A lot of people asked why. There have been some more controversial choices for the recipient. I mean, Henry Kissinger, for example? Well, in January 1973, I believe it was, Kissinger, as the national security advisor in the White House before he became Secretary of State, negotiated a ceasefire in the Vietnam War with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc To.

7:08And they won the Nobel Peace Prize for that agreement in tandem. Le Duc-Toe refused the prize. He said he wasn't going to Oslo to pick it up. And the committee in Oslo said, well, the peace prize is yours, whether you want it or not. But yes, this inflamed world opinion. And to me, it's curious that the outrage was over the half of the prize to the U.S., the National Security Advisor, and later Secretary of State, and not the half of the prize to the North Vietnamese envoy. But Kissinger was so famous. Yeah. And when Saigon fell in 1975, of course, that ceasefire was shot to hell. Kissinger tried to return his Nobel Prize.

7:53And the committee chairwoman at the time said to him, thank you very much, Dr. Kissinger, but the Nobel Peace Prize is not returnable. We give it for work that had already been done, not for results later. What of those who didn't receive the prize? I mean, over the 124, 125-year history of the Nobel Peace Prize, there must have been some who were sitting there thinking, you know, I might be a shoe-in this year, but it didn't ultimately transpire. Well, I suppose the most famous overlooked person is Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi. probably the, you might say, the leading peace figure of the 20th century.

8:37It was never quite right for the Nobel Committee to give Gandhi the prize because of bloodletting in a given year. And when they were ready to give it to him, the man was murdered. He was assassinated. And it was thought at the time that you could not give a posthumous Nobel Prize. Later, the Peace Committee did give one to Dag Hammarskjöld, the Secretary General of the UN, who was killed in a plane crash in Congo, I believe. But the rule thereafter has been no posthumous wards. What are some of the pivotal figures in your nation's history? I mean, one name immediately springs to mind, particularly in the current climate, Martin Luther King.

9:19Yes. You know, just discussing this with some friends the other day, he did indeed receive the Nobel Peace Prize, King did in 1964. I'm not sure how many Americans know that. I guess King's career was so big that the Nobel Peace Prize is something of a footnote to it. Yes. But that was in 1964 when he was at, well, there was a lot more work to do. The Civil Rights Act didn't come in until 1965. The recipients of this award, I mean, is it just prestige? Or is there cash donation that comes along with it? Oh, no. No, well, let's get down to filthy lucre. Sure. So when you win the Nobel Prize, and if you have, congratulations, you get a certificate, sometimes called a diploma, which is very pretty, something to hang on the wall.

10:08You get a medal, a very fetching medal with a profile, I believe, of Alfred Nobel on it. And you get moolah. You get cash. And now it's up to, I think, about$1.2 million. Wow. But if you share the prize, you split it. and three is the maximum number of winners of a prize in a given year. So that leaves you with a paltry third, but it's still not bad. Have there been any examples of recipients of the prize who have leveraged the kudos that they have achieved through winning a Nobel? Yes. Each Nobel Prize recipient gets leverage, gets a tool. and Desmond Tutu of South Africa made a rather touching and charming remark.

10:55He said, you know, after I won the Nobel Peace Prize, I said and did the same things I always had, but suddenly I was looked on as a kind of oracle. People paid attention to me. So yes, to be a Nobel Peace laureate carries weight. Some years ago, the Oxford Encyclopedia assessed the Nobel Peace prize to be the most prestigious prize in the world. But what are its rivals? The other Nobel Prizes? I don't know. The Oscar? You know, it's probably the most glowing bauble there is. Well, let's turn to Donald Trump, your current president. Given the peace deal that has been struck and assuming that it holds, the previous examples we've been discussing, obviously, it doesn't always.

11:42I mean, do you think he's got a chance? I'm the one to ask, and I'm not quite prepared with an answer. What is today, Neil? It's Thursday, October 9th, is it? The prize is announced tomorrow. So maybe not this time round. Well, this time round would be the obvious one. I suppose the Nobel Committee could do it. And I'm sure they have a prize winner, a laureate ready to go. They have their press release ready. The prize is announced at 11 in the morning, usually on the second Friday of October. It's all ready to go. Everything's prepared. Could the Nobel Committee do a last-minute reversal in light of this news?

12:27Stranger things have happened. This would be awfully strange, but it'd be interesting to see what they say. Why do you think he wants it so badly? I mean, he's pretty much admitted that on camera. Well, more than pretty much. No one has ever campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize so openly, so brazenly. Usually it's said that such campaigns backfire. They're counterproductive. He's been hungering for this award just so openly. And this is my best guess. Donald Trump is a man of the 20th century. For decades, for generations, it was a big deal to be on the cover of Time magazine. That meant you had really made it.

13:06Now, Time Magazine, like other media outlets, has shriveled, and yet it's very important for Trump to be on the cover of Time. Another thing with luster is the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, that's still around in a big way, more than Time Magazine is. And that crowns you with glory, bathes you in glory. And heaven knows our president craves that. Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, essentially for turning up to the White House. I mean, doesn't Donald Trump actually have a decent argument for saying he's a more deserving recipient of the prize than than Barack Obama? I would say so. They gave it to him, I think, for two principal reasons, sort of a middle finger to George W.

13:49Bush, Obama's predecessor. Bush was not the committee's kind of president. And also, there was a theory in Oslo, a theory eye credit. At the time, Obama's first year in the White House, he was a rock star worldwide. He was sort of the Elvis of world politics. And the committee might have thought, what would bring him to our humble, frozen capital up here in the North? Yeah, but look, that there will be genuine peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict. One has a case. The committee gave it to the two leading statesmen in Israel, along with Yasser Arafat of the PLO, who received a third of that award.

14:30Would, though, the committee not look at not only Donald Trump's achievements whilst in office, but also at the negatives that surround him, the way in which he deals with people, the comments he's made about women, the seeming backtracking away from support for Ukraine, for example, would those be considerations or is it solely nosed on, you know, the Gaza peace deal if he wins this award? Ought to be the latter, Neil. In practice, probably the former comes into it. Look, when Arafat won a third of that prize, someone said, this prize is not for all around good behavior. It's for a specific work or a specific deed.

15:13It'd be odd to give a peace prize to someone who unilaterally renamed the U.S. Department of Defense the Department of War. It's an odd thing for a peace committee to do. What do you think would be the practical consequences of Donald Trump being able to very proudly display for the rest of his life the Nobel Peace Prize on his desk? I think it would make him very happy. And I think that millions around the world would curse the name of the Nobel Peace Prize for years. but maybe the committee can stand up to it. Gee, thanks very much indeed. That's your lot for this time on The Daily. We are back again tomorrow.

15:51Till then, do take care.

15:57How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.