von Dardel began his diplomatic career as an attaché at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1944, with postings in Brussels, London, and The Hague, among others.
His later assignments included ambassador roles in Algiers and Beirut, where he stayed during the early stages of the Lebanese Civil War, despite the dangerous conditions.
[1] He was chargé d'affaires in Budapest from 1958 to 1962, counselor at the embassy in Washington, D.C. from 1962 to 1967, attained the rank of minister in 1965, and was deputy head of the administrative department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1967 to 1972.
[4] In 1974, he was transferred to what was, at the time, the most complicated and dangerous post a Swedish ambassador could hold: Beirut, with dual accreditations in Damascus and Amman.
[6] For over a week, von Dardel couldn't access the Swedish embassy, which was located near the conflict zone,[7] so he tried to manage operations from his residence outside the combat area, even as shellfire hit his garden.
[12] In August 1976, just over a week after the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, von Dardel, accompanied by embassy secretary Per Falkenström, traveled to Lebanon to retrieve two Swedish doctors who had managed to escape the refugee camp and return to Syria.