Agda Viola Rössel, née Jäderström (4 November 1910 – 27 May 2001)[1] was a Swedish politician (Social Democrat) and diplomat.[2] She was appointed Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations in 1958 and was as the first of her gender to have been permanently placed in that position among the 60 UN ambassadors that year in the United Nations organisation; she served in that position till 1964. After this assignment she was Sweden's Ambassador to many countries such as Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Greece.[1]
Early life
Agda Rössel née Jäderström was born in Gällivare, Norrbotten, Sweden on 4 November 1910;[1][3]Gällivare is a small town engaged in mining to in the far north of Sweden to the north of the Arctic Circle. Her father was a railway employee. She was the fourth child in family of six children. She was keen in studies. She attended schools in Gällivare and in Malmberget.[4][5][6] Even though she wanted to train as a doctor, due to her mother's illness and financial problems her studies were disrupted for many years as she had to tend a family of seven people. After her mother recovered she continued her studies in Stockholm on the subject of social studies. She also pursued a technical course concurrently working a welfare department in large jail where she learned psychiatry.
Career
Early career
After passing out from the technical school in 1939 she chose a career related to trade unions and she worked for a Stockholm Hotel Group in their personnel department and then in a telephone company as Ombudsman. During the later part of the war years she worked as emergency response adviser in Stockholm working Board. She got married in 1943 to James Rössel, a Swedish journalist.[5] She became a member of the board of Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO's Board). With help provided by to female friends like Alva Myrdal (Swedish Social Democratic Party) and Ulla Lindström (journalist and politician) and with media publicity, in 1948, she became President of the Professional women's associations and Cooperation. With rising popularity she became she vice president of International Federation of Business and Professional Women, in place of Alva Myrdal.[6]
In 1956, she had stated: "We business and professional women, conscious of our increased responsibilities towards mankind in the light of this new [atomic] power, accept the challenge of it and make it our own".[3]
After this assignment, she served at Belgrade as Ambassador to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia (at Prague) from 1964 to 1969, Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during 1969 to 1973, and to Greece (posted in Athens) from 1973 to 1976.[2]
Rössel was also associated with a classified report she had written in 1968 which played a part in a scandal that involved Sven Wedén, known as the Wedénaffären [sv]; this report was de-classified and released to the public in 1994 by then-Prime Minister Carl Bildt.[7]
Personal life
She was married between 1943 and 1951 to James Rössel.[8] Rössel died at the age of 90, in May 2001.[9]
Bibliography
Rössel, Agda (1956). Kvinnoarbetet i Sverige (in Swedish). [Sverige: YSF]. SELIBR13588489.
^ abc"Agda Rossel". Washington Nuclear Museum and Education Center. 14 January 2014. Archived from the original on 4 September 2017. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
Jäderström, Elin (2018). Hennes excellens Agda Rössel: från banvaktstugan till FN-skrapan (in Swedish). [Stockholm]: Atlantis. ISBN9789173539661. SELIBR21774466.
Klingvall, Maj-Inger; Winai Ström, Gabriele, eds. (2010). Från Myrdal till Lindh: svenska diplomatprofiler (in Swedish). Möklinta: Gidlund. ISBN9789178448111. SELIBR11812691.
