Obama’s Nobel Prize not "such a good idea", says former Nobel director

President Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize in 2009 made big news and created high expectations of the U.S. leader's role in world affairs. But a former Nobel official is now saying that the decision to bestow that high honour on Mr Obama was a mistake and not “such a good idea”.

The reference on the apparently flawed prize appeared in the book, “Secretary of Peace. 25 years with the Nobel Prize,” written by Geir Lundestad, who was the director of the Nobel Institute for 25 years. Lundestad stepped down in 2014, USA Today reported.

Nuclear disarmament

According to the former official, the prize committee had hoped the honour would encourage and boost Mr Obama. Speaking to The Associated Press, Lundestad said the committee “thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn't have this effect.”

“In hindsight, we could say that the argument of giving Obama a helping hand was only partially correct,” he wrote, according to VG, a Norwegian newspaper. Mr Obama was honoured with the Nobel prize by the committee just nine months after assuming office, in response to his declared goals of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

The new president himself was a little shocked when he was declared the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honoured by this prize," Obama said that time.

The ex-Nobel official said; “Even many of Obama's supporters believed that the prize was a mistake." He also noted that Mr Obama rarely mentions the prize. Lundestad also said the White House tried find out through back channels if the award could be accepted in absentia.

"His cabinet … asked whether anyone had previously refused to travel to Oslo to receive the prize," Lundestad said. "In broad strokes, the answer was no,” Lundestad noted. The White House quickly realised that they needed to travel to Oslo, he added.

The prestigious award had evoked fierce criticism in the U.S., with many arguing that Mr Obama had not been president long enough to be worthy of the Nobel Prize.

Denies remark

Meanwhile, as media interest in Lundestad's memoir ran high, the Norwegian historian called a press conference to deny the impression that he implied Mr Obama did not deserve the prize.

"Several of you have written that I believe the prize to Obama a mistake, but then you can not have read the book," Lundestad told reporters.

Besides the Obama issue, Lundestad's book also contains many controversial passages, including criticism of the committee's former chairman Thorbjørn Jagland, and the disclosure that Norway's foreign minister Jonas Gahr Store tried to prevent the committee from awarding the prize to a Chinese dissident in 2010, the Washington Post reported.

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