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Why did the United States want to create the United Nations Organization, or any international political organization with universal membership? This question has received superficial historiographical attention, despite ample scrutiny of the conferences that directly established the UN in 1944 and 1945. The answer lies earlier in the war, from 1940 to 1942, when, under the pressure of fast-moving events, American officials and intellectuals decided their country must not only enter the war but also lead the world long afterwards. International political organization gained popularity – first among unofficial postwar planners in 1941 and then among State Department planners in 1942 – because it appeared to be an indispensable tool for implementing postwar US world leadership, for projecting and in no way constraining American power. US officials believed the new organization would legitimate world leadership in the eyes of the American public by symbolizing the culmination of prior internationalist efforts to end power politics, even as they based the design of the UN on a thoroughgoing critique of the League, precisely for assuming that power politics could be transcended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of the USSR's role in the creation of the United Nations, with particular reference to the impact on Soviet decision makers of the historical experience of the League of Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventy-five years after the creation of the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks conference, the secretary-general has become the de facto figurehead of the world organization and the office-holder is expected to take a proactive role in a whole range of global issues. Yet it remains unclear what powers the Allied planners intended for the secretary-general. By examining the discussions that took place on this issue before, during and after Dumbarton Oaks this article argues that despite the seemingly innocuous provisions relating to the secretary-general enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the office-holder was never intended to simply be a chief administrator. What is more, the first Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, controversially sought to resolve a number of issues that came before the United Nations, most notably the Korean War. The second half of this article thus demonstrates that while Lie did test the parameters of his office to the limits during the Korean conflict, none of his actions exceeded the powers granted to the secretary-general. Moreover, Lie's role during the Korean War set the tone for his successor, Dag Hammarskjold, who is usually seen as the most proactive secretary-general to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the debate that followed the release of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals in 1944, the US government vigorously promoted the idea of international organization, partly due to fears of a resurgent isolationism. Yet as the debate progressed, it became clear that isolationism was not the main enemy, and concerns that the USA would not engage at all with the UN proved unfounded. Instead, the most active critics of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals were not those who wished to ignore the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, but those who wanted to perfect them. Calls for a more perfect international union came from across the political spectrum and for different reasons. Ultimately, the Roosevelt administration recognized that perfectionism was an issue that threatened the peace process. Fearing a repeat of the rejection of the League of Nations, the Roosevelt administration worked tirelessly to share the message of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals to the American people. But that message was mostly a cautious one, highlighting that while the proposed UN was not perfect, it was the best option for peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Great Powers were meeting in Washington at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, representatives of the Arab states were meeting in Egypt to draft the Alexandria Protocol, the document that would lead to the establishment of the Arab League in March 1945. The idea of Arab Unity has a long history driven by intra-regional dynamics but the form that the League ultimately took of a regional organization rather than the political union many envisioned was largely a product of the wartime environment. The Arab states found both opportunity and potential threats in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals as they worked to develop their own postwar vision. Discussions of regional councils in the months preceding Dumbarton Oaks raised fears of a western-imposed regional order and served as the center of gravity that ultimately allowed them, for the moment, to overcome regional rivalries and join together in the Arab League. This case study contributes to the decolonization of diplomatic history by placing the Arab nationalist movement in its global context and demonstrates how the Arab states, for whom unity was viewed as a pathway to independence, appropriated wartime internationalist ideals in the later war years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the development of Soviet policy towards the communist partisan movement in Yugoslavia from the German invasion in 1941 to the liberation of the country at the end of 1944. In doing so, it addresses this topic for the first time through the lens of the Soviet decision-making process, following developments across the entire duration of the war. Based on Soviet sources, it shows that, in the context of the shifting balance of forces among the Western Allies, Moscow was ready to put aside the popular front strategy and to encourage local communists to challenge the political order supported by the British and the Americans while the Second World War was still raging. The example of Yugoslavia, however, also shows that this apparently clear strategy covered deep uncertainties on the Soviet side as to the real intentions of the British, the room for manoeuvre enjoyed by Moscow, and the way in which relations with a new communist state in the making should be established. The Soviets were largely successful in their attempt to support Tito while avoiding repercussions for the Great Alliance, although in the long term their achievements backfired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The participation of trade unions in the anti-apartheid movement is a subject which arguably merits more attention. This article brings into focus a group of unionists whose activism against apartheid was in the forefront of key initiatives. Drawing on new research the argument recounts the role of Australian seafarers on the international stage, particularly its association with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and shows how knowledge of events in South Africa passed from the WFTU to educate the union membership. By the 1980s, Australian seafarers were taking the lead in bringing European unionists together in united action to enforce the United Nations' embargo on oil supplies to South Africa by founding a new organization, the Maritime Unions Against Apartheid (MUAA). Reconstructing these events demonstrates two aspects of significance: the growing importance of monitoring shipping as an anti-apartheid strategy coordinated and led by European unions, which we point out relied on ships' officers and crews for knowledge, and the breaking down of the ideological divide between the WFTU and the anti-Communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) working together in the MUAA. The article contributes new understanding of connections between anti-apartheid activism and its Cold War context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polo Beyris is a virtually unexplored example of internment under French and German authorities. From 1939 to 1947 the camp of Polo Beyris in Bayonne held successively: Spanish Civil War refugees, French colonial prisoners of war, suspected 'collaborators' and German prisoners of war. Despite having up to 8600 prisoners at one time, the large camp and its numerous satellite work detachments were literally 'forgotten' for decades. Although similar to other camps in its improvised nature, wretched living conditions, lack of food and constant movement of prisoners, Polo Beyris was also unique: located in a dense urban area, within the wartime Occupied Zone and close to the Spanish frontier. Its civil and military administrators were faced with constantly changing, and often chaotic, political and military circumstances. Not a waystation in the Holocaust, Polo Beyris has been lost from the sight of historians. It provides an additional dimension to the complex history of internment in twentieth century France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on the discovery of a tape in which the late John Colville, one of Winston Churchill's most trusted private secretaries, claimed that Churchill had had an affair with Doris, Lady Castlerosse, a society beauty who died of a drug overdose in 1942. It shows that Colville's claim was a credible one, although it cannot be proven beyond doubt. The article uses Colville's revelation as the starting point of an investigation into how a network of Churchill's friends and former colleagues influenced the shaping of his reputation in the years after his retirement and death. Colville himself was one of the key figures in the process, although his actions – not least his revelation of the story of Lady Castlerosse – were sometimes paradoxical. By examining these developments, the article casts new light on the history of the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, of which Colville was the founding father. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]