A few days ago, I asked if any Nobel Peace Prize awardee had turned down the prize. A Wall Street Journal article has the answer:
The committee’s most-controversial prize was probably the 1973 selection of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his counterpart, Le Duc Tho, for their efforts to end the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese negotiator declined the award, the only recipient to do so in the prize’s 108-year history.
Delicious. Then,
Mr. Kissinger, who guided war policy in the Nixon administration, accepted, prompting musical satirist Tom Lehrer to respond: “It was at that moment that satire died. There was nothing more to say after that.”
Update: 14th October 2009 – Al Jazeera has more about this. (Saying ‘No thanks’ to Nobel)