Signing the Charter

This week in San Francisco, Harry Truman would witness the scene which, perhaps above all others, Franklin Roosevelt most wanted to see: the signing of the World Charter.

A world organization to keep the peace was now a fact--and the U.S., barring an almost unbelievable change in official climate, would be a member. For there was almost no one of consequence left in the U.S. who opposed the San Francisco charter. There were many who had reservations. But almost everyone, in & out of official life, seemed to think that any charter was better than none at all.

There would still be debate. Senators Connally and Vandenberg, fresh from San Francisco, would open it this week with speeches in defense of the charter. There would be criticism and strictures. But an Associated Press poll of 75 Senators found none definitely against it.

Harry Truman, however, would probably not get his wish: ratification of the charter before the Big Three meeting in Berlin. The Senate, conscious of being "the greatest deliberative body in the world," would be deliberate.

Collective security, of a kind and on paper, was now here. Ahead lay the more immediate and thorny problems of boundaries, population shifts, occupation and reparations. These would be the agenda for the Big Three; these would be Harry Truman's real test.

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