Eleanor Roosevelt to Peggie Wingard

14 June 1946 [Hyde Park]

My dear Mrs. Wingard:

Forgive me if I address you somewhat formally, but I was not aware of having made your acquaintance. I have, however, met so many people that I realize I may be wrong in not addressing you by your first name, and if so I ask your forgiveness.

The subject matter of your letter seems to me very odd probably because you are so little aware of certain things that happen.

The Jewish people find themselves oft times "Jim Crowed" as you put it. I am not aware, however, that there is any particular kind of Jew who is attracted to this country. I know as great a variety of Jewish people as I know of Gentiles, or of Negroes. There is no particular type or group, and the sooner we learn that, the better it will be for all of us. There are bad people and good people; people with education and uneducated people in every group. There is a lack of understanding of people which creates racial and religious antagonisms, but I think we are doing better as time goes on. I can remember some of the things that went on at the end of the First World War but there is an improvement, especially among young people since this last War.

                                        Very sincerely yours,

TLc AERP, FDRL

1. Peggie Wingard to ER, 28 May 1946, AERP.

On Bernard Baruch and Atomic Energy

June 14, Bernard Baruch, the American delegate to the UN's Commission on Atomic Energy (UNAEC), delivered a speech during the commission's first session, in which he made an urgent appeal for international control of atomic energy:¹

Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work our salvation. If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of fear. Let us not deceive ourselves: We must elect world peace or world destruction …

Now, if ever, is the time to act for the common good. Public opinion supports a world movement toward security. If I read the signs aright, the peoples want a program, not composed merely of pious thoughts, but of enforceable sanctions—an international law with teeth in it.²

While widespread agreement on the need for some form of international control existed, the major powers disagreed strongly over the commission's structure and scope.

ER then threw her support behind Baruch. Two days after ER's column appeared, Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet delegate to the UNAEC, formally rejected the American proposal and countered with a draft convention of his own.³