Looking Back

The first and most significant crisis of the San Francisco conference appeared the second day. It arose in the steering committee, when Anthony Eden moved that Ed Stettinius be made permanent chairman of the conference. Molotov objected: he said that a presidium of the four sponsoring powers should rotate among themselves the chairmanships of the plenary sessions and of the most important committees.

At the time, Molotov's proposal was widely misinterpreted as sheer rudeness. Even Stettinius and Eden opposed it on the wrong grounds: they simply thought that it would snarl up the whole conference procedure. Not until later did Molotov's opponents realize that in forcing him to back down--as he did--they had won the opening round in a long battle for free discussion.

Though they produce able disputants, the Russians do not really believe in discussion. The Big Four were the boss, they reasoned, and the way to recognize that fact was by a Big Four presidium which would confine effective discussion to the controlling powers. The Russians never gave up on this issue. But, thanks to Ed Stettinius, Senator Vandenberg and such little-nation spokesmen as Australia's Herbert V. Evatt, they never won.

Freedom of discussion was at the heart of the veto issue. The Russians wanted to interpret the veto so that one power could shut off discussion even in the Security Council. At this point Stettinius took his stand and saved the conference. He told Molotov, in a formal note, that the U.S. would sooner have no charter at all than one with this restriction. Meanwhile, Harry Hopkins in Moscow put it up to Stalin. The Russians gave in.

Again, when the Russians wanted to limit the subjects the General Assembly could discuss, Moscow was notified that if the U.S.S.R. did not back down by noon the next day (June 19) it would be outvoted on the floor of the conference. Promptly at noon, Soviet Chairman Andrei Gromyko backed down.

In their own way, and in their own interest, the U.S. and Britain were as jealous of Big Power prerogatives as Russia was. But they went about it differently. Not a presidium but a U.S. institution, the smoke-filled room, preserved Big Power unity. San Francisco's smoky room was the parlor of Stettinius' suite atop the Fairmont Hotel, where the Big Power representatives were in almost daily session.

"Gawd Bless You All!" The fight on Monday, April 30, over the admission of authoritarian Argentina was another real crisis. Molotov saw his chance and took it; the U.S., having made the Latin countries support the earlier admission of Russia's Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics, was committed to bring Argentina in, too. Although the Russians were roundly beaten on the vote, they looked as happy as a tiger that had swallowed a young parrot. They had a moral issue that they could use forever after.

That was the worst day. The best day was May 3. Then the Big Four announced the amendments they had agreed upon. These 22 amendments contained, the seedlings of San Francisco's main improvements over Dumbarton Oaks (see above). Looking back, it was apparent that on May 3 the conference turned the corner.

Day after day the hard-working delegates, experts, correspondents rode the grey Navy busses from their hotels to the Veterans' building. Perhaps the girl drivers of these juggernauts had something to do with the charter's repeated affirmation of belief in the equality of the sexes. One day a slim, red-haired driver slung her bus across Union Square, air-braked at the curb, and cried: "St. Francis Hotel! Brazilians, French, Russians and so forth-ski! And Gawd bless you all!" Her Latin American passengers shuddered.

Three Endings. When the Big Power veto was left essentially unchanged, one of the Arab delegates said: "If two small powers fight, the organization steps in, and that is the end of the fight; if a small power and a big power fight, that is the end of the small power; unless, of course, another big power steps in, and that is the end of the organization."

This observation was more cynical than accurate. The Big Powers at San Francisco settled their own rows and gave way substantially to the little nations.

Both Sides Up. To the last, the work was hectic. The charter text almost missed the deadline. There were only two Russian linotypers in San Francisco. The man who was to bind the charter fell while ice-skating and fractured his skull. So the binding job was sleazy.

When the press assembled to watch the signing, a Chinese newspaperman walked to the table and reversed a sign on which English letters and Chinese characters were written. He explained that he was putting the Chinese right-side up. But that made the English upside down. After nine weeks at San Francisco, the experts solved that one without biting a fingernail. They cut the sign in half, put both sides right.

To prepare the way for the new organization's Preparatory Commission, which will meet in London, a clean-up team including Evatt, the conference's able Secretary General Alger Hiss, the U.S. State Department's Leo Pasvolsky and China's Dr. Hsu Mo, stayed over a few days in San Francisco.

Then Hiss locked the official U.S. copies of the charter in a 75-lb. safe, attached a parachute, and took the whole thing with him in a plane. In event of mishap, the safe was marked: "Finder! Do Not Open. Send to Department of State, Washington."

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