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The first commitments to the creation of a future international organization emerged in declarations signed at the 1943 wartime Allied conferences.
At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden agreed to draft a declaration that included a call for “a general international organization, based on the principle sovereign equality of all nations.”<ref>{{Cite web |title=Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian |url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/un |access-date=2024-11-09 |website=history.state.gov}}</ref>
President Roosevelt promoted the [[Four Policemen|Four Powers]] idea.{{sfn|Gaddis|1972|p=24}} The [[Moscow Conference (1943)|Moscow Conference]] resulted in the [[Moscow Declarations]] on 30 October 1943, including the [[Declaration of the Four Nations|Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security]]. This declaration omitted any discussion of the potentially-controversial establishment of a permanent peacekeeping force after the war; instead, its stated aim was simply the creation "at the earliest possible date of a general international organization." It was drafted by [[US State Department]] and signed by the foreign secretaries of the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. This was the first formal announcement that a new international organization was being contemplated to replace the moribund League of Nations.
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The Allies agreed to the basic structure of the new body at the [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference]] in 1944. From 21 September to 7 October, delegations from the Big Four met in Washington, D.C. to elaborate plans.<ref>Hoopes and Brinkley, ''FDR and the Creation of the U. N.'' (1997) pp 148–58.</ref> Those and later talks produced proposals outlining the purposes of the new international organization, its membership and organs, as well as arrangements to maintain international peace and security and international economic and social cooperation. Churchill urged Roosevelt to restore France to its status of a major Power after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
For Roosevelt, creating the new organization became the most important goal for the entire war effort.<ref>For FDR, "establishing the United nations organization was the overarching strategic goal, the absolute first priority." {{cite book|author1=Townsend Hoopes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OztJcfbnpDsC&pg=PA178|title=FDR and the Creation of the U.N.|author2=Douglas Brinkley|publisher=Yale UP|year=1997|isbn=0300085532|page=178}}</ref> It was his idea that "[[Four Policemen]]" would collaborate to keep and enforce the peace. The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China would make the major decisions. He went public with strong advocacy in the 1944 presidential campaign, and turned detailed planning over to the State Department, where [[Sumner Welles]] and Secretary
At the [[Yalta Conference]] in February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to the establishment of the United Nations, as well as the structure of the [[United Nations Security Council]]. Stalin insisted on having a veto and FDR finally agreed; thus avoiding the fatal weakness of the League of Nations, which had theoretically been able to order its members to act in defiance of their own parliaments.<ref>John Allphin Moore Jr. and Jerry Pubantz, ''To Create a New World?: American Presidents & the United Nations'' (1999), pp 27–79.</ref> It was agreed that membership would be open to nations that had joined the Allies by 1 March 1945.<ref>Robert C. Hilderbrand, ''Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security'' (UNC Press, 2001)</ref> Brazil, Syria and a number of other countries qualified for membership by declarations of war on either Germany or Japan in the first three months of 1945 – in some cases retroactively.
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