FDR and the Creation of the U.N. - Softcover

At a time when it is fashionable to declare the United Nations as part of the problem, rather than the solution, to international conflicts, two noted historians lucidly explain how the original objective of the body has been lost among indecision, ideological quarreling, and a lack of clear leadership. In FDR and the Creation of the U.N., Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley examine the inception of the U.N. and chart its rocky history, identifying FDR as the primary player in the creation of the assembly.

In citing the U.N.'s biggest problems, the authors do not call for disbanding the body. Instead, in keeping with FDR's original vision, they offer solutions for improvements and insights. The challenges are formidable, however, as even daily operations are stalled due to the debt of $3.3 billion owed by U.N. members. The authors pay particular attention to the United States' responsibility for international peacekeeping. To make the U.N. effective, they argue, the U.S. must not only pay its share of the debt, but accept the fact that it has the military and political power to create results--if only it chooses to do so.

From the authors of Driven Patriot (1992), a history of the rise of the United Nations out of the ashes of the failed League of Nations and WW II. Hoopes and Brinkley devote most of the story to FDR, who was determined throughout the war to create an international organization that would be an effective guarantor of peace. Planning for a postwar international world order began as early as 1942, when Soviet and Chinese representatives joined with FDR and Winston Churchill in signing the Declaration of United Nations, in which they vowed not to sign a separate peace with the Axis and to wage war with all their resources. As early as this FDR had developed the idea that powerful nations, like Britain and the US, should be ``trustees'' for world peace for the less powerful nations. The debate in the US about he shape of a new world order began early in the war as well: The failure of the League of Nations was ever-present in the public mind. While plans for a postwar world order took shape at the conferences between FDR and Churchill, attempts were made to involve the prickly Soviets, without whose cooperation no world organization could be created. The planning culminated in the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which formally gave birth to the UN. In an epilogue, the authors consider the manner in which the UN became an arena for playing out Cold War tensions and, in the cases of the Korean War and the Gulf War (in both cases led by the US), a means by which the world coordinated a response to international aggression. The authors argue that, in a world of escalating North-South conflict, the UN system needs continued strong US support. An absorbing study of the genesis of the UN and its continuing importance, with all its imperfections, to world peace. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.