FDR and the creation of the U.N.
Annotation In recent years the United Nations has become more active in - and more generally respected for - its peacekeeping efforts than at any other period in its fifty-year history. During the same period, the United States has been engaged in a debate about the place of the U.N. in the conduct of its foreign policy. This book, the first account of the American role in creating the United Nations, tells an engrossing story and also provides a useful historical perspective on the controversy. Prizewinning historians Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley explain how the idea of the United Nations was conceived, debated, and revised, first within the U.S. government and then by negotiation with its major allies in World War II. The experience of the war generated increasing support for the new organization throughout American society, and the U.N. Charter was finally endorsed by the community of nations in 1945. The story largely belongs to President Franklin Roosevelt, who was determined to form an organization that would break the vicious cycle of ever more destructive wars (in contrast to the failed League of Nations), and who therefore assigned collective responsibility for keeping the peace to the five leading U.N. powers - the major wartime Allies. Hoopes and Brinkley focus on Roosevelt but also present vivid portraits of others who played significant roles in bringing the U.N. into being: these include Cordell Hull, Sumner Welles, Dean Acheson, Harry Hopkins, Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Arthur Vandenberg, William Fulbright, Edward Stettinius, and Walter Lippmann. In an epilogue, the authors discuss the checkered history of the United Nations and consider its future prospects
History
304 pages ; 24 cm
9780300085532, 0300085532
44852026
The Ghost of Woodrow Wilson
A Grim Road to War
Argentina and the Atlantic Charter
Postwar Planning Begins
The Widening Public Debate
Progress in 1943
Will the Russians Participate?
Quebec and Moscow
cairo and Teheran
High Hopes But Inherent Limits
Domestic Politics in 1944
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference I
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference II
The 1944 Election
An Unsettling Winter
Contention and Compromise at San Francisco
Epilogue
Appendix: Charter of the United Nations
Originally published: 1997