World War II Remembered

The Birth of the United Nations

174 In 1941 I was living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where my husband was on the faculty of Louisiana State University—a happy, stay-athome young faculty wife. But the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor that December, and we immediately knew, as did many other young people, that we had to go to Washington to help our government in any way we could. My husband had professional skills, but I only knew how to type and take Gregg shorthand. Soon after we reached Washington I joined a typing pool in the Lend-Lease Administration, and he found a job with the Bureau of the Budget using his special skills in budgetary matters . The Lend-Lease bill had been stalled in the Senate because many people felt that we should not get involved with a European war. Early in 1941, President Roosevelt sent Wendell Willkie—a staunch Republican—to London with a handwritten introduction to Churchill, so that Willkie could learn firsthand about England’s wartime problems . On his return, he reported to Congress that Britain was running out of military supplies and warned that if we continued to be isolaThe Birth of the United Nations • Elizabeth Morrison Hunter The Birth of the United Nations: Elizabeth Morrison Hunter 175 tionists, there was no telling where “the madmen loose in the world” might strike next. Shortly thereafter, Congress passed a bill, signed into law on March 11, 1942, authorizing the President to “transfer munitions and supplies to the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” Roosevelt pulled another political coup by bringing into Washington leaders of industry who were reputedly lukewarm about his war policies. In 1941 he chose Edward R. Stettinius, Chairman of U.S. Steel, to head up the new Lend-Lease organization, with offices in the old Federal Reserve Building. On the first floor were young people hoping to be given a job. It was a very noisy scene —I know, because I was there as part of the typing pool. One day a man from Mr. Stettinius’s office asked me if I ever made a mistake in my work. I replied, “No.” I then passed a test by typing a memo dictated to me and, to my astonishment, learned that I was to listen to all of Stettinius’s telephone conversations, record them in shorthand, and type them. Later I also became responsible for his appointments , arranging his conferences and meetings and locating interpreters when needed. A white telephone on my desk was used only to receive calls from the White House. In 1943 Stettinius was moved to the Department of State, first as Under Secretary and then, a year later, as Secretary of State to replace the ailing Cordell Hull. I was asked to go with him—and thus became part of the drama within the State Department, particularly in its planning of a San Francisco conference where 50 nations would be joining together to create an organization dedicated to maintaining international peace in the post-War world. Then Roosevelt died, in April 1945. The Department, though stunned, realized that it must go ahead with its plans for the Conference : the date had been set and the names of the delegates had been announced . The U.S. delegates included Edward Stettinius as chairman, Cordell Hull as the senior advisor (though he was too ill to attend), and Democratic and Republican members of the House and Senate. Among the public representatives, Virginia Gildersleeve, a Barnard College Dean, was the only woman delegate. Late at night on April 23, 1945, at Washington Airport, we boarded the Secretary’s C-54, a four-engine propeller plane, for a nonstop 176 World War II Remembered flight—all the way to San Francisco in thirteen hours! Aboard that plane were all the delegates, plus some State Department people. Our flight was not without incident. As we flew into an ice storm over the Rockies, the plane had to climb to 14,500 feet, and four of us shared an oxygen mask. I think we all survived because my Catholic friend was frantically fingering her rosary. The morning we landed in San Francisco was sunny and beautiful. Welcoming officials were standing at attention, civic ladies presented us with large bunches of flowers, a brass band played, and the press hovered with poised pencils. We found fleets of cars at our disposal...