may 1, 1942 - "The Council and the Origins of the United
Nations" - Imperial brain trust : the Council
on Foreign Relations and United States foreign
policy pg. 169-71
Description:
The Council and the Origins of the United Nations
Council leaders recognized that in an age of rising nationalism around the world, the United States had to avoid the onus of big-power imperialism in its implementation of the Grand Area and creation of one open-door world. Isaiah Bowman first suggested a way to solve the problem of maintaining effective control over weaker territories while avoiding overt imperial conquest. At a Council meeting in May 1942, he stated that the United States had to exercise the strength needed to assure “security,” and at the same time “avoid conventional forms of imperialism.”(190) The way to do this, he argued, was to make the exercise of that power international in character through a United Nations body.(191) As we shall see below, the Council planners had a central role in the creation of this United Nations organization.
The planning of the United Nations can be traced to the “secret steering committee” established by Secretary Hull in January 1943. This Informal Agenda Group, as it was later called, was composed of Hull, Davis, Taylor, Bowman, Pasvolsky, and, until he left the government in August 1943, Welles.(192) All of them, with the exception of Hull, were members of the Council on Foreign Relations. They saw Hull regularly to plan, select, and guide the labors of the department’s Advisory Committee. It was, in effect, the coordinating agency for all the State Department postwar planning.(193).
The men of the Informal Agenda Group were most responsible for the final shape of the United Nations. Beginning in February 1943, members of the group met frequently with President Roosevelt, who called them “my postwar advisers.”194 They not only drew up policy recommendations, but also “served as advisers to the Secretary of State and the President on the final decisions.”195 In addition, they met frequently during 1943 for intensive work in connection with the Quebec and Moscow conferences, drafting the suggestions for the four-power agreement accepted by Britain and Russia.
By December 1943 the membership of the group included Hull, Davis, Bowman, Taylor, and Pasvolsky from the original six, as well as the new undersecretary of state, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. Stettinius was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former top executive of United States Steel, and son of a partner in the J. P. Morgan Bank. Benjamin V. Cohen and Stanley K. Hornbeck, both with close ties to the Council, had also joined the Agenda Group along with James C. Dunn, Green H. Hackworth, and Notter from the staff of the department.196 The Council’s preeminence clearly remained. Seven ot the eleven—Davis, Bowman, Taylor, Pasvolsky, Stettinius, Cohen, Hornbeck, and Dunn—were either present members ol the Council or involved in the War and Peace Studies.197 If others who were invited to join some of the meetings during this period are included, Council influence is even more striking. Joseph C. Green was added to the group in mid-March 1944. He was a Council member and regularly attended the gatherings of the Armaments Group.198 Five military men were asked to con¬ ferences of the Agenda Group during March, April, and May 1944. One of these, Admiral Hepburn, was a Council member; two others, General Strong and Rear Adm. Roscoe E. Schuirmann of naval intelligence had been involved in the War and Peace Studies Project.199
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