III. FOUR AMERICANS WHO MADE
THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER

Biography of selected key players is a good way to introduce the United Nations to students young and old. So many private associations contributed to the making of the UN Charter that speeches like mine today introducing the UN to a defined audience can usefully be specifically tailored to that audience by dwelling on conributions made by persons with whom the audience can identify.

Thus, it is natural to tell an NAACP audience about the work of Associate Delegate Dr W.E. B. Du Bois. It would also be gracious to mention Associate Consulant Alfred M. Lilienthal when speaking with the American Veterans Committee or talk about Judge Joseph Proskauer in remarks to Jewish groups, especially the American Jewish Committee for which he was the highly influential consultant at San Francisco.

For the Southeastern World Affairs Institute (SWAI) today I have selected four persons in and out of government. All lived or worked in New York City during the Second World War. Three belonged to the Democratic party. One was Independent. Three were male; one was female. Three were university graduates. The fourth had only one day of formal education.

They came together to help make the UN Charter, much as the persons who met on Thorton's Wilder's 1927 THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY, albeit with happier results. One was a Zionist. One was markedly pro-Arab. All of them were "joiners" and knew how to create private-public partnerships through dialog and through working together in teams on foreign policyissues. For these and other reasons, SWAI members can, I hope, identify with


A.  Representative SOL BLOOM

B.  Dean VIRGINIA GILDERSLEEVE

C.  Professor JAMES T. SHOTWELL

D. Mister CLARK M. EICHELBERGER.


-OOO-

delivered 07/26/1991
reread and lightly edited 03/24/2004
revisited 02/23/2009

Patrick Killough
Black Mountain, NC