DEFINING INTERNATIONALISM

Formed in the summer of 1944, Americans United for World Organization amalgamated six existing political action organizations. AUWO consolidated the activities of the American Free World Association, Citizens for Victory, the Committee to Defend America, Fight for Freedom, the United Nations Association (UNA) and the United Nations Committee for Greater New York.Footnote ⁹ The membership of the new group contained few surprises. Ulric Bell, previously executive chairman of Fight for Freedom and the Office of War Information's (OWI) Overseas Branch representative in Hollywood, became the group's director. League of Nations Association (LNA) director and long-term internationalist advocate Clark Eichelberger became chairman of the policy committee. Hugh Moore, who had been chairman of the executive committees of both the CDAAA and the LNA, was to be chairman of the organizing committee. The eventual choice of chairman of the board fell upon Dr. Ernest M. Hopkins, president of Dartmouth College since 1916. Hopkins was a known supporter of international organization, a Republican, and had served briefly during the war as a director in the Office of Production Management.Footnote ¹⁰

Americans United was launched on 8 August 1944. Initial reaction was positive, and the press was quick to get behind the new organization. The New York Post highlighted the group's three main aims, describing it as “a non-partisan movement designed to keep isolationists out of Congress, promote world peace organization and oppose home front reaction.” In early September, the group urged immediate acceptance of a plan for world organization in a statement addressed to the delegates at the Dumbarton Oaks conference to plan for the United Nations Organization. This statement, the group's first since the conference opened, urged the continuation of great-power collaboration and approved the announcement of the structure of the planned organization. Significantly, the group clearly hoped that it would be the Assembly of the new international organization, not the Executive, that would determine world security policy, and also that there would be no veto held by the great powers over executive decisions: “The great powers should not be above the law.”Footnote ¹¹

Yet despite the united front displayed to the public as the group was launched, discussion of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals saw the first signs of a serious divide within the organization as tensions over policy came to the fore. It was clear that Eichelberger saw Americans United primarily as a vehicle to ensure Congressional ratification of the proposed international organization, and that discussion of the details of the new organization was not only beyond the remit of the AUWO, but the sole preserve of Eichelberger's Commission to Study the Organization of Peace (CSOP). Over the following month, Eichelberger headed the AUWO policy committee, and following the close of the Dumbarton Oaks conference, the policy committee recommended that “Americans United enthusiastically endorse the preliminary agreements reached at Dumbarton Oaks and urge the early completion and ratification of the United Nations Plan.” Although the policy committee did have suggestions on issues such as voting in the Assembly, strengthening the Military Staff Committee, and references to human rights, these were to be transmitted privately to the State Department so that an unconditional endorsement of the proposals could be released.Footnote ¹²

It was soon obvious, however, that Eichelberger was in a minority on the Board of Directors. The remainder of the Board, including Bell and Hopkins, urged that Americans United should follow up on the suggestion of Under-Secretary of State Edward Stettinius to “ask for the maximum.” Stettinius had argued that the American delegation at San Francisco would do better if it was “backed by an American public that is yelling for the strongest, most perfect organization conceivable.” With apparent government support for a critical statement, Eichelberger was clearly in the minority. As treasurer and Board member J. A. Migel argued, Americans United would be “remiss in its duty if it did not act accordingly.”Footnote ¹³

Reacting to pressure for a critical statement, Eichelberger urged that “too many qualifications incorporated in a statement of approval of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals issued publicly by Americans United would confuse the public.” He strongly recommended that the organization issue a simple endorsement of the proposals and that further suggestions be sent to the State Department privately. When voted upon by the Board, Eichelberger's suggestion was defeated ten to four.Footnote ¹⁴

As a result, Americans United's statement regarding Dumbarton Oaks, released on 21 November, was, in the words of Robert Divine, “lukewarm.” While it expressed “deep appreciation of the efforts involved,” the agreements were described merely as “a progressive step on the long road to making wars impossible.” It also highlighted a number of points of contention, most notably the beliefs that Congress should give the President authorization to deploy US forces without further consultation, and that no veto should be allowed in the Security Council.Footnote ¹⁵ For those who saw the primary function of the group as working to establish the new organization as soon as possible, the perfectionist slant of the statement was seen as counterproductive. After lengthy committee discussion of voting procedure, James Warburg wrote to Bell on 15 November arguing that one cannot be for the plan and question one of its basic elements. Presciently, Warburg noted, “What I think is at the root of all this is that a certain number of members of the Board have their hearts set on a super-state or world government.” Even though he sympathized with that viewpoint, the first step was an organization of sovereign nations.Footnote ¹⁶

In response, Eichelberger offered his resignation as chairman of the policy committee to Hopkins on 21 December. Eichelberger had set up and chosen the policy committee himself, so when the committee's recommendations were rejected, Eichelberger realized that policy was actually in the hands of the Executive Committee and the Board. As a result of being placed in such an unnecessary and embarrassing position, he felt he had no choice but to resign. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, the controversy that still existed over the responsibilities of Americans United in relation to his organizations based at 8 West 40th Street, he did not resign from the Executive Committee. As he informed Hopkins, “I shall not hesitate to express my views on questions of policy when they arise at Executive Committee meetings.” Privately, Hopkins expressed his relief that Eichelberger had resigned, and for the sake of the smooth running of AUWO he was clearly frustrated by Eichelberger's insistence on retaining a voice on the Executive Committee.Footnote ¹⁷

The growing rift within Americans United coincided with an increase in the organization's influence, which provided a glimpse of the role that Americans United had hoped to play from the beginning. During the Dumbarton Oaks conference, Americans United successfully organized a background information session with the State Department, thanks to its growing relationship with the State Department's Division of Public Liaison. Approximately one hundred organizations, internationalist or otherwise, representing a broad cross-section of society, attended the meeting. The group also campaigned vigorously during the 1944 elections against the re-election of isolationist Congressmen, and was more than pleased to see the likes of Congressman Hamilton Fish and Senator Gerald P. Nye retired at the November elections. A second, more intimate off-the-record meeting with State Department representatives took place in November, at which the State Department actively sought the cooperation of internationalist groups. Over the following months, Americans United worked closely with the State Department in promoting the Dumbarton Oaks proposals at meetings across the country.Footnote ¹⁸ However, the split within the organization continued to grow through the winter, leaving the gradual internationalists, led by the Eichelberger organizations, to step back from Americans United. It became increasingly clear that the group would never achieve its full potential as envisaged in early 1944.

AMERICANS UNITED AND THE US GOVERNMENT

This was in no small part due to Eichelberger. His withdrawal from the policy committee was due to his more gradual approach to the development of the United Nations. Yet that difference in attitude toward the new international organization was exaggerated by Eichelberger's connections to the Roosevelt administration. The debate over the Dumbarton Oaks proposals offered Eichelberger an opportunity to reinforce his individual and personal relationship both with the State Department and with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eichelberger had closely followed the administration line on postwar planning through his correspondence with Washington officials and his meetings with Roosevelt. Despite two and half years of effort from numerous different internationalist organizations, Eichelberger and his organizations never pushed far ahead of the rhetoric emanating from the Roosevelt administration. Despite private frustration with the slow development of official planning for the United Nations, Eichelberger remained loyal to the government, and with that came the support of the organizations he led.

As a result, Eichelberger retreated into his own, older organizational structures, and worked tirelessly to support the government's proposals. Given Eichelberger's feeling that the best way to influence the government was from a position of cooperation, his previous involvement in State Department planning, and his personal relationship with Roosevelt, any criticisms were put aside for the duration of the debate. Where some AUWO leaders favoured frank discussion and exposition of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, Eichelberger favoured simple endorsement. As had been the case throughout the war, Eichelberger and his organization would act less as an independent private organization, and more as an informal promotional arm of the government.

Indeed, regarding Dumbarton Oaks, Eichelberger had made up his mind about supporting the administration's proposals before he had even seen them. In his telegram to the White House to arrange a meeting with Roosevelt, he appeared to be offering to run a promotional campaign for the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, stating that it was “necessary for me to see him on behalf of the strong educational campaign necessary in support of the Administrations [sic] peace aims.”Footnote ¹⁹

Although Eichelberger had waited and worked for years for the creation of a new international organization, it was clear that from this point on his support for the government would be unquestioning. This set him apart from many fellow internationalists, who waited to see the results of the Dumbarton Oaks conference. A significant number within Americans United were less than satisfied with the results. Eichelberger however, committed his support, and the support of his organizations, to the Roosevelt administration from the beginning of the Dumbarton Oaks conference.

This brought him into conflict with the more radical or perfectionist elements in Americans United. Speaking out on behalf of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals in October, Eichelberger warned against not only “isolationists” but also “perfectionists” who might try to scuttle the recommendations for not going far enough. The “perfectionists” were clearly those in Americans United who wished to hold an open debate on a number of unresolved issues.Footnote ²⁰

The clearest example of where Eichelberger's loyalties lay came at the end of October, shortly after Eichelberger had been outvoted within Americans United over the issue of an unqualified message of support. The divisions within Americans United that followed the meeting with State Department officials on 16 October led Hopkins to consult Stettinius. Hopkins informed the under-secretary of Eichelberger's argument that “any attitude on the part of the Policy Committee excepting one of complete endorsement of the proposals would be considered ungrateful by the Department and subversive of the best interests of the country.” In Hopkins's eyes, it was “far from subversive to express the hope that more might be done.” Indeed, it might lead to an improvement in the proposals, as the “very fact of a pressure group urging more might be an asset to the American representatives in the final discussions.”Footnote ²¹

More significant to Hopkins however, was the wider meaning of a private organization providing unconditional support to the government. He argued that

For Hopkins, the possibility of Americans United being perceived as a Government front organization was unacceptable.Footnote ²²

Adding to this fear was the perception within Americans United that Eichelberger was perhaps too close to the State Department. While Hopkins acknowledged the years of loyalty Eichelberger had shown to the internationalist cause, he also noted that Eichelberger irritated a number of members through “the omniscience with which he speaks and the categorical assertion on his part of knowing the mind of the State Department at all times in regard to all matters.” While there was undoubtedly a degree of personal friction here, it was also clear that Hopkins did not want Americans United to become a State Department mouthpiece.Footnote ²³

At exactly the same time, Eichelberger was also privately in contact with the State Department expressing his reservations with Hopkins and his opponents in Americans United. When Eichelberger met with Stettinius and the Division of Public Liaison's Richard Morin on 31 October, he left two draft Americans United resolutions voted on by the Policy Committee. Resolution A was drafted by Eichelberger as a compromise between his views on an unconditional endorsement and the more equivocal views of his colleagues. Resolution B was much more qualified in its endorsement of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, and it was this resolution that won the vote. However, the committee decided to take no further action until Hopkins met with Stettinius on 3 November, and it was because of this meeting that Eichelberger left the resolutions with the State Department.

Eichelberger clearly believed that an unequivocal statement of support was the best way to promote the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, but the way in which he informed the State Department of the divisions within Americans United further eroded his independent status. He clearly hoped that the State Department would put pressure on Hopkins to issue a strong statement in support of the proposals. Had Hopkins been aware of this action, he would have been justified in believing that Eichelberger was attempting to turn Americans United into a rubber stamp for the government. However, Eichelberger ensured that his actions remained private. He made it clear to Morin that he was not to be seen to “circumvent the officers of Americans United,” and that Hopkins was not to know that he had left the resolutions with the government. Morin noted that “Eichelberger's position might be seriously prejudiced if it were to appear that the Department had any knowledge of the action of Americans United in advance of Dr. Hopkins' Friday meeting.”Footnote ²⁴

Eichelberger reiterated his concerns over the promotion of Dumbarton Oaks and the specific organizational difficulties to Stettinius after their meeting. On the broad issue, Eichelberger was concerned that there was a lack of positive statements about the proposals emanating from the State Department. This lack of leadership from the top was causing the misinterpretation among “commentators and organization heads” that the proposals were only tentative “and that therefore there should be public discussion as to how the agreements should be changed rather than why the public should support them.” This could then lead to the United States entering the final United Nations conference facing “a highly critical public opinion in which the isolationists would naturally oppose and the perfectionists demand changes.”Footnote ²⁵

In his call for the government to speak up on behalf of Dumbarton Oaks, and in his response to the divisions within the internationalist movement, it was clear that Eichelberger no longer simply feared an isolationist backlash against the United Nations. He now held a genuine concern that an overly critical group of internationally minded Americans might also work against the United Nations, albeit inadvertently. Not for the first time, fears were raised of a repeat of 1919 and 1920, when the League of Nations was attacked from both political sides. It also appeared that Eichelberger was not alone in having such fears, as State Department officials moved to include elements of Eichelberger's broader argument into Stettinius's next speech. Similarly, at a CSOP meeting in early November, Ben Gerig of the State Department reiterated to representatives from numerous organizations that Dumbarton Oaks “although labeled tentative is as nearly as possible the result of the widest possible consultation of the public, Congress, and other Governments.” He concluded his talk by asking the assembled group to work for the adoption of the proposals.Footnote ²⁶

Yet there also remained the question of Eichelberger's relationship with the State Department. One member of the Seattle public who attended an Americans United meeting asked whether private organizations should be associated with government agencies such as the State Department. “Has Americans United lost its freedom of status?” he asked. “Has it tended to become associated with official diplomacy or not?” Admittedly, this anonymous individual did hope for stronger proposals than those set out at Dumbarton Oaks. Yet he urged that internationalist organizations “be extremely careful in their relations with official bodies.” After all, how could they be certain the State Department was telling them the whole truth? Could the members of peace organizations be certain of future policy? Should they not keep a critical distance, be more wary of the official line?Footnote ²⁷

If these questions were being asked of Americans United, they were certainly being asked of Clark Eichelberger. Americans United was at least mildly critical of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals. Eichelberger and his organizations were not. Ernest Hopkins had feared being seen as a stooge or a front for the Roosevelt administration. Eichelberger had no such qualms. His trust in the administration was unyielding; and entering the crucial year of 1945, his priority was theirs – the establishment of the United Nations.

BUREAUCRATIC TENSIONS

Following the divisions over the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, and Eichelberger's step back from the Policy Committee, the nature of the tension within Americans United shifted away from matters of policy to questions of organizational responsibility and clashes of personality. Nevertheless, almost all of these issues still related to Clark Eichelberger. Chairman Ernest Hopkins became increasingly aware of the growing divide within the organization, and in a letter to the Rockefeller Foundation's Raymond Fosdick he was especially critical of Eichelberger's efforts, dismissing him as “a professional propagandist” who was clearly at odds with the rest of the Board. He was also pessimistic as to whether any accommodation could be reached between Americans United and Eichelberger's other organizations. Fosdick replied that he felt, as Eichelberger did, that there needed to be greater definition between the organizations, as Americans United continued to act less as a political action committee, expanding into the educational sphere. He also defended Eichelberger personally, arguing that “almost unaided over long, bleak years, when there were few people who cared, he kept a group together which today represents a national organization.”Footnote ²⁸

In reply, Hopkins made it quite clear that he was unhappy with Eichelberger's personal methods as much as with his policy decisions and organizational politics. He argued that Eichelberger interfered with the work of office staff, made excessive demands of State Department officials in Washington, dragged out committee meetings, and, most significantly, had created the general impression that after two decades of carrying the internationalist torch alone, he “had become constitutionally incapable of working with anybody else.” Other Board members with experience from other organizations claimed that Eichelberger had “undertaken to sabotage every single one of these successively as it has been organized and drifted away in the slightest degree from his own supervision and management.” In addition to these complaints, Hopkins was in sharp disagreement with Eichelberger over the division of organizational duties. Hopkins felt that it was impossible to make such a clear differentiation between the political and the educational spheres – in order to convince people to vote a certain way, you had to give them sufficient reason. When confronted about the situation, Eichelberger replied that he felt Americans United was “invading his field.” As a result of the situation, Hopkins held little hope for the future of AUWO, stating, “I am not willing to argue for a moment that it has the best possible organization for doing the important work at the present time,” and that it functioned best when Eichelberger was not around.Footnote ²⁹

However, Eichelberger was still on the Executive Committee, and he continued to have issues with the direction of AUWO. In February, Eichelberger decided to express these concerns directly to Ulric Bell.Footnote ³⁰ He reiterated his belief that Americans United was set up to do political action work, but asked, “have all of us ever sat down together to consider what the political action job is?” As far as Eichelberger was concerned, the job was simply counting heads in the Senate and ensuring passage of the Charter. As he saw it, there were twenty isolationist senators and twenty-one still undecided:

Yet despite Eichelberger's effort at conciliation, his suggestions made no discernible impact on the actions of Americans United, and Bell continued to run the organization as he saw fit. In addition to issuing a statement in support of the Yalta proposals and arranging a further off-the-record discussion with State Department officials regarding the Bretton Woods agreement, the membership drive continued, which made Americans United increasingly like any another mass membership pressure group. Also in February, AUWO released a bill of essential human rights, consisting of eighteen principles, encroaching more than ever before into the sphere of Eichelberger's CSOP.Footnote ³²

Eichelberger increasingly withdrew from the day-to-day activities of Americans United, describing his situation as early as mid-January as “pretty much out of touch” with the organization.Footnote ³³ He turned his attention towards the long-established but newly renamed American Association for the United Nations (AAUN), and its own separate educational campaign. Over the next couple of months, communication and cooperation did occur between AUWO and the AAUN, but relations were never close. The most successful joint initiative came in April with the co-sponsorship of Dumbarton Oaks Week to promote the coming San Francisco conference. Despite this success, attempts to produce a joint AUWO/AAUN statement stating that there was no competition between the groups failed. In fact, given its greater history and established support base, the AAUN increasingly overtook AUWO as the most significant private organization supporting the new United Nations, in terms of government connections and public support.Footnote ³⁴

Yet not all of the divisions within Americans United were down to Clark Eichelberger. Although Hopkins had previously been frustrated by Eichelberger, by June he had become increasingly unsettled with Bell, and he was particularly concerned that Bell was spending too much time on what Hopkins called “liberal” issues other than the primary aim of supporting the new international organization. Hopkins reported that “people who had an initial interest in us and might have contributed to the cause are instead contributing to Clark Eichelberger's outfits in the belief that they are better set up and administratively more efficient in the single aim of getting the treaty ratified than are we.”Footnote ³⁵ Hopkins became increasingly frustrated, describing the organization's name as a “travesty,” as the group was neither united nor solely for world organization. As he told AUWO vice president Walter Wanger, “I cannot work effectively excepting within an organization in which people are capable, cooperative and devoted to the major cause for which the organization has been set up,” and he threatened to withdraw from his position unless significant changes occurred.Footnote ³⁶

Despite its continuing organizational difficulties, AUWO continued to play a role in the promotion of the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. Prior to the conference, the State Department described AUWO as having provided the most vigorous support for the Dumbarton Oaks proposals. In addition, AUWO was one of forty-two organizations invited to send a consultant to the San Francisco conference, an arrangement described by Secretary of State Stettinius as an “innovation in the conduct of international affairs by this government,” providing an “important contribution to the Conference itself.” Americans United was also at the forefront of the ratification campaign that followed. However, AUWO was just one of many organizations at San Francisco, and Eichelberger took it upon himself to coordinate the various private organizations at the conference. By the end of the conference, the organization was not only considering its future, but was on the verge of splitting in two.Footnote ³⁷

As ratification of the United Nations in the US Senate moved ahead at speed, AUWO did indeed split, as many of the gradualists, as well as those who believed that that it had done the job it set out to do, resigned from the organization. For the radicals, however, the new UN was not enough. Not only was there dissatisfaction with the final proposal for the UN, but it was also believed that a political action job would continue to be necessary relating to the strengthening of the UN and other international issues even after ratification.Footnote ³⁸

While Eichelberger and Hopkins resigned immediately after Senate ratification, AUWO continued. The United Nations, which the organization had spent over a year promoting, was now recognized solely as “a logical first step” which needed to be strengthened. By November, AUWO shifted even further towards world government, adopting the policy “to work for the development of the United Nations Organization into a world government to preserve the peace.”Footnote ³⁹

The new policy put clear water between AUWO and the AAUN. Eichelberger's group urged the United States government to utilize the new organization as its primary organ of diplomacy, to show faith and give life to the new organization. While acknowledging that a stronger organization would be needed and that revisions were desirable, it had to be a gradual process, and the call for such revisions should wait until after the UN had been established, to avoid weakening the new organization's authority.Footnote ⁴⁰

The divide would continue to grow over the following year. While the AAUN broadly supported the UN as it was, Americans United continued to urge the creation of world government. In February 1946, the Board voted to change the name of the organization to keep it consistent with organization policy. Americans United for World Government became the organization's official title from the end of March 1946.Footnote ⁴¹ In February 1947, it merged with four other like-minded groups to form United World Federalists.Footnote ⁴²

The history of Americans United sheds new light on the nature of the wartime internationalist movement. While attempting to estimate Americans United's influence on Congressional and public opinion is an impossible task, there is little doubt that the internal difficulties faced by the organization greatly reduced its potential influence. AUWO did play a role in shaping the debates over US entry into the United Nations. Yet even its successes, such as organizing off-the-record meetings with the State Department and sending a consultant to the US delegation at the San Francisco conference were shared with other organizations, representing its failure to achieve pre-eminence in the field. Instead of becoming the internationalist organization, AUWO was just another internationalist organization. As Divine has written, AUWO intended to “unify the internationalist movement.”Footnote ⁴³ Yet the failure to collaborate fully with existing organizations led by Eichelberger reduced the impact of the organization and only added to the confusion that it intended to reduce.

The greatest irony of the situation, along with the organization's name, is that the very individuals who were promoting international cooperation resolutely failed to cooperate with each other. Eichelberger, with the desire for a controlling hand, would never have been content unless he either ran the organization himself or considerably reduced its remit. Bell, the weaker administrator, insisted on ideological control and the latitude to follow unrelated domestic issues. In the middle, Ernest Hopkins never truly held the prestige or even the desire to take a firmer stand on organizational issues. The sovereign organizations of Eichelberger and Bell were not only unable but also unwilling to come together in an internationalist federation. Given that they shared a common language, background, and even similar world views, it remains a mystery as to why their conviction for world organization in various forms never waned in the face of such antagonism. Not all internationalists were so blind to the situation, however. As the AAUN's Chester LaRoche wrote to Ulric Bell,

More significantly, Americans United for World Organization revealed divisions within American internationalism that suggest that the creation of the United Nations was only a limited victory for the movement that had promoted such a body for twenty-five years. The history of AUWO also reveals the difficulties in referring to a coherent internationalist movement in the US, even when it had a clear focus and was supposedly “triumphant.” For supporters of world government, the UN was just the first step to an ideal world organization, a realization that many had reached building on their early criticism of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals. For more gradual internationalists, the disillusionment would primarily come not from the new world body, but from the US government's lack of willingness to use it, and the fact that increased interest in international affairs was not matched after 1945 by a corresponding drive for a multilateral approach to US foreign policy. Significant examples of postwar international involvement, including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the Berlin Airlift proved that the US would act through international organizations and multilateral diplomacy if possible, but through unilateral action if necessary. Even the Korean War, fought under United Nations auspices, would have been undertaken by the US alone in the event of a Soviet veto. Little has changed in subsequent years – unilateralism remains the dominant theme in US foreign policy.Footnote ⁴⁵

The triumph of the state over international organization in the sphere of foreign relations was paralleled domestically by the triumph of the state over internationalist organizations. This triumph, even at the expense of such unquestioning supporters like Clark Eichelberger, reflected the strength of the US government in this state–private relationship. While the Roosevelt and Truman administrations took full advantage of Americans United to educate public opinion about the need for the United Nations, the relationship was not of equals, and influence did not flow both ways. If there truly was a triumph of internationalism in 1945, it was for the vision of qualified internationalism outlined by the US government, not the private organizations who had worked so hard for years to create an international organization.