Four Policemen

The "Four Policemen" was a postwar council with the Big Four
that US President Franklin Roosevelt proposed as a guarantor of
world peace. Their members were called the Four Powers during
World War II and were the four major Allies of World War II: the
United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China.
Roosevelt repeatedly used the term "Four Policemen" starting in
1942.[1]

The Four Policemen would be responsible for keeping order within

their spheres of influence: Britain in its empire and Western Europe, The Allied leaders of the European
the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the central Eurasian theatre: Joseph Stalin, Franklin
landmass, China in East Asia and the Western Pacific; and the Roosevelt and Winston Churchill
meeting at the Tehran Conference in
United States in the Western Hemisphere. As a preventive measure
1943
against new wars, countries other than the Four Policemen were to
be disarmed. Only the Four Policemen would be allowed to possess
any weapons more powerful than a rifle.[2]

Initially, Roosevelt envisioned the new postwar international

organization would be formed several years after the war. Later, he
came to view creating the United Nations as the most important
goal for the entire war effort.[3] His vision for the organization
consisted of three branches: an executive branch with the Big Four,
an enforcement branch composed of the same four great powers
acting as the Four Policemen or Four Sheriffs, and an international
Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin Roosevelt,
assembly representing other nations.[4] and Winston Churchill meet at the
Cairo Conference in 1943 during
As a compromise with internationalist critics, the Big Four nations World War II.
became the permanent members of the UN Security Council, with
significantly less power than had been envisioned in the Four
Policemen proposal.[5] When the United Nations was officially established later in 1945, France was in due
course added as the fifth permanent member of the Security Council[6] because of the insistence of
Churchill.

History

Background
After World War I, the United States pursued a policy of isolationism and declined to join the League of
Nations in 1919. Roosevelt had been a supporter of the League of Nations but, by 1935, he told his foreign
policy adviser Sumner Welles: "The League of Nations has become nothing more than a debating society,
and a poor one at that!".[7] Roosevelt criticized the League for representing the interests of too many
nations. He came to favor an approach to global peace secured through the unified efforts of the world's
great powers, rather than through the Wilsonian notions of international consensus and collaboration that
guided the League of Nations.[8]

The idea that great powers should "police" the world had been discussed by President Roosevelt as early as
August 1941, during his first meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When the Atlantic
Charter was issued, Roosevelt had ensured that the charter omitted mentioning any American commitment
towards the establishment of a new international body after the war.[9] He was reluctant to publicly
announce his plans for creating a postwar international body, aware of the risk that the American people
might reject his proposals, and he did not want to repeat Woodrow Wilson's struggle to convince the Senate
to approve American membership in the League of Nations.

Roosevelt's proposal was to create a new international body led by a "trusteeship" of great powers that
would oversee smaller countries. In September 1941, he wrote:

In the present complete world confusion, it is not thought advisable at this time to reconstitute a
League of Nations which, because of its size, makes for disagreement and inaction... There seem
no reason why the principle of trusteeship in private affairs should be not be extended to the
international field. Trusteeship is based on the principle of unselfish service. For a time at least
there are many minor children among the peoples of the world who need trustees in their relations
with other nations and people, just as there are many adult nations or peoples which must be led
back into a spirit of good conduct.[8]

Despite a "desultory" first effort, the U.S. State Department's postwar planning had been in abeyance for
most of 1940 and 1941.[10] Following the Atlantic Conference, a directive on postwar planning was
prepared by the State Department by mid-October, which was delivered to the President in late
December.[11]

Plans for the Four Policemen

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led to a change in Roosevelt's position. He
transformed his trusteeship proposal into a proposal for Four Policemen – the United States, Britain, the
Soviet Union, and China – to enforce the peace after the war for several years while other nations, friend
and foe, would be disarmed.[8] Roosevelt made his first references to the Four Policemen proposal in early
1942.[12] This would not preclude the eventual formation of a worldwide organisation of nations "for the
purpose of full discussion" provided "management" was left to the Four Policemen.[2]

He presented his postwar plans to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov,[13] who had arrived in
Washington on May 29 to discuss the possibility of launching a second front in Europe.[14] The President
said to Molotov that "he could not visualize another League of Nations with 100 different signatories; there
were simply too many nations to satisfy, hence it was a failure and would be a failure".[15] Roosevelt told
Molotov that the Big Four must unite after the war to police the world and disarm aggressor states.[12]
When Molotov asked about the role of other countries, Roosevelt answered by opining that too many
"policemen" could lead to infighting, but he was open to the idea of allowing other allied countries to
participate.[12] A memorandum of the conference summarizes their conversation:
 The President told Molotov that he visualized the
enforced disarmament of our enemies and, indeed, some
of our friends after the war; that he thought that the
United States, England, Russia and perhaps China should
police the world and enforce disarmament by inspection.
The President said that he visualized Germany, Italy,
Japan, France, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and other
nations would not be permitted to have military forces.
He stated that other nations might join the first four
mentioned after experience proved they could be
trusted.[15]

Roosevelt and Molotov continued their discussion of the Four 1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of
Policemen in a second meeting on June 1. Molotov informed the the United Nations' original three
branches. The branch on the right
President that Stalin was willing to support Roosevelt's plans for
represents the Four Policemen.
maintaining postwar peace through the Four Policemen and
enforced disarmament. Roosevelt also raised the issue of postwar
decolonization. He suggested that former colonies should undergo a period of transition under the
governance of an international trusteeship prior to their independence.[13][16]

China was brought in as a member of the Big Four and a future member of the Four Policemen. Roosevelt
was in favor of recognizing China as a great power because he was certain that the Chinese would side
with the Americans against the Soviets. He said to British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, "In any serious
conflict of policy with Russia, [China] would undoubtedly line up on our side." As it was before the
Chinese Civil War was won by the Communists, he did not mean the Communist China, but the Republic
of China.[17] The President believed that a pro-American China would be useful for the United States
should the Americans, Soviets, and Chinese agree to jointly occupy Japan and Korea after the war.[18]
When Molotov voiced concerns about the stability of China, Roosevelt responded by saying that the
combined "population of our nations and friends was well over a billion people".[15][13]

Churchill objected to Roosevelt's inclusion of China as one of the Big Four because he feared that the
Americans were trying to undermine Britain's colonial holdings in Asia. In October 1942, Churchill told
Eden that Republican China represented a "faggot vote on the side of the United States in any attempt to
liquidate the British overseas empire."[19] Eden shared this view with Churchill and expressed skepticism
that China, which was then in the midst of a civil war, could ever return to a stable nation. Roosevelt
responded to Churchill's criticism by telling Eden that "China might become a very useful power in the Far
East to help police Japan" and that he was fully supportive of offering more aid to China.[18]

Formation of the United Nations

On New Year's Day 1942, the representatives of Allied "Big Four", the United States, the United Kingdom,
the Soviet Union, and China, signed a short document which later came to be known as the Declaration by
United Nations and the next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their
signatures.[20][21]
President Roosevelt initiated post-war plans for the creation of a new and more durable international
organization that would replace the former League of Nations. Roosevelt's Four Policemen proposal
received criticism from liberal internationalists who wanted power to be more evenly distributed among
nations. Internationalists were concerned that the Four Policemen could lead to a new Quadruple
Alliance.[5]

A new plan for the United Nations was drafted by the State Department in April 1944. It kept the emphasis
on great power solidarity that was central to Roosevelt's Four Policemen proposal for the United Nations.
The members of the Big Four would serve as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Each of the four permanent members would be given a United Nations Security Council veto power, which
would override any UN resolution that went against the interests of one of the Big Four. However, the State
Department had compromised with the liberal internationalists. Membership eligibility was widened to
include all nation states fighting against the Axis powers instead of a select few.

Roosevelt had been a supporter of the League of Nations back in 1919–20, but was determined to avoid the
mistakes Woodrow Wilson had made. The United Nations was FDR's highest postwar priority. He insisted
on full coordination with the Republican leadership. He made sure that leading Republicans were on board,
especially Senators Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan,[22] and Warren Austin of Vermont.[23] In a broad
sense, Roosevelt believed that the UN could solve the minor problems and provide the chief mechanism to
resolve any major issues that arose among the great powers, all of whom would have a veto. Roosevelt was
especially interested in international protection of human rights, and in this area his wife played a major role
as well.[24][25]

The Dumbarton Oaks Conference convened in August 1944 to discuss plans for the postwar United
Nations with delegations from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China.[5] US
President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered his most important legacy the creation of the United Nations,
making a permanent organization out of the wartime Alliance of the same name. He was the chief promoter
of the United Nations idea.

The Big Four were the only four sponsoring countries of the San Francisco Conference of 1945 and their
heads of the delegations took turns as chairman of the plenary meetings.[26] During this conference, the Big
Four and their allies signed the Charter of the United Nations.[27]

Legacy
In the words of a former Undersecretary General of the UN, Sir Brian Urquhart:

It was a pragmatic system based on the primacy of the strong – a "trusteeship of the powerful", as
he then called it, or, as he put it later, "the Four Policemen". The concept was, as [Senator Arthur
H.] Vandenberg noted in his diary in April 1944, "anything but a wild-eyed internationalist dream
of a world state.... It is based virtually on a four-power alliance." Eventually this proved to be
 both the potential strength and the actual weakness of the future UN, an organization theoretically
based on a concert of great powers whose own mutual hostility, as it turned out, was itself the
greatest potential threat to world peace.[28]

See also
American Century
Diplomatic history of World War II
Global policeman
Grand Alliance (World War II)
List of Allied World War II conferences

References

Citations
1. Richard W. Van Alstyne, "The United States and Russia in World War II: Part I" Current
History 19#111 (1950), pp. 257-260 online (https://www.jstor.org/stable/45307844)
2. Gaddis 1972, p. 25.
3. For Roosevelt, "establishing the United nations organization was the overarching strategic
goal, the absolute first priority." Townsend Hoopes; Douglas Brinkley (1997). FDR and the
Creation of the U.N. (https://books.google.com/books?id=OztJcfbnpDsC&pg=PA178) Yale
UP. p. 178. ISBN 0300085532.
4. Hoopes & Brinkley 1997, p. 100.
5. Gaddis 1972, p. 27.
6. 1946-47 Part 1: The United Nations. Section 1: Origin and Evolution.Chapter E: The
Dumbarton Oaks Conversations (https://www.unmultimedia.org/searchers/yearbook/page.js
p?volume=1946-47&page=41&searchType=advanced). The Yearbook of the United
Nations. United Nations. p. 6. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
7. Welles 1951, pp. 182–204.
8. Gaddis 1972, p. 24.
9. Gaddis 1972, pp. 25–26.
10. Hoopes & Brinkley 1997, pp. 43–45.
11. Hoopes & Brinkley 1997, pp. 45.
12. Kimball 1991, p. 85.
13. Dallek 1995, p. 342.
14. Gaddis 1972, p. 68.
15. United States Department of State 1942, p. 573.
16. United States Department of State 1942, p. 580.
17. Westad, Odd (2003). Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950 (https://archiv
e.org/details/decisiveencounte00west). Stanford University Press. p. 305 (https://archive.org/
details/decisiveencounte00west/page/305). ISBN 978-0-8047-4484-3.
18. Dallek 1995, p. 390.
19. Dallek 1995, p. 389.
20. United Nations Official Website 1942.
21. Ma 2003, pp. 203–204.
22. James A. Gazell, "Arthur H. Vandenberg, Internationalism, and the United Nations." Political
Science Quarterly 88#3 (1973): 375-394. online (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2148990)
23. George T. Mazuzan. Warren R. Austin at the U. N., 1946-1953 (Kent State UP, 1977).
24. Ivy P. Urdang, "Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: Human Rights and the Creation of the
United Nations." OAH Magazine of History 22.2 (2008): 28-31.
25. M. Glen Johnson, "The contributions of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt to the development
of international protection for human rights." Human Rights Quarterly 9 (1987): 19+.
26. United Nations Official Website 1945.
27. Gaddis 1972, p. 28.
28. Urquhart 1998.

Sources

Print

Bosco, David (2009). Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the
Modern World (https://archive.org/details/fivetorulethemal00bosc). Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-532876-9.
Dallek, Robert (1995). Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945: With
a New Afterword. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-982666-7.
Gaddis, John Lewis (1972). The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947
(https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesorig0000gadd). Columbia University Press.
ISBN 978-0-231-12239-9.
Hoopes, Townsend; Brinkley, Douglas (1997). FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (https://archi
ve.org/details/fdrcreationofun00hoop). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08553-2.
Kimball, Warren F. (1991). The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman.
Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03730-2.
Ma, Xiaohua (2003). The Sino-American alliance during World War II and the lifting of the
Chinese exclusion acts. New York: Routledge. pp. 203–204. ISBN 0-415-94028-1.
United States Department of State (1942). "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". Foreign
relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1942. Europe Volume III. U.S. Government
Printing Office. pp. 406–771.
Welles, Sumner (January 1951). "Two Roosevelt Decisions: One Debit, One Credit" (https://
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1951-01-01/two-roosevelt-decisions-one-debit-one-credit).
Foreign Affairs. Vol. 29, no. 2. pp. 182–204.

Online

"1942: Declaration of The United Nations" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160513100750/htt

ps://www.un.org/en/sections/history-united-nations-charter/1942-declaration-united-nations/i
ndex.html). United Nations. Archived from the original (https://www.un.org/en/sections/history
-united-nations-charter/1942-declaration-united-nations/index.html) on May 13, 2016.
Retrieved 21 April 2016.
"1945: The San Francisco Conference" (https://web.archive.org/web/20151030001950/http
s://www.un.org/en/sections/history-united-nations-charter/1945-san-francisco-conference/ind
ex.html). United Nations. 1945. Archived from the original (https://www.un.org/en/sections/his
tory-united-nations-charter/1945-san-francisco-conference/index.html) on Oct 30, 2015.
Retrieved 16 May 2015.
 Urquhart, Brian (16 July 1998). "Looking for the Sheriff" (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/19
98/07/16/looking-for-the-sheriff/). New York Review of Books.

External links
"Instrumental Internationalism: The American Origins of the United Nations, 1940–3" (https://
www.academia.edu/38401632/Instrumental_Internationalism_The_American_Origins_of_th
e_United_Nations_1940_3) by Stephen Wertheim
"US: UN" (https://newleftreview.org/II/24/peter-gowan-us-un) by Peter Gowan

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