[7] He attended Colegio San Agustín, learned French from a governess and earned a law degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in 1943.

Pérez de Cuéllar joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1940 first as an intern, the diplomatic service itself in 1944, serving after that as a 3rd Secretary at Peru's embassy in France,[8] where he met and married his first wife, Yvette Roberts-Darricau (1922–2013), in 1947.

[8] In December 1981, Pérez de Cuéllar was selected to succeed Kurt Waldheim as Secretary-General of the United Nations;[14] he was unanimously re-elected for a second term in October 1986.

[15] During his two terms as secretary-general, he led mediations between the United Kingdom and Argentina in the aftermath of the Falklands War[12] and promoted the efforts of the Contadora group to bring peace and stability to Central America.

[21] During the build-up to the Gulf War, he convinced US president George H. W. Bush to send his secretary of state James Baker to negotiate with Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz in Geneva.

[citation needed] A suitable candidate, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, was agreed upon in November 1991,[23] and Pérez de Cuéllar's second term as secretary-general concluded, as scheduled, on 31 December 1991.