TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century

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<text> <title> (1940s) United Nations </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1940s Highlights </history> <link 09285> <link 09287> <link 09288> <link 00110><article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> United Nations </hdr> <body> [Well before the war's end--starting, in fact, with the conferences between Churchill and Roosevelt prior to the U.S. entry into the war--the Allies began to consider the shape of the post-war world, and how to keep the peace that they had not yet won. At Dumbarton Oaks in August 1944, delegated from the Big Three and 36 other nations explored the possibility of creating a new world organization to replace the defunct and discredited League of Nations: an organization that would have the collective authority to preserve peace and security, that would reflect the realities of world power, yet provide a forum for smaller states. On April 26, 1945, in the pall of gloom cast by President Roosevelt's death, representatives of 46 countries met in San Francisco to draw up a charter for the new organization, the United Nations. It would call for a General Assembly, to which all "peace-loving" states would be admitted; a Security Council, with its permanent members and the veto to reflect the clout of the Big powers; a World Court, to adjudicate international disputes peacefully; and a Secretariat, Economic and Social Council and specialized agencies to take care of other international problems.] (June 18, 1945) The charter written at San Francisco contains a significant but at present unenforceable bill of human rights. The equality of all states is solemnly affirmed, although the whole structure of the organization denies it. Sovereignty, pervading San Francisco, dictated the charter's principle of "domestic jurisdiction." Under it, the world organization may reach into a country to get at the causes of war only when all the Big Powers agree that would peace is endangered. The General Assembly will be the focus of talk and of hope--but not of power. In it each nation great or small, has one vote. In this fact lies the Assembly's importance by the test of equality and its weakness by the test of power reality. Yet the Big Powers at the conference yielded on many points to expand the Assembly's functions. The Assembly can discuss anything. It can make recommendations for the peaceful adjustment of situations which might impair peace "regardless of origin." The assembly must rely on its ability to mobilize world public opinion. In the light of the veto arrangement, and of the continued sanctity of regionalism, the San Francisco charger did not add up to collective security. But the charter represented a little progress. The great powers, which did not have to yield at all, yielded on point after point to small nations. The small nations had enough on their side to move to U.S. with its victorious ships and planes, the Russians with their 8,000,000 victorious soldiers. The great powers did not move much, but that they moved at all was the wonder and the hope of San Francisco. [The U.N. soon faced severe problems over the Soviet's repeated threats to sue the veto. Other nations patched up compromises that side stepped this contingency. It looked as if the "collective security" provisions of the U.N. Charter would be effectively meaningless. But truculence at the U.N. was just one symptom of the change that was taking place in the relationship between the Soviet Union and the other Allies. Through its conquests of World War II, the Soviets had acquired a new empire, and had suddenly become the strongest power in Europe, the second mightiest in the world. Its ideology of world struggle, coupled with a traditional Russian expansionist dynamic, impelled it to try for first place. Communists, home-grown and imported, overt and clandestine, began to assert themselves in the politics of many countries struggling to rise from the political rubble of Nazi subjugation. In the nations under Soviet domination, Communist ascendancy soon appeared a sure thin. In Canada, in early 1946, the first Soviet spies seeking the secrets of atomic weaponry were arrested. Sooner or later Soviet needs, priorities, demands were bound to come up against those of the other major powers, and especially against those of the U.S. For a first instance, the Soviet Union would not agree with the other powers occupying Germany on the terms of a peace treaty for the defeated Reich.] (July 29, 1946) The easiest way to start solving a jigsaw puzzle is to take the straight-edged pieces that obviously belong on the outside. But even when these are in place all the puzzler may have is a few clouds hanging in a sky. He won't know whether he is working on a picture of a country wedding or a shipwreck. Fourteen months after Germany's collapse the nations are still fiddling with the relatively easy issues on the periphery. In the center of the puzzle is a great hole which this Paris conference is not supposed to touch. The hole might be expressed as: what to do about Europe? Molotov hinted at the Russian answer last fortnight--an eventual Russo-German alliance which would dominate Europe. The West's reaction was a stiffening attitude and a move to unite the western zones of Germany under democratic auspices. The victors know that an Italian or Balkan settlement makes little sense until they decide whether there will be one Germany or two (and, consequently, one Europe or two, one world or two). So far, an integrated approach to the pace is blocked by Russia's policy of prolonging the unsettled conditions in which Communism might flourish. The only course open to the U.S. and Britain was to insist that the 17 smaller nations be called to Paris where, beginning July 29, they will work on the edges of the puzzle--Finland, Italy, Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary. "It is a fallacy," said Australia's Dr. Herbert V. Evatt last week, "to suppose that all knowledge and all wisdom reside at the center of military power." [The biggest problem the U.S. faced in the immediate post-war period was trying to provide the minimal conditions of life for many of the world's citizens. Europe was starving, its agriculture ruined, it supply lines disrupted, its factories and other means of earning money to buy food destroyed. Millions of destitute, homeless people clogged Europe's roads, seeking a haven from Communist rule or displaced by the new partition of Poland or liberated from concentration camps, but often simply seeking something to eat.] (April 29, 1946) The appalling responsibilities of victory had come to be represented by one word. "Bread," said Herbert Hoover in Cairo last week, "has a reality as the symbol of life as never before in history...To reduce the bread ration has become a symbol of calamity." War's disruption was the main cause. Before the war only about 13,000,000 tons of wheat had to be imported by countries that could not grow all they needed. But the war and natural disasters sent import needs skyrocketing. Europe, which imported less than 4,000,000 tons of wheat a year before the war, needed 15,400,000 tons this crop year from the 1945 harvest to the 1946. All in all, needy countries came begging for 32,000,000 tons of wheat this year instead of the normal 13,000,000 tons of imports. The surplus counties (mainly the U.S. and Canada) may be able to provide 24,000,000 tons before the end of the cop year, but the world would then still be 8,000,000 tons short of its minimum need. To translate the balance sheet of wheat tonnage figures into terms of human need was not easy. The experts agreed that it was quite possible that the figures spelled starvation for scores of millions of people But the starvation could be "controlled" (spread out into disease-breeding malnutrition) by rationing. The experts said that a human needed at least 2,200 calories a day. The average U.S. citizen (still eating more than he had before the war) consumed more than 3,200 calories a day. In the French zone of Germany the ration was 940 calories; in the British zone about a thousand; in the U.S. zone 1,275; in the Russian zone 1,300 to 1,500. Germans were not dropping dead on the streets. The British economist, Sir Arthur Salter, said: "Ten million...Germans in the British zone are getting an average of only 1,014 calories daily, which is to much to let you die quickly and too little to let you live long." Britons had seen no onions for five months. Each got one shell egg a week (wartime powdered eggs have disappeared from the British diet). A pineapple cost $30. Yet a girl from France visiting London called it "paradise" because "they have enough to eat and in France we haven't." The French got 10 oz. of bread a day, 20 oz. of fat and 18 oz. of sugar a month. This was supplemented by a little meat, fish and vegetables. How Long? Herbert Hoover said last week that this crisis was unique in history because it had "a definite terminal date...the arrival of the next harvest." That was probable, but by no means certain. This present crisis could only be met by reducing the stocks of the surplus countries. If 1946 harvests were plentiful or even up to the prewar norm, the world would get through to the 1947 harvest, although at a lower level of subsistence than before the war. (July 22, 1946) In the first year of world famine relief (ending June 30), the U.S. promised to ship 10,723,860 tons of wheat, and actually shipped 10,750,670 tons. Including wheat, the U.S. shipped 16,500,000 tons of food of all types to famine areas. Of the nation's supplies for the year, the shipments took these shares: wheat, 40%; rice, 35%; cheese, 20%; fats & oils, 10%; meat, 6%. </body> </article> </text>