Aspects of Planning For Postwar
International Organization

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INTRODUCTION

The United States played a predominant role in creating the United Nations, first as a wartime alliance forged to defeat the Axis Powers and then as an international organization to perpetuate the peace anticipated from an ultimate Allied victory. Washington's efforts to extend the life and scope of the wartime United Nations underscored a major shift toward internationalism in American foreign policy after two decades of relative isolationism. The underlying nature of this new commitment was extensively discussed by the executive branch, the Congress, and the American public. The policy shift remains a subject of historical debate, moreover, in which Washington's decisive conversion to internationalism figures prominently in questions about the origins of the cold

war.

Following are previously unpublished transcripts of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. They deal chiefly with the main United Nations Organization rather than with its specialized social and economic agencies. The selected transcripts thus focus as directly as possible on the domestic and international politics of postwar planning, as seen by the committee, amidst the initiation of the country's new internationalist foreign policy. They supplement an extensive array of sources and much impressive scholarly literature already available on these critical issues by affording insight into the particular role played by Congress in formulating,

approving, and publicizing America's early United Nations policy.1

THE UNITED NATIONS AS A SYMBOL

The genuine popularity of a traditional isolationist impulse in America had its greatest symbolic expression in the Senate's rejection of American participation in the League of Nations after the First World War. In the Second World War, hopes for a new League-the United Nations-acquired a corresponding symbolic value in the struggle to overcome isolationism. Political interaction of the United States with the other great powers had indeed been circumscribed and hampered by this legacy. In practice, Washington's isolationism did not extend notably to relations with Latin America, where the United States continued forcefully to exert its influence in the interwar decades. Given America's highly protectionist tariff wall at home, the country's economic policy was ostensibly isolationist, yet American economic involvement abroad was considerable. Washington's financial policies on the reparations question, for instance, greatly affected the stability of Europe's recovery from World War I in social and political as well as economic terms. Euro

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Extensive Government documentation of the diplomatic background as well as some information on congressional consideration of United Nations legislation is provided in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, especially each year's volume (s) on the United Nations, 1940(Washington, 1958- ).

Congressional materials to supplement those printed in this section and its appendixes are cited in the footnotes; additionally, the following printed hearings deal with aspects of international organization covered in this section: Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, "Charter of United Nations for Maintenance of International Peace and Security," submitted by President of United States, July 2, 1945: hearings, 79th Cong., 1st sess., July 9-13, 1945 (revised print; Washington, 1945); House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, "Structure of United Nations and Relations of United States to United Nations"; hearings, 80th Cong., 2d sess., May 4-14, 1948 (Washington, 1948); Committee on Foreign Affairs, "To Seek Development of United Nations into World Federation"; hearings, 81st Cong., 1st sess., October 12 and 13, 1949 (Washington, 1950); Committee on Foreign Relations, "Revision of United Nations Charter, Atlantic Union, World Federation, etc."; hearings before subcommittee, 81st Cong., 2d sess., February 220, 1950 (Washington, 1950). See also Sheldon Z. Kaplan, 80th Congress and United Nations (U.S. Department of State, International Organization and Conference Series, III: United Nations, 17; Publication 3209; Washington, 1948).

pean political affairs a more direct, portentous involvement by the United States developed again only as Europe's war clouds darkened and finally burst in September 1939.

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The United States gradually abandoned its official neutrality and began materially to aid the anti-Axis countries, even as America was having its own showdown with Japan over east Asian and Pacific questions. Washington's isolationism paled and finally collapsed in December 1941, when Tokyo attacked Pearl Harbor, Japan's ally, Germany, precipitously declared war against the United States, and America responded in kind-alining its own belligerency with a coalition of "united nations," which Washington promptly managed to establish formally. Going to war entailed a fully active political role in world affairs again, but a deep commitment to this new internationalism required a lasting one as well. Only when Washington undertook to make the United Nations permanent did America first signal the true depth of its conversion to an internationalist foreign policy.

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EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT GOALS

In the "Declaration by United Nations" signed in Washington, D.C., on the first day of 1942 by Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China, and on the following day by 22 other nations (subse

'Principal preparatory stages in this process of growing international involvement included amending the Neutrality Act in November 1939 to permit cash weapons sales, the exchange of American destroyers for the use of British bases in Newfoundland in September 1940, enactment of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941, and promulgation of the Atlantic Charter of August 1941 (for which see appendix I, p. 269). Additional preparations looked to increased defense expenditures, congressional reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine by the House and Senate in June 1940 (H.J. Res. 556 and S.J. Res. 271, 76th Cong., 1st sess.), and the exchange of pledges of cooperation with other nations of the Western Hemisphere in political, economic, and defense matters at the Havana Conference in June 1940.

The name "United Nations" was first given the alliance by President Roosevelt as the Declaration was being prepared for signature. At the founding conference of the permanent United Nations at San Francisco in 1945, the delegates debated other names, but finally chose "United Nations" in honor of the memory of Mr. Roosevelt.

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quently joined by 21 more governments) the signers joined in coalition effectively for two purposes: (1) To defeat the Tripartite forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan and (2) to remedy certain evident faults of the international system in line with the principles of the AngloAmerican Atlantic Charter of August 14, 1941.5 The immediate purpose of waging war against aggressors was tempered, through reference to the Atlantic Charter, by more positive hopes for an eventually peaceful world of responsible governments within a liberal world economic order to be based on open access to raw materials and markets. Both goals fit contemporary American perception of the war's cause and of its optimal resolution, and they amply reflect the ambiguity of those perceptions as well. The two goals succinctly merged Washington's political and economic aims in a questionable ranking, which has ever since been subject to debate over the relative degree of long term economic self-interest in America's decision to enter the war, its prosecution of the struggle, and its plans for the peace to follow.

In the 1930's Washington had keenly felt shock waves from the breakdown of the international system. Overtaken by events in Asia, Europe, and Africa, the country's isolationist policy limited the range of possible American reactions, while responsible officials had good reason to fear the long range political and economic ramifications, if German and Japanese-led empires were to gain hegemony over most of Europe, North Africa, East Asia, and possibly even areas of Latin America as well. The United States therefore increasingly allied itself with the victims and enemies of Axis expansion to

In deference to American policy and interests in China, that country was accorded ostensible coequal status with the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union despite Prime Minister Churchill's protest. In practice, the role of the weakened, war-ridden China in the alliance was that of junior partner to the United States. For the text of the Declaration, see appendix I, p. 270.

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5 For the text of the Atlantic Charter, see appendix I, p. 269.

"Consequences to the United States of a Possible German Victory," cited in U.S. Department of State, "Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939-1945" (Publication 3580; Washington, 1950), pp. 28-29.

meet the threat to its allies' very survival and to its own interests in perpetuating the kind of open, stable world order in which its own vast territories, its Latin American and Pacific interests, its immense agricultural and industrial trade with the world, and its international financial role had developed and prospered. Traditional American foreign policy had favored such an "Open Door" as the best guaranty of Washington's own right of access to trading and investment opportunities abroad. Axis autarky would ultimately restrict the United States in its ability to function according to familiar patterns and to compete optimally for political leverage and economic favors in large parts of the world.

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Consequently, early American war aims, which were also accepted by the other United Nations through their endorsement of the Atlantic Charter, called for all states to attain "access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world" and ultimately to establish "a wider and permanent system of general security.' The goal was to prevent another power's disruptive quest for world or regional hegemony. Washington had already stated its economic war aims to Great Britain, in July 1941, as a condition for granting London additional American war aid. These war aims constituted article VII of the master lend-lease agreement with Great Britain, which was finally signed in somewhat amended form in February 1942. Other lend-lease recipients of American wartime material support had subsequently to sign similar pledges for establishing an open world economic system following the war.

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'Paragraphs 4 and 8 of the Atlantic Charter; for full text, see appendix I, p. 269. * Congress had passed the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. The administration attached great importance to article VII. The text of article VII appears in appendix I, p. 271; the full agreement is printed as U.S. Department of State, "Principles Applying to Mutual Aid in the Prosecution of the War Against Aggression: Preliminary Agreement Between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. February 23, 1942." (Publication 1790: Washington, 1942) and may be conveniently found in U.S. Department of State, "Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America. 1776-1949." Charles I. Bevans, editor, vol. 12 (Publication 8761; Washington, 1974), pp. 603–06.