measure upon the subjects of negotiation at the San Francisco Conference.

A number of steps toward calling that conference were taken by Secretary Stettinius while attending the Mexico City Conference and during the same period by the Department of State in Washington. These steps set in motion the activities with which the extraordinary preparation concluded.

843388-49-27

CHAPTER XXI

End of Preparation

For General International Organization

I'

NVITATIONS TO the United Nations Conference to be held on April 25, 1945, at San Francisco, California, "to prepare a charter for a general international organization for the maintenance of international peace and security" were issued as the foregoing inter-American resolutions were being adopted. It had required almost exactly five months after the last session of the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations to make possible this further step toward the Charter of the United Nations.

INVITATIONS TO THE SAN FRANCISCO CONFERENCE

DURING THE three weeks after the Crimea Conference, consultations were carried out with the Chinese Government and with the Provisional French Government in regard to the text of the invitations and the nations to receive them, the voting formula, the time and place of the conference, and the association of these powers with the three governments represented at Yalta as joint sponsors of the conference. These consultations were initiated on February 12, 1945, by the United States acting on behalf of the three originating powers, as had been agreed upon at Yalta and as had been recommended to the President by the Secretary of State. Since the time required for such consultation entailed delay in announcing the Yalta agreement on voting procedure, that agreement was discussed over the week-end of February 16 by Assistant Secretary Acheson with the larger Senate group regularly consulted on the problems of establishing a general international organization, and by Acting Secretary Grew with the smaller senatorial group, which had also been consistently included in the Department's discussions of these problems.

President Roosevelt, by telegram on February 23, informed Secretary Stettinius at Mexico City and Acting Secretary Grew in Washington that he was leaving the decisions concerning the date of issuance of the invitations and the publication of the voting formula to the

Secretary of State without further reference to the President, but he expressed a preference for having the invitations issued before March 1. By the time of this telegram, the Chinese Government had approved the voting formula and agreed to join with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in sponsoring the forthcoming conference and the invitations to it. The Provisional French Government, in a note handed Ambassador Jefferson Caffery in Paris on February 24, agreed to participate in the conference. It stated, however, that it could not undertake sponsorship unless the text of the invitation set forth the French desire for the adoption of certain unspecified amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, in the formulation of which it had not participated, and unless the invitation stated that these amendments would serve as a basis for discussion at the San Francisco Conference together with the Proposals themselves.

These French conditions were not consistent with the Crimea decision that the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, supplemented by the voting formula, should serve as the basis for discussion at San Francisco. Efforts toward removing the conditions to the French acceptance of sponsorship proved unproductive, although the issuance of the invitations was delayed five days in an attempt to find acceptable phrasing that would to some extent accommodate the French wishes. Accordingly, there were but four sponsors. Shortness of time precluded more protracted negotiation with the French to obtain their agreement to the Proposals, and this Government took the view, furthermore, that all the nations participating in the conference, including the sponsoring powers, would be free to introduce proposals and comments for the consideration of the conference.

The invitations, together with a statement approved by the President commenting analytically on the proposed voting formula contained in the text of the invitations, were issued by this Government at 12 noon March 5, 1945, eastern war time, and released in Washington at the same time. The four sponsoring Governments suggested in their invitations that the Conference "consider as affording a basis for a charter the proposals" resulting from the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations "which have now been supplemented by the following provisions. ." The voting formula, as approved by President Roosevelt November 15, 1944, and accepted at Yalta, was then quoted:

"1. Each member of the Security Council should have one vote. V 66 ""2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members.

""3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VIII, Section A, and under the second sentence of

Paragraph 1 of Chapter VIII, Section C, a party to a dispute should abstain from voting.'" 1

The text of the invitation was read by Secretary Stettinius to committee II, in the Castle of Chapultepec, Mexico City, at the same time that it was released in Washington.

The sponsors' invitations were addressed to each of the nations at war by March 1, 1945, with Germany or Japan, or with both. By that date, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and all former Associated Nations except Iceland had qualified for membership in the United Nations. Poland, the remaining member of this wartime association, could not be invited because it was still without the representative government contemplated under the Yalta Agreement concerning that country. Subsequently, on March 30, invitations were extended to Syria and Lebanon after these two states had adhered to the United Nations Declaration.3

President Roosevelt meanwhile had returned to Washington, and addressed the Congress, March 1, on the Crimea Conference. Because consultation on French sponsorship was still in progress, he had to state that it was "not yet possible to announce the terms of the agreement" on the voting procedure. He spoke of the hope and expectation that the San Francisco Conference would "execute a definite charter of organization under which the peace of the world will be preserved and the forces of aggression permanently outlawed." He then added:

'These provisions, as stated in the invitations, were for section C of chap. VI of the Proposals. Department of State Bulletin, XII, 394, 396. Subsequently, on Mar. 24, 1945, a further explanatory analysis of this formula was issued by the Department, in which the United States position that there was nothing in the voting formula to preclude the Organization from “discussing any dispute or situation which might threaten the peace and security by the act of any one of its members" was categorically stated. Ibid., p. 479.

2 These were Commonwealth of Australia, Kingdom of Belgium, Republic of Bolivia, United States of Brazil, Canada, Republic of Chile, Republic of Colombia, Republic of Costa Rica, Republic of Cuba, Czechoslovak Republic, Dominican Republic, Republic of Ecuador, Kingdom of Egypt, Republic of El Salvador, Empire of Ethiopia, Kingdom of Greece, Republic of Guatemala, Republic of Haiti, Republic of Honduras, India, Empire of Iran, Kingdom of Iraq, Republic of Liberia, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, United Mexican States, Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dominion of New Zealand, Republic of Nicaragua, Kingdom of Norway, Republic of Panama, Republic of Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Commonwealth of the Philippines, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Republic of Turkey, Union of South Africa, Oriental Republic of Uruguay, United States of Venezuela, Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

'Actual signature of the Declaration by Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria took place Apr. 12, 1945. The final total number of United Nations, 47, was attained with these signatures.

"This time we shall not make the mistake of waiting until the end of the war to set up the machinery of peace. This time, as we fight together to get the war over quickly, we work together to keep it from happening again."

Saying that he was "well aware" that the Senate must consent to the ratification of the Charter, he announced:

"The Senate of the United States, through its appropriate representatives, has been kept continuously advised of the program of this government in the creation of the international security organization.

"The Senate and the House of Representatives will both be represented at the San Francisco conference. The congressional delegates to the San Francisco conference will consist of an equal number of Republican and Democratic members. The American Delegation is—in every sense of the word-bipartisan.”

In this address, the President more than once emphasized that the resulting plan would not be perfect. He said that whatever was "adopted at San Francisco will doubtless have to be amended time and again over the years, just as our own Constitution has been." Nevertheless, he stated in conclusion:

"There will soon be presented to the Senate of the United States and to the American people a great decision which will determine the fate of the United States-and of the world-for generations to

come.

"There can be no middle ground here. We shall have to take the responsibility for world collaboration, or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict." 4

The time between these developments in the first week of March 1945 and the opening session of the United Nations Conference at San Francisco in the last week of April constituted a preconference period of approximately seven weeks. In this period, the several aspects of the remaining preparation for a general international organization were either concluded or the way made ready for their conclusion early in the Conference itself.

The Conference, as such, did not constitute part of the preparation, but rather provided the occasion for the ultimate utilization in negotiation of the proposals developed through the extraordinary preparation in this field. Nevertheless, it was in the special consultations held during the opening days of the Conference that the preparation was concluded. Accordingly, the Conference is described here only in so far as seems necessary to complete the description of the terminal work of preparation and the context of developments in which it was accomplished.

'Text printed in Department of State Bulletin, XII, 321–26 and 361.

V