San Francisco Conference

Formally United Nations Conference on International Organization (April 25–June 26, 1945), international meeting that established the United Nations. The basic principles of a worldwide organization that would embrace the political objectives of the Allies had been proposed at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 and reaffirmed at the Yalta Conference in early 1945.

The conference was attended by delegations from the 46 nations that had signed the 1942 Declaration of the United Nations, which set forth the Allied aims in World War II, but the leading roles were taken by the foreign ministers of the so-called Big Four nations: U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Anthony Eden of Great Britain, V.M. Molotov of the U.S.S.R., and T.V. Soong of China. Five more members were proposed. The Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republics were accepted—despite some Western objections that they were not independent countries—as were Argentina and Denmark. The Soviet-backed Lublin government in Poland was rejected because its legitimacy was not recognized by the other Allies. (Later, Poland was admitted and allowed to be considered an original member, bringing the total to 51.)

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