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United Nations Beginnings |
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The United Nations
is an association of nations. At present, the UN has 193
member "States". It was chartered in 1945 in
San Francisco, Ca. The headquarters of the UN is
in New York City, built on land donated by the
Rockefellers. It is the successor organization to
the failed League of Nations which was created by the
1919 Treaty of Versailles.
From the beginning
of this country's history, there have been two factions
- Internationalists and Nationalists. The Nationalists
were our Founders. The Internationalists were the Tories
- enemies of independence. Cordell Hull, Secretary of
State from 1933-1944, was one such Internationalist. For
his entire career in public life, he worked to subvert
the sovereignty and independence of the United States.
From the 1913 Federal Reserve Act1, the
lowering of tariffs on imports and replacement revenue
in the form of income taxes on the American people to
the Dumbarton Oaks conferences where he led the effort
to write the
draft charter for the United Nations2, Cordell Hull
betrayed his country and fellow Americans.
In 1945 Cordell
Hull
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace as "The
Father of the United Nations"3.
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Dumbarton Oaks
History4
"In the late summer and early fall of 1944, at the
height of the Second World War, a series of
important diplomatic meetings took place at
Dumbarton Oaks. Their outcome was the United Nations
charter that was adopted in San Francisco in 1945.
At these meetings, officially known as the
Washington Conversations on International
Organization, Dumbarton Oaks, delegations from
China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the
United States deliberated over proposals for the
establishment of an organization to maintain peace
and security in the world. Among the representatives
were Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Andrei
Gromyko (1909–1989); US Secretary of State Cordell
Hull (1871–1955); Wellington Koo (1887–1985),
Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom; and Edward
Wood (the Earl of Halifax) (1872–1959), British
Ambassador to the United States, each of whom
chaired his respective delegation."
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In
February of 1945, a conference of the allies was held in Yalta. It
was officially called the Crimea Conference but the agreement produced
is called the Yalta Agreement.
It was at
this conference that the three world powers officially agreed to create
the United Nations Association.
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Winston Churchill ~ Franklin
Delano Roosevelt ~ Joseph Stalin
Source:
Wikipedia: Yalta Summit
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Yalta Agreement5
PROTOCOL OF PROCEEDINGS OF
CRIMEA CONFERENCE
The Crimea Conference of the heads of the Governments of
the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which took
place from Feb. 4 to 11, came to the following
conclusions:
I. WORLD ORGANIZATION
It was decided:
1. That a United Nations conference on the proposed
world organization should be summoned for Wednesday, 25
April, 1945, and should be held in the United States of
America.
2. The nations to be invited to this conference should
be:
(a) the United Nations as
they existed on 8 Feb., 1945; and
(b) Such of the Associated Nations as have declared
war on the common enemy by 1 March, 1945. (For this
purpose, by the term "Associated Nations" was meant
the eight Associated Nations and Turkey.) When the
conference on world organization is held, the
delegates of the United Kingdom and United State of
America will support a proposal to admit to original
membership two Soviet Socialist Republics, i.e., the
Ukraine and White Russia.
3. That the United States
Government, on behalf of the three powers, should
consult the Government of China and the French
Provisional Government in regard to decisions taken at
the present conference concerning the proposed world
organization.
4. That the text of the invitation to be issued to all
the nations which would take part in the United Nations
conference should be as follows:
"The Government of the
United States of America, on behalf of itself and of
the Governments of the United Kingdom, the Union of
Soviet Socialistic Republics and the Republic of
China and of the Provisional Government of the
French Republic invite the Government of -------- to
send representatives to a conference to be held on
25 April, 1945, or soon thereafter , at San
Francisco, in the United States of America, to
prepare a charter for a general international
organization for the maintenance of international
peace and security.
"The above-named Governments suggest that the
conference consider as affording a basis for such a
Charter the proposals for the establishment of a
general international organization which were made
public last October as a result of the Dumbarton
Oaks conference and which have now been supplemented
by the following provisions for Section C of Chapter
VI:
....
II. DECLARATION OF
LIBERATED EUROPE
The following declaration has
been approved:
The Premier of the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics, the Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom and the President of the United States of
America have consulted with each other in the common
interests of the people of their countries and those of
liberated Europe. They jointly declare their mutual
agreement to concert during the temporary period of
instability in liberated Europe the policies of their
three Governments in assisting the peoples liberated
from the domination of Nazi Germany and the peoples of
the former Axis satellite states of Europe to solve by
democratic means their pressing political and economic
problems.
The establishment of order in
Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must
be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated
peoples to destroy the last vestiges of nazism and
fascism and to create democratic institutions of their
own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter
- the right of all people to choose the form of
government under which they will live - the restoration
of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples
who have been forcibly deprived to them by the aggressor
nations.
To foster the conditions in
which the liberated people may exercise these rights,
the three governments will jointly assist the people in
any European liberated state or former Axis state in
Europe where, in their judgment conditions require,
- (a) to establish
conditions of internal peace;
- (b) to carry out
emergency relief measures for the relief of
distressed peoples;
- (c) to form interim
governmental authorities broadly representative
of all democratic elements in the population and
pledged to the earliest possible establishment
through free elections of Governments responsive
to the will of the people; and
- (d) to facilitate where
necessary the holding of such elections.
The three Governments will
consult the other United Nations and provisional
authorities or other Governments in Europe when matters
of direct interest to them are under consideration.
When, in the opinion of the
three Governments, conditions in any European liberated
state or former Axis satellite in Europe make such
action necessary, they will immediately consult together
on the measure necessary to discharge the joint
responsibilities set forth in this declaration.
By this declaration we reaffirm
our faith in the principles of the Atlantic Charter, our
pledge in the Declaration by the United Nations and our
determination to build in cooperation with other
peace-loving nations world order, under law, dedicated
to peace, security, freedom and general well-being of
all mankind...
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MORE -
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The international conference to create the United
Nations was held in San Francisco beginning on April 25, 1945 with an
opening speech by President Harry Truman. Excerpts from Truman's
speech:
This Conference will devote its energies
and its labors exclusively to the single problem of setting up the
essential organization to keep the peace. You are to write the
fundamental charter.
Our sole objective, at this decisive
gathering, is to create the structure. We must provide the machinery
which will make future peace not only possible but certain.
With ever-increasing brutality and
destruction, modern warfare, if unchecked, would ultimately crush
all civilization. We still have a choice between the alternatives:
The continuation of international chaos, or the establishment of a
world organization for the enforcement of peace.
As we are about to undertake our heavy
duties, we beseech Almighty God to guide us in building a permanent
monument to those who gave their lives that this moment might come.
May He lead our steps in His own righteous path of peace.6
The following is an excerpt from a history of the
conference that was posted on the State Department's History.7
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State Department History on the Founding of the UN
The San Francisco Conference, formally known as the United
Nations Conference on International Organization, opened on
April 25, 1945, with delegations from fifty countries present.
The U.S. delegation to San Francisco included Secretary of State
Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., former Secretary of State Cordell
Hull, and Senators Tom Connally (D-Texas) and Arthur Vandenberg
(R-Michigan), as well as other Congressional and public
representatives...
At San Francisco, the delegates reviewed and often rewrote the
text agreed to at Dumbarton Oaks. The delegations negotiated
a role for regional organizations under the United Nations
umbrella and outlined the powers of the office of Secretary
General, including the authority to refer conflicts to the
Security Council. Conference participants also considered a
proposal for compulsory jurisdiction for a World Court, but
Stettinius recognized such an outcome could imperil Senate
ratification. The delegates then agreed that each state should
make its own determination about World Court membership. The
conference did approve the creation of an Economic and Social
Council and a Trusteeship Council to assist in the process of
decolonization, and agreed that these councils would have
rotating geographic representation. The United Nations Charter
also gave the United Nations broader jurisdiction over issues
that were “essentially within” the domestic jurisdiction of
states, such as human rights, than the League of Nations had,
and broadened its scope on economic and technological issues.
Oral History given by J. Wesley Adams
At
the Truman Library website there is a transcript of an Oral
History given by J. Wesley Adams8.
Adams was a Technical Advisor to the U.S. Delegation
at United Nations Conference on International
Organization, 1945.
The following are excerpts from
that transcript (emphasis added):
MCKINZIE: The issue that you mentioned that as an
overriding issue at the Conference -- namely, the veto --
was originally insisted upon by the United States as a means
of making the Senate feel that the United States would not
be dragooned into any kind of international action. The
veto -- even though the Soviet used it most the first years
-- was nonetheless a necessary thing for the United States.
ADAMS: I was never personally involved in discussions
within the American Government on this particular point and
obviously it was decided at the Presidential level. But I
always assumed that the United States would itself have
insisted upon the veto, and of course agreement on the veto
was reached at the Yalta Conference. The feeling, I think,
at the San Francisco Conference was that this system was not
going to work unless the big powers agreed... So, the
veto was built on this assumption that the two powers must
agree. Three other countries also had the veto but
militarily they were very weak, had been practically
prostrated by the war (the British, and the French, and
China). What we are really talking about was the United
States and Soviet Union.
...You
had a feeling in the Department at that time that the shots
were being called by Edward Stettinius? Or was it more of a
committee operation? Did you think Stettinius was strong?
ADAMS: No. I had the feeling that Mr. Stettinius was
taking his directions from the White House, and relying
heavily on bureaucratic advice. Mr. Stettinius, of course,
came into this picture very late in the game. Cordell Hull
had been Secretary right up to about the time of the
Conference. Hull had been at Dumbarton Oaks the fall before.
I would say that below the President it was a committee
operation. Yes. Because there were very strong advisers to
the U. S. delegation, as I mentioned, the Senators and the
Congressmen, the top people in the State Department, Defense
Department, Treasury, and Mr. Stettinius. I think they
worked as a team.
MCKINZIE: When you came back
to Washington after the San Francisco Conference, did you
immediately start work then on other international
conferences?
ADAMS: Yes. The whole
inter-departmental staff then got to work on preparing the
actual U. S. participation in the United Nations itself. In
the following winter the first meeting of the General
Assembly of the United Nations met in London. Our Bureau
then became the Office of United Nations Affairs, our job
being to backstop the U. S. delegation to various U. N.
bodies and help prepare the U. S. position on various issues.
ADAMS: To change the subject,
I would mention the prominence or notoriety subsequently
achieved by members of the Office of International Security
Affairs in which I worked at that time. It was quite
remarkable. In charge of the whole U.N. office in State
was Alger Hiss, who had been the Secretary General of the
United Nations Conference and was subsequently to be a key
figure in the McCarthy era, the pumpkin papers and Whittaker
Chambers. Our immediate chief was Joseph Johnson who was
later to become head of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
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The United Nations Charter was signed on June 26,
1945.9
Original organization:
Source: The World Charter and the Road to Peace
Author: Stuart Chevalier
1946, The Ward Ritchie Press, Los Angeles
Additional Reading:
Roosevelt's Report to Congress on the Crimea Conference
Article - New York Times, March 5, 1945,
State
Department Announcement of the Proposed Voting Procedures in the
International Security Organization
Mobilizing Public Support for the United Nations by Lukas Haynes
Yale Law
School Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon Project, World War II
Documents
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______________________________
1 The Legacy of Cordell Hull,
http://www.cordellhullmuseum.com/history.html
2 University of North Carolina -
Chapel Hill and Center for Public Domain, IBIBLIO - Public Library and
Digital, Pamphlet No. 4, Pillars of Peace, Army Information School,
January 19410February 1946, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington Conversations on
International Peace and Security, October 7, 1944, Archive
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1944/441007a.html
3 Nobel Prize Organization, online information center, Cordell Hull
Biography, The Nobel Peace Prize 1945,
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1945/hull-bio.html
4 Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, The Dumbarton Oaks
Conversations,
http://www.doaks.org/about/the_dumbarton_oaks_conversations.html
5 Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Yalta Agreement, February 1945,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/yalta.asp
6 University of North Carolina -
Chapel Hill and Center for Public Domain, IBIBLIO - Public Library and
Digital, President Truman's Address to opening session of United Nations
Conference on International Organization at San Francisco, April 25,
1945,
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1945/450425a.html
7 U.S. State Department History, Office of the Historian, Bureau of
Public Affairs, The United States and the Founding of the United
Nations, originally published on the State Department website;
captured from the Internet Archive when it couldn't be found again.
http://www.thetechnocratictyranny.com/documents/state_dept_history_founding_of_UN.pdf
8 Harry S. Truman Library & Museum website, Oral History Interview with
J. Wesley Adams, December 18, 1972,
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/adamsjw.htm
9 United Nations History - Milestones,
http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/history/1941-1950.shtml
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