Charles de Gaulle, president of France and architect of the country's Fifth Republic, has been revealed as a surprise contender for the 1963 Nobel prize for literature.

The Swedish Academy keeps all information about nominations and selections for the literature Nobel secret until 50 years have passed. Newly opened archives in Sweden show De Gaulle was one of 80 individuals suggested for the 1963 honour, alongside more obvious candidates including Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett and WH Auden.

Also in the running were the Greek poet – and eventual winner – Giorgos Seferis, the Japanese novelist, poet and playwright Yukio Mishima, the Jewish German poet Nelly Sachs and the Danish-born novelist Aksel Sandemose, the Swedish Academy has revealed. Seferis, Auden and Neruda were the three final contenders, with Seferis the unanimous choice of the judges that year.

The archives show that the Academy's permanent secretary, Anders Österling, felt "that there now was an opportunity to pay a beautiful tribute to modern Hellas, a language area that so far had been waiting too long [to be] honored in this context", and Seferis's eventual citation praised the poet's "eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture".

Beckett had drawn concerns from judges over whether his writing "corresponds to the idealistic intentions of the Nobel prize in literature" – the award is intended to go to "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction". Österling, an article in Svenska Dagbladet reveals, felt Beckett's work was negative and nihilistic, writing that he "would almost consider a Nobel prize for him as an absurdity in his own style". He also rejected nominee Vladimir Nabokov, according to Svenska Dagbladet, citing Lolita as an "immoral" work.

The Waiting for Godot author went on to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1969, and Neruda was named laureate in 1971, but Auden and Nabokov never won the award. Neither did De Gaulle, author of a trilogy of war memoirs. But "don't laugh too hard" at the French general's nomination, advised MA Orthofer at literary blog the Complete Review: "just a decade earlier they'd ridiculously awarded the prize to … Winston Churchill", citing his "his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".