ATLANTIC CHARTER.

From 9 August to 12 August 1941, the U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, met secretly aboard U.S. and British warships anchored in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, Canada. This dramatic encounter, which transpired while the United States was officially neutral, proved the first of many wartime conferences between the two leaders. The Atlantic Conference confirmed Roosevelt's policy of all-out American aid for Britain and the Soviet Union and produced a statement of war and peace aims shortly afterward termed the "Atlantic Charter." The circumstances in which the Atlantic Charter was promulgated ensured that this declaration of principles would be both celebrated as an epochal event in the struggle for individual and group rights and fiercely criticized and subjected to endless analysis and debate.

In one sense, the meeting of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill was a logical culmination of some fifteen months of ardent wooing of America by the British. As soon as he took office in May 1940, Churchill launched a campaign to bring the United States into the war on Britain's side. Gradually, Roosevelt and the American people responded to Churchill's plea to have the "New World" come to "the rescue of the Old." Via such steps as the destroyer-bases deal, Roosevelt's commitment to make America the "Arsenal of Democracy," and Lend-Lease, the United States adopted a pro-British and anti-Nazi stance. But Churchill and his advisors wanted more—full scale American participation in the war and quickly before the British public's resolve to fight on gave way to despair. The events of spring–summer 1941 revealed that President Roosevelt was not yet prepared to take that epochal decision for war.

THE ATLANTIC CHARTER

The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Winston S. Churchill

Thus, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their respective staffs brought divergent agendas to their meeting off Newfoundland. The British pushed for active American participation in the struggle to block Axis threats to North Africa, the Atlantic islands, and Southeast Asia. Roosevelt's goal was to obtain a statement of "peace aims" to mollify isolationists back home and to get on record a British commitment to such traditional American goals as no secret agreements, self-determination, and multilateral trade. Difficult negotiations during the four-day conference produced an eight-point "declaration of principles." The statement set forth views later incorporated in the "Declaration by the United Nations" of 1 January 1942 as the "common program of purposes and principles … known as the Atlantic Charter." Five of its articles (self-determination, freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of movement) dealt in some sense with individual and group rights; the remaining clauses espoused political and economic aims (disarmament of aggressors and removal for all of the "crushing burden" of armaments, open access to markets and raw materials, and the establishment of mechanisms to ensure just and lasting peace) that embodied liberal internationalist thinking about the causes of war and the foundations of world peace. The Atlantic Charter reflected American ideals from the "Fourteen Points" of Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) to Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" proclamation of January 1941, and the statement strongly implied general applicability.

Long after the circumstances that led to the August 1941 meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill had faded into the mists of memory, the Atlantic Charter remained a live issue. Dismissed by Berlin and such collaborators as Vichy France as "mere propaganda," the unrealistic ravings of advocates of a discredited ideology, the Charter nonetheless fired the imagination of men and women throughout the world. Hitler appears already to have concluded that the United States was in the war, and some scholars go so far as to suggest that his violent reaction against the Atlantic Charter contributed to his executing the final solution of the Jewish problem. He had promised that should the war become a world war, the outcome would be the destruction of European Jewry. He kept his word.

Viewed by its creators as an assertion of aspirations for those nations that fought the Axis, the Charter became the vehicle of Allied Powers war aims and the guiding manifesto that led directly to the establishment of the United Nations. Though the charter was officially no more than a press release by the leader of a belligerent power and the head of a neutral nation, the U.S. Department of State's listing of treaties still in force includes the Atlantic Charter and identifies as its signatories all of the adherents to the Declaration by the United Nations. As a result, the Atlantic Charter is in the early twenty-first century considered a pivotal document in the struggle to achieve acceptance of universal principles of human rights and justice.

See alsoNATO; United Nations; Universal Declaration of Human Rights; World War II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Facey-Crowther, David, and Douglas Brinkley, eds. The Atlantic Charter. New York, 1994.

Gilbert, Martin. Churchill and America. New York, 2005.

Kimball, Warren F. Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War. New York, 1997.

Wilson, Theodore A. The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay, 1941. Rev. ed. Lawrence, Kans., 1991.

Theodore A. Wilson

Atlantic Charter

The Atlantic Charter was signed August 14, 1941, four months before the United States officially entered World War II . It was a joint statement by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45) of the United States and Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) of Great Britain. The charter reflected their countries’ eight common objectives for a postwar world. The objectives emphasized the different philosophies of the two democracies and the other main Allied power, the Soviet Union. President Roosevelt hoped the charter would encourage support in the United States for entering the war alongside the Allies .

The Atlantic Charter was written during a secret meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill when the United States was still technically a neutral country. It was becoming clear to Roosevelt that the United States would probably enter the war soon, so the meeting covered many issues concerning the war. Churchill was not convinced of the need for a joint declaration, but he introduced ideas in a draft statement. A number of points proved to be controversial, but at the end of the meeting a final statement was formed. The ideas it contained would prove to be highly important in guiding Allied initiatives throughout the war and in establishing postwar peace.

The Atlantic Charter included eight basic points. It set forth the concept that each country should have the right of self-determination. This meant that territorial changes would happen only with the approval of the people concerned. Furthermore, each country would be allowed to establish the government of its choosing. Both powers declared that they sought no territorial gains from the war. Other points reflected their hopes for a world in which all nations would have access to trade and prosperity. They included thoughts on a new system of international security that would allow freedom of the seas, encourage fewer arms, and reduce fear in the world.

The Atlantic Charter was welcomed in both countries. Its importance, however, became clear only after the United States entered the war. The Charter helped define Allied goals when it was included as part of the Declaration by the United Nations in January 1942. Twenty-six nations embraced the aims of the Atlantic Charter when they signed the Declaration by the United Nations. That number eventually doubled.

The Atlantic Charter had a significant impact on the postwar world. The notion of an international system of security prompted the formation of the United Nations (UN), created in 1945. By grounding itself in the declaration of 1942, the UN embraced the principles of the Atlantic Charter. The right of self-determination thus became a guiding principle in international politics. In the thirty years following the war, important transfers of political power happened throughout the world. With encouragement from the Atlantic Charter, many countries were motivated to establish their independence from outside rule.

ATLANTIC CHARTER

ATLANTIC CHARTER was signed 14 August 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain at a meeting in Argentia Bay off the coast of Newfoundland. The United States, still technically neutral in World War II, had already taken a number of steps that brought it closer to war. The charter resembled President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points in that both declarations expressed idealistic objectives for a postwar world. The charter included the following points: the renunciation of territorial aggrandizement; opposition to territorial changes not approved by the people concerned; the right of people to choose their own form of government; equal access to trade and raw materials of the world; promotion of economic advancement, improved labor standards, and social security; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and disarmament of aggressor nations pending the establishment of a permanent system of peace.

Although only a press release as first issued, the charter was nonetheless well understood to be a pronouncement of considerable significance. It acquired further authority when, on 1 January 1942, twenty-six countries (including the United States and Great Britain) signed the United Nations Declaration, which included among its provisions formal endorsement of the charter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Kimball, Warren F. Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War. New York: Morrow, 1997.

Charles S.Campbell/a. g.

See alsoFour Freedoms ; Great Britain, Relations with ; Treaties with Foreign Nations .

Atlantic Charter

introductionThe Atlantic Charter, a declaration of principles issued by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill in 1941, echoed Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and called for the rights of self-determination, self-government, and free speech for all peoples. The charter stipulated that at the end of World War II, all Allied nations could determine their own political destinies. Many African and Asian nationalists capitalized on the promise of the Atlantic Charter to argue for political independence from colonial control.

AUGUST 14, 1941

The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

Atlantic Charter

Atlantic Charter, a declaration of solidarity made by Great Britain and the United States on 14 August 1941. Prior to U.S. entry into World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Great Britain. Together the two leaders issued the Atlantic Charter, a broadly conceived statement affirming the two nations' solidarity in the face of impending threats to international security.

The Atlantic Charter cited the rights of all nations to self-determination and "the abandonment of the use of force" in international disputes. The charter was eventually approved by all members of the United Nations, including the countries of Latin America, for whom the charter's repudiation of aggression and insistence on unrestricted free travel on the seas bore particular significance.

See alsoWorld War II .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donald M. Dozer, Are We Good Neighbors? (1959).

Additional Bibliography

Coggiola, Osvaldo, and André R. Martin. Segunda Guerra Mundial: Um balanço histórico. São Paulo, SP: Xamã, 1995.

Friedman, Max Paul. Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Leonard, Thomas M. and John F. Bratzel. Latin America During World War II. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

                                         John Dudley