Capital of the World: The Race to Host the United Nations

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107 5 Showtime! The State Department told them not to go. The president of the United States told them not to go. The secretary of the United Nations Preparatory Commission in warscarred London suggested—diplomatically, of course—that they really shouldn’t go. But neither cost, time, nor inconvenience could keep determined American civic boosters from racing across the Atlantic during November and December 1945 to offer their services to the United Nations. By the end of the year, sixteen of the most persistent world capital hopefuls from the United States forced their attentions on the UN in person, and more were on the way. For all of their eagerness, the boosters’ timeconsuming journeys across the Atlantic contradicted their claims that distance did not matter. And their sales pitches, so painstakingly prepared and intensively rehearsed, were merely tolerated by the diplomats, whose attention remained on the struggle over whether to center the organization in Europe or the United States. The United Nations officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, when a majority of member nations ratified the charter drafted in San Francisco. Soon thereafter, on Sunday, November 11, three of the Philadelphians who had lobbied the UN in San Francisco—advertising man Benjamin Eshleman, Judge L. Stauffer Oliver, and professor John G. Herndon—met at Broad Street Station in Center City Philadelphia to catch a 9:00 a.m. train. In their pursuit of the United Nations since March 1945, the Philadelphia ambassadors had been downplaying one minor detail: the City of Brotherly Love had no transatlantic air service , although they looked forward to its inauguration later in the year. They had a plane to catch, but it was 104 miles away, at LaGuardia Field in New York City, where they also would be joined by the chairman of the Philadelphia campaign, Temple University president Robert L. Johnson.1 108 The New World The trip seemed imperative. In late October, the Philadelphians had gone to see President Truman, who directed them to the State Department. Staff members there advised them to be patient, but they also learned that a UN committee might soon begin to narrow the headquarters choice. Would their chance be lost, without a fair hearing of their proposal? There seemed to be no time to lose, but in New York, weather delayed their flight for two days. Anxious about the delay, they tried but failed to book passage on the Queen Mary, betting that the ocean liner would beat the airline over the sea. Finally, they received word of an outgoing flight on Pan-American Airways and boarded the plane, but could be sure of nothing until they were in the air.2 Such were the uncertainties of international travel in the autumn of 1945, as American cities and towns were assuring the United Nations that swift air transit would easily transform any location into a potential Capital of the World. Transatlantic flights from the United States to England in the 1940s followed the route of thousands of military transport planes during the war, first heading north to Newfoundland for refueling, then across the North Atlantic to Ireland, and then England. To avoid difficult weather, the pilot for the Philadelphians’ flight flew farther north and higher than usual; according to the hostess on board, the outside temperature was seven degrees below zero. In the morning, the sun rose over formidably dark clouds, and the coast of Ireland appeared. Much to the Philadelphians’ pleasure, they discovered at the Rineanna Airport at Shannon, County Limerick, a country-club-like setting where they could enjoy breakfast before the next leg of their flight. Pan-American then flew them as far as Hurn, England, where a bus carried them to a train for another journey of more than one hundred miles to Victoria Station in London. They arrived at 8:00 p.m. on November 14, three days after leaving Philadelphia.3 During the same week that the Philadelphians landed on Pan-American , Paul Bellamy from the Black Hills of South Dakota and an advance team of boosters from Chicago also showed up in London. Then came Mayor Edward Kelly of Chicago himself, accompanied by his nineteenyear -old son, just discharged from the navy. The Kellys arrived on November 20 with great fanfare on the first promotional flight for American Airlines’ service from Chicago to London. With a single flight, it seemed that Chicago had transcended geography, as a reporter for the Chicago Herald-American assured his readers: “In this...