The opening day of the United Nations Conference in San Francisco, this April 25th in 1945. Within days of the death of FDR and within days before the eventual collapse of Nazi Germany, the United Nations was formed out of the wreckage of The League of Nations with the hope of creating permanent peace in the world.
The goal of the San Francisco Conference, formally known as The United Nations Conference on International Organization, was to set the foundations and establish a framework for the United Nations. There were 850 delegates from 50 countries at the Conference—26 of which had signed the original 1942 Declaration of the United Nations. At the time of the conference, there was no internationally recognized Polish Government, therefore, despite being one of the original signatories of the Declaration of United Nations, Poland did not have a representative at the conference. The country was later admitted and allowed to be considered an original member, bringing the total number of founding member states to 51.
To accomplish the task of creating a founding charter for the United Nations, work at the San Francisco Conference was organized into four committees. The Conference in Plenary Session was the highest body, which was in charge of the final voting and adoption of the text of the Charter of the United Nations. Below, there were four main committees: The Steering Committee dealt with questions regarding policy and procedure; the Executive Committee prepared recommendations for the Steering Committee; the Coordination Committee assisted the Executive Committee, and the Credentials Committee verified the credentials of all delegates. The foreign ministers of the four Allied sponsors, US Secretary of State Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr., Anthony Eden of Great Britain, Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov of the USSR, and T.V. Soong of China, took turns acting as chairman of the plenary meetings.
Here is that opening, with keynote address by President Truman – a greatly subdued ceremony, with war still looming and a country still in mourning over the loss of President Roosevelt. The United Nations was a dream that has somehow held together 78 years and countless conflicts and threats later.
Not bad, considering.
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