Carlos Romulo, a U.N. Founder, Dead in Manila at 86

MANILA —  Carlos P. Romulo, last of the 51 founding fathers of the United Nations, a World War II aide to Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur and foreign minister of the Philippines for 16 years, died here Sunday of “circulatory collapse” a week after undergoing surgery for an intestinal obstruction, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. He was a month short of his 87th birthday.

Romulo’s wife, American writer Beth Day, and other family members were at his hospital bedside when he died, a spokesman said.

Romulo was a writer, journalist and diplomat who was elected president of the U.N. General Assembly in 1949.

He became editor and publisher of a large newspaper syndicate in 1937. With war approaching between Japan and the United States in 1941, he wrote a series of articles on the political and military situation that won him the Pulitzer Prize.

When Japan invaded the Philippines a few months later, Romulo became MacArthur’s press aide. After the Philippines fell to the Japanese in 1942, he joined Manuel Quezon’s government in exile.

Romulo was named a delegate to the United Nations at its inception in 1945 and was elected General Assembly president in 1949. He was the last survivor of those who signed the founding U.N. Charter. He also served intermittently as ambassador to the United States.

Romulo became minister of education under President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and in 1968 was named foreign minister,

a position in which he served for 16 years until he retired on his 85th birthday. A fighter for human rights much of his life, he spent his last years defending a regime that critics said had suppressed the freedoms he once stood for.

To people who asked him why he continued to serve Marcos, Romulo would say: “I am not serving Marcos. I am serving my country, and I believe what Marcos is doing is good for the country.”

Romulo served all Philippine presidents, beginning with Quezon, who was the chief executive when the islands were a commonwealth.

He had one regret. “My greatest disappointment was when I was nominated by the United States to be secretary general of the U.N. in the 1950s,” Romulo said. “I had 11 votes.” But the Soviet Union vetoed his nomination.