The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (50 page)

In this way all the delegates were able to keep up with what was going on in general—if they listened carefully and had time to read the prepared papers—and in addition each delegate and each alternate got detailed information about the particular committee or the special project on which he or she was working at the moment. These briefings became a regular part of my routine throughout the six years I was connected with the American delegation to the United Nations, regardless of whether we were in London, Paris, Geneva or New York.

I drove to the first session of the General Assembly in London with Mr. Stettinius, who was then assistant secretary of state, accompanied by Mr. Sandifer and two other young advisers. Each delegate had a desk and there were several seats behind him for his advisers. The gathering of so many representatives of the large and small nations was impressive.

The first business of the Assembly was concerned with organization and the election of the first president, Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium, a wonderful diplomat, an eloquent orator and a statesman of stature who did much to help the United Nations get off to a good start. The first Secretary General of the United Nations was Trygve Lie, a Norwegian. He was an able man who strongly believed in the ideas behind the United Nations, which he served well. He was a positive personality, which possibly was a handicap in his position, for he eventually made enemies. It is important that the Secretary General not only should be a good negotiator but should be able to make practically everyone feel he is their friend—if such a thing is possible.

At the early sessions in London I got the strong impression that many of the old-timers in the field of diplomacy were skeptical of the new world organization. They had seen so many failures, they had been through the collapse of the League of Nations, and they seemed to doubt that we would achieve much. The newcomers were the ones who showed the most enthusiasm and determination. They were, in fact, often almost too anxious to make progress. It was fortunate that such men as Mr. Spaak and Mr. Lie were on hand and skillful enough to give the veterans new inspiration and to hold the newcomers in check when necessary.

During the entire London session of the Assembly I walked on eggs. I knew that as the only woman on the delegation I was not very welcome. Moreover, if I failed to be a useful member, it would not be considered merely that I as an individual had failed but that all women had failed, and there would be little chance for others to serve in the near future.

I tried to think of small ways in which I might be more helpful. There were not many women on the other delegations, and as soon as I got to know some of them I invited them all to tea in my sitting room at the hotel. About sixteen, most of them alternate delegates or advisers, accepted my invitation. Even the Russian woman came, bringing an interpreter with her. The talk was partly just social but as we became better acquainted we also talked about the problems on which we were working in the various committees. The party was so successful that I asked them again on other occasions. I discovered that in such informal sessions we sometimes made more progress in reaching an understanding on some question before the United Nations than we had been able to achieve in the formal work of our committees.

As a result, I established a custom, which I continued throughout the years I was connected with the United Nations, of trying to get together with other nations’ representatives at luncheon or dinner or for a few hours in the evening. I found that often a few people of different nationalities, meeting on a semisocial basis, could talk together about a common problem with better results than when they were meeting officially as a committee.

As time went on, there were more and more women serving on various delegations, and ours usually had a woman alternate even while I was still a delegate. Helen Gahagan Douglas, Mrs. Ruth Bryan Rohde, and Edith Sampson all were extremely valuable on the United States delegation.

As a normal thing the important—and, I might say, the hard—work of any organization such as the United Nations is not done in the big public meetings of the General Assembly but in the small and almost continuous meetings of the various committees. In the committee meetings each nation is represented by one delegate or an alternate and two or three advisers.

The discussions and the compromises and the disagreements that occur in committee meetings are of utmost importance. At first I was not familiar with committee work and not sure of myself, but Mr. Sandifer was always seated just behind me to give me guidance. As time went on I got so I could tell merely by his reactions whether the discussion was going well or badly. If I could feel him breathing down my neck I knew that there was trouble coming, usually from the Russians.

There is a question many people have asked me about the responsibilities of a delegate to the United Nations. “You are representing your government, but do you do exactly what you are told to do or say? Do you have any latitude for self-expression or for personal judgment in voting?”

The answer is a little complicated. In the first committee meetings I attended in London I was in complete agreement with the position of the State Department on the question at issue: the right of war refugees to decide for themselves whether they would return to their countries of origin. I was uncertain about procedure, however, and often lagged behind when the chairman called for a vote. Finally, Mr. Sandifer said sternly:

“The United States is an important country. It should vote quickly because certain other countries may be waiting to follow its leadership.”

After that I always tried to decide how I would vote before a show of hands was asked for and, as soon as it was, my hand went up with alacrity. In deciding how to vote, it is true that a delegate, as a representative of his government, is briefed in advance on his country’s position in any controversy. In London, fortunately, I agreed with the State Department position. But later I learned that a delegate does have certain rights as an individual and on several occasions I exercised my right to take a position somewhat different from the official viewpoint.

Of course, a delegate cannot express his disagreement publicly unless he resigns, since obviously it would be impossible to have representatives of the same nation saying different things in the United Nations. But he may exercise his right to disagree during the private briefings. Before the start of a session we were told what subjects would be on the agenda. If you disagreed with the government’s attitude you had the right to say so and to try to get the official attitude changed or modified. You could, if necessary, appeal to the President to intervene and you could, if there was no solution, resign in protest.

On one occasion I did object vigorously to our official decision to rescind, without explanation to our people, the position we had taken on recognizing the Franco government in Spain. I was joined by other delegates and the State Department put off action until it could explain the situation fully.

It was while working on Committee Three that I really began to understand the inner workings of the United Nations. It was ironical perhaps that one of the subjects that created the greatest political heat of the London sessions came up in this “unimportant” committee to which I had been assigned.

The issue arose from the fact that there were many displaced war refugees in Germany when the Armistice was signed—Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Poles, Czechoslovaks, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and others—a great number of whom were still living in temporary camps because they did not want to return to live under the Communist rule of their own countries. There were also the pitiful Jewish survivors of the German death camps.

The Yugoslav and, of course, the Soviet Union position, put forth by Leo Mates, was that any war refugee who did not wish to return to his country of origin was either a quisling or a traitor. He argued that the refugees in Germany should be forced to return home and to accept whatever punishment might be meted out to them.

The position of the Western countries, including the United States, was that large numbers of the refugees were neither quislings nor traitors, and that they must be guaranteed the right to choose whether or not they would return to their homes. I felt strongly on the subject, as did others, and we spent countless hours trying to frame some kind of resolution on which all could agree. We never did, and our chairman, Peter Fraser of New Zealand, had to present a majority report to the General Assembly, which was immediately challenged by the U.S.S.R.

In the Assembly the minority position was handled by Andrei Vishinsky, one of Russia’s great legal minds, a skilled debater, a man with ability to use the weapons of wit and ridicule. Moscow considered the refugee question of such vital importance that he spoke twice before the Assembly in a determined effort to win over the delegates to the Communist point of view. The British representative on our committee spoke in favor of the majority report. By this time an odd situation had developed. Someone would have to speak for the United States. The question threw our delegation into a dither. There was a hurried and rather uncomfortable consultation among the male members and when the huddle broke up John Foster Dulles approached me rather uncertainly.

“Mrs. Roosevelt,” he began lamely, “the United States must speak in the debate. Since you are the one who has carried on the controversy in the committee, do you think you could say a few words in the Assembly? Nobody else is really familiar with the subject.”

I said I would do my best. I was badly frightened. I trembled at the thought of speaking against the famous Mr. Vishinsky. Well, I did my best. The hour was late and we knew the Russians would delay a vote as long as possible on the theory that some of our allies would get tired and leave. I knew we must hold our South American colleagues until the vote was taken because their votes might be decisive. So I talked about Simón Bolívar and his stand for the freedom of the people of Latin America. The South American representatives stayed with us to the end and, when the vote was taken, we won.

This vote meant that the Western nations would have to worry about the ultimate fate of the refugees for a long, long time but the principle of the right of an individual to make his own decisions was a victory well worthwhile.

Toward the end of the sessions we worked until late at night. The final night the vote on Committee Three’s report was taken so late that I did not get back to the hotel until about one o’clock. I was very tired, and as I walked wearily up the stairs at the hotel I heard two voices behind me. Turning around, I saw Senator Vandenberg and Mr. Dulles.

“Mrs. Roosevelt,” one of them said, “we must tell you that we did all we could to keep you off the United Nations delegation. We begged the President not to nominate you. But now we feel we must acknowledge that we have worked with you gladly and found you good to work with. And we will be happy to do so again.”

I don’t think anything could have made the weariness drop from my shoulders as did those words. I shall always be grateful for the encouragement they gave me.

Thirty-one
    

I Learn about Soviet Tactics

THE CONTROVERSY
with the Communist-dominated countries over the fate of refugees in Germany aroused in me a desire to see for myself what had happened. I discussed my idea with Ambassador John Winant, who said he would arrange for me to visit Germany, with the aid of the Army, which was then in control of everything in occupied areas.

I was stunned and appalled by what I saw when we circled the ruins of Cologne and Frankfurt and other places that I remembered as great and crowded cities. Later when we circled Munich and looked down on the rubble of Berlin I felt that nobody would have imagined such utter, horrible destruction. Nothing could better illustrate the sickening waste and destructiveness and futility of war than what I was seeing.

Later I was to see the effects of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The bombing of Germany had continued over a period of months and months. The bombing of Hiroshima was over in a few seconds. But the results were the same.

We landed first at Frankfurt, where there were a number of refugee camps, including one for Jews in Zilcheim and others for refugees from Estonia, Poland, Latvia and other countries that were now under Soviet domination.

At Zilcheim I was greeted by leaders of the Jewish refugee group. They had built a small hill with steps leading to the top where they had erected a stone monument inscribed: “To the Memory of all Jews who died in Germany.” In all the Jewish camps there were signs of the terrible events through which these people had passed and of the hardships they continued to suffer, but they also showed with what courage and steadfast hope they could meet disaster.

In the mud of Zilcheim I remember an old woman whose family had been driven from home by war madness and brutality. I had no idea who she was and we could not speak each other’s language, but she knelt in the muddy road and threw her arms around my knees.

“Israel,” she murmured, over and over. “Israel! Israel!”

As I looked at her weather-beaten face and heard her old voice, I knew for the first time what that small land meant to so many, many people.

I went from Frankfurt to Berlin. With the help of American officials I managed to cover considerable ground. On a trip eleven years later I observed many differences between East Berlin and West Berlin; for instance, the brilliant lights of the Western sector and the almost complete darkness of the Eastern sector; but in 1946 I was conscious only of mass destruction and human misery.

We drove past the smashed Chancellery where Hitler had ruled and the bunker where he died and the pockmarked Brandenburg Gate that had been a symbol of Germany’s greatness. Now there was desolation and the sordid, degrading sight of men and women and children dealing in the black market. Here in the shadow of the Brandenburg memorial and close to the ornate temple of Nazi imperialism all the degradation of war had come home to roost.