Eleanor Read online

  Another factor, perhaps the decisive one, in hardening congressional opposition to the Convention was the rising tension over civil rights inside the United States and the fears of the southern whites that the United Nations might help American Negroes in their struggle against discrimination. Black Americans had already appealed to the United Nations Human Rights division for redress of their grievances against American society. An NAACP petition to this effect was submitted to the United Nations in 1947. It was a carefully researched brief prepared under the direction of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois with the assistance of distinguished Negro and white attorneys and scholars.

  The petition was to be presented to Henri Laugier and Dr. John Humphrey, Walter White notified Mrs. Roosevelt. “Would it be possible for you to be present as demonstration of deep concern of responsible American opinion with the problem which is international as well as national?” She wrote White:

  As an individual I should like to be present, but as a member of the delegation I feel that until this subject comes before us in the proper way, in a report of the Human Rights Commission or otherwise, I should not seem to be lining myself up in any particular way on any subject.

  It isn’t as though everyone did not know where I stand. It is just a matter of proper procedure.24

  On her way to the first General Assembly she had exclaimed on how wonderful it was to feel free and to be able to say just what she wanted. But she had learned after a year’s service with the delegation, that in a way she had less freedom than when Franklin was president:

  I am on an entirely different basis. Now I am obliged to carry out the policy of the Government. When my husband was President, although I was the White House hostess, I was, after all, a private citizen, and for that reason I was freer than I am now. . . .25

  The Soviet double standard and the hostility of the southern bloc in the Senate to any international undertaking that might bolster the Negro drive made the State Department warier than ever of the Convention. Hendrick went up to consult Dr. Humphrey, director of the United Nations Human Rights division, on whether in realistic terms a declaration might not be as effective as a convention in the protection of human rights. Although Dr. Humphrey agreed with the United States that the Declaration should be the starting point in the UN approach to human rights, he did not believe, Hendrick advised Mrs. Roosevelt, it would have legally binding force.26

  Although the department policy group had prepared a U.S. version of what should go into a convention, there was no agreement, as Mrs. Roosevelt prepared in November, 1947, to leave for Geneva, on whether this document should even be circulated to the other members of the Commission as a working paper and basis for discussion. Robert A. Lovett, the hard-boiled international banker, conservative in outlook, who was undersecretary of state, was a little skeptical of Mrs. Roosevelt and even more so of the Convention. When Hendrick conferred with him just before taking off for the December session of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Lovett expressed, as Hendrick informed Mrs. Roosevelt, “a very real objection to the implication which he got from the Declaration that all the rights therein contained were immediately enforceable.” On Lovett’s insistence, Hendrick, subject to Mrs. Roosevelt’s concurrence, agreed to soften the Preamble so that it called upon members to “promote” rather than to “enforce” the rights enumerated in the draft Declaration. That was acceptable to Mrs. Roosevelt provided the United States supported a covenant,† but she knew that this would mean ultimately overcoming Lovett’s doubts on the subject. He had expressed those doubts to Hendrick after he had finished on the subject of the Declaration. “We don’t want to have a document which will be happily adhered to by a number of countries which have absolutely no intention of living up to certain of the provisions, and where the violations will be so widespread the UN will be completely powerless to do anything about the matter.”27

  She arrived in Geneva, after a plane trip that, because of “freakish” weather, took four days, to find the Russians on the offensive. For the first time, Moscow had assigned someone to the Commission who was an experienced diplomat, a legal scholar, and a debater. He was Alexander E. Bogomolov, Russia’s ambassador in Paris. In the Sub-commission on Minorities and Discrimination, where Jonathan Daniels served as the U.S. expert, the Soviet delegate wanted immediate investigation of the conditions of Negroes in the United States on the basis of the petition of the NAACP. And in the Human Rights Commission itself Bogomolov demanded that priority be given to petition relating to violations of human rights in the non-self-governing trust territories. “Listening to the Russian speakers,” commented a New York Times reporter, “one gets the impression that they believe they have found the Achilles heel of the U.S. and Britain.” Although Bogomolov gave the United States “a very hard time,” the Times reporter felt that “the Russians seem to have met their match in Mrs. Roosevelt. The proceedings sometimes turn into a long vitriolic attack on the United States when she is not present. These attacks, however, generally degenerate into flurries in the face of her calm and undisturbed but often pointed replies.”28

  “Now, of course, I’m a woman and don’t understand all these things,” she would begin a reply and further baffle her Communist opponent with the acknowledgment that there was a good deal in his argument. Then, having smothered her antagonist in these placative preliminaries, Mrs. Roosevelt would quietly state America’s readiness to have Soviet experts examine U.S. practices, if American observers could do the same in the Soviet Union; or she would acknowledge U.S. shortcomings, note U.S. efforts to do better, and finish her rebuttal by observing mildly that it took maturity in nations as well as individuals to admit mistakes and deficiencies. “Never have I seen naïveté and cunning so gracefully blended,” a State Department advisor commented.29

  At the outset of the Commission’s session, she voted for a Soviet resolution to give priority to the Commission’s consideration of the draft Declaration. But only the United States and the USSR favored such an ordering of the agenda. When this became clear the United States bowed to the will of the majority, which felt, she noted, “that the world is expecting a definite commitment which would force the governments to change their laws, if necessary, to conform to an international bill or covenant, and they wished that to be considered first, or at least simultaneously with a Declaration.”30

  A cable arrived from Washington authorizing the U.S. delegation to submit the U.S. draft Covenant as a basis for discussion, and Hendrick turned the document over to the Secretariat for distribution. At three in the morning his telephone rang in the Beau Rivage. Walter M. Kotschnig, his superior in Washington, was at the other end. “He bawled the hell out of me for having had the draft Covenant circulated, because in the meantime Lovett had instructed him to kill the Covenant. That was the way we got started with the Covenant at Geneva.”31

  Unexpectedly, a prodigious amount of time was spent on the first article of the Declaration. That article, modeled on the American Declaration of Independence, read, “All men are created equal.” That would never do, protested Mrs. Hansa Mehta of India. “All men” might be interpreted to exclude women. In vain did Mrs. Roosevelt argue that the women of the United States had never felt they were cut out of the Declaration of Independence because it said “all men.” The women felt strongly. It became a minor cause célèbre in the Commission on the Status of Women, which voted unanimously to ask the Commission on Human Rights to substitute “all people” for “all men.”32

  Mrs. Roosevelt did not resist. While she had not objected to being assigned to the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (III) in the beginning, she had come to resent the automatic assumption on the part of the men that women were not to be trusted with political issues.33 Many of the women in the United Nations had reached the top in countries where women had very little recognition. They were afraid of the phrase “all men”: “Oh, no,” they protested, “if it says ‘all men,’ when we go home it will be all men.” So it was finally chang
ed to “all human beings,” and subsequent articles began “Everyone” or “No one.” Occasionally, in the body of an article a lonely “his” was allowed to remain because that seemed a little more elegant than saying “his and hers.”

  This same article also substituted the phrase “are born free and equal” for “are created,” the latter formulation implying a Divine Creator and a divine spark in man, Mrs. Roosevelt said, which made it unacceptable to the Communist representatives. When you write an international document, she explained,

  you try not to let the words interfere with getting as much agreement as possible and as much acceptance as possible to obtain the ends you want. Now, we wanted as many nations as possible to accept the fact that men, for one reason or another, were born free and equal in dignity and rights, that they were endowed with reason and conscience, and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood. The way to do that was to find words that everyone would accept, and so that is why it says “are born” instead of saying “are created.”34

  As chairman, she pushed her Commission relentlessly at Geneva. “I drive hard and when I get home I will be tired! The men on the Commission will be also!” she wrote. Her colleagues called her “a slave driver,” the delegate of Panama at one point begging her not to forget the right of the human beings who were members of the Commission. She was not unresponsive to the beauties and distractions of Geneva. “At last I have seen Mont Blanc!” she exclaimed as the clouds finally rolled away, but they had agreed to work overtime if they took Saturday afternoon off, she reminded them, and kept them in session until seven. Why didn’t they shorten the length of their speeches, she suggested, if they objected to the length of the sessions. “No one can ever tell me that women like to talk longer than men!”

  A week before Christmas the Declaration was approved by a vote of 13 to 4. Mrs. Roosevelt was not satisfied with the language. It was too professorial, too lawyerlike. “All my advisers are lawyers or I would be lost,” she advised a friend, adding, “common sense is valuable now & then I find however!” The Commission approved her resolution asking the drafting committee to prepare a short text, “which will be readily understood by all peoples.” On this resolution there was neither abstention nor dissent.35

  The delegates said good-by. Bogomolov came up to her to report that his wife, who had assisted him as a translator, was practically dead “and I am very tired while you look fresh as a daisy.” That compliment, coming from a country whose representatives were known for their willingness to outsit and outtalk the representatives of the “decadent” democracies, pleased her.

  “I’d love to slide on these floors,” Mrs. Roosevelt had confided to Jim Hendrick at the beginning of the session, when she felt their polished marble under her feet. “Now you can take your slide,” Hendrick solemnly advised her as they walked away from the Palais des Nations chamber in which the Commission had been meeting. Whereupon Mrs. Roosevelt gave a little run and slid, ran again, and slid once more.

  “I’ve been thinking about the meeting here,” she wrote in a more serious vein to a sick friend that same day.

  At first it seemed sad to me to go into that beautiful building built with love & hope by nations who thought they had found the way to peace & understanding. Now I think it gives me encouragement & I wish more meetings could be held here for when you see the present activity you realize that perhaps man’s spirit, his striving, is indestructible. It is set back but it does not die & so there is a reason why each one of us should do our best in our own small corner. Do you think I’m too optimistic?36

  Would the Commission, in the end, be able to produce a draft on which both the Soviet bloc and the United States could agree, she was asked at a final press conference before departing for the States:

  I think this is quite possible. They like greater emphasis on the authority of the state, and when it comes to social and economic rights, they are most anxious to spell them out in detail. The rights and freedoms of the individual, and religious and spiritual questions, don’t seem to them as important in a draft of this kind. But certainly a balance can be achieved.37

  The revised drafts were forwarded to the member governments for their comments before a final session of the Commission on Human Rights, after which she hoped the documents would be ready for consideration by the 1948 General Assembly. The United States no longer had any problem with the Declaration since it would not require congressional approval.

  But there was furious debate inside the administration over whether to go ahead with a covenant under which nations would assume a legal obligation to protect the rights enunciated. Officials on the working level in the field of human rights favored a covenant, but would Congress ratify such a treaty? Mrs. Roosevelt came down to Washington after the Geneva meeting to confer with the president and the State Department. Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights had just submitted a hard-hitting report that listed ten recommendations to secure minority groups rights in the United States, and southern demagogues, in full cry against those recommendations, were threatening to bolt the Democratic party in 1948. Lovett doubted that the Senate would ratify a covenant that included strong stipulations against discrimination.

  To win Lovett over, the Hendricks gave a dinner in Mrs. Roosevelt’s honor while she was in Washington at which the Lovetts were guests, as were the Sandifers and the Kotschnigs. After dinner the ladies of the party went off to make small talk; but that was not what Mrs. Roosevelt was interested in, and she soon had the ladies rejoining the men. The discussion was about the Covenant and the prospects for Senate ratification. “We talked and talked and talked,” said Hendrick. Finally Lovett sought to bring the evening to a close. “A most interesting conversation,” he said to the guest of honor, “but I know you are such a busy person with so much to do, I don’t want to keep you here any longer.” Oh, Mrs. Roosevelt protested, she was quite prepared to stay and go on talking. But Lovett, although affecting to make a joke of it, was equally determined. “You know perfectly well you have to leave now. I appreciate your position perfectly.” Mrs. Roosevelt knew then she had to say good night. But she still pressed him, writing afterward:

  I do not know why I did not think of it the other night, but one of your best arguments to use when the discrimination clause has to be discussed with Congress, is that in this country the people who are the most open to Soviet propaganda are the Negroes because of discrimination. In the international picture this is something we have to consider, in our own world attitude and therefore in our domestic attitude.

  It was “a sound suggestion,” Lovett replied, and he was passing it on to Dean Rusk, who was working on this matter. There were other consequences to the Hendrick dinner. Lovett advised Rusk that he thought the Declaration a horrible document, unacceptable to the United States. When Rusk discussed this with Hendrick, the latter said he thought Lovett’s ire had less to do with the Declaration than with the effort to sell him on the Covenant at a social dinner. Despite Lovett’s hostility, Mrs. Roosevelt’s authority was such that it became the department’s policy to push on with the Covenants as well as the Declaration.38

  Before the June, 1948, session of the Commission, she wrote the secretary of state, Gen. George C. Marshall, that she felt the United States should do its utmost to obtain the best possible drafts both of the Covenant and the Declaration. He agreed, but with a realistic caveat. “The Covenant as a binding legal document must conform fairly closely to the constitutions, laws and practices of all the countries which ratify it. Either this, or it will be a dead letter treaty.” When the drafting committee reconvened in May, 1948, she was able to say, “My Government wants a Declaration and it wants a Covenant.”39 Four lawyers sat behind her at that session.

  Today was the first day that I began to understand some of the legal points we are now dealing with & when I am not clear myself I cannot make it clear for others. I am not a lawyer & four have to sit behind to guide me & they all see different pitfalls in eve
ry phrase & I am sometimes in a complete daze!

  The Russians were represented at the 1948 session of the drafting committee and the full commission by a new man, Prof. A. P. Pavlov. He had a large black beard and pink cheeks, and was “by far the most civilized” of the Soviet delegates to the Human Rights Commission as well as the most polemical. He was an authority in the field of Soviet jurisprudence, was Soviet ambassador to Belgium, and was nephew of the great Soviet psychologist of the same name. Instead of proceeding to perfect the Geneva documents, he announced in his introductory speech, the drafting committee should begin the debate anew of basic principles. Slightly appalled, Mrs. Roosevelt replied that “we shall gain very little by discussing general principles at this session.” The committee should confine itself to specific drafts and avoid “theoretical conjecture.” The committee supported her. One of the general principles Pavlov wanted to stress was that the Declaration must clearly define the citizens’ duty toward the state. Indeed, it seemed to Mrs. Roosevelt, as she studied Pavlov’s amendments to this effect, that the USSR, at bottom, was dubious about the whole enterprise of drafting a declaration because, in the end, the rights that were asserted therein were rights against the state and the duties that were proclaimed were, in the main, duties the state owed to the individual. To almost every article in the Declaration Pavlov wanted to add either one of two amendments. He wanted a phrase that, in effect, said that the state would see to it that the specified right was observed. Such an exaltation of the state did not sit well with Mrs. Roosevelt, who was reared in the individualistic traditions of the American Revolution and the Protestant ethic and who was sure that “certain rights can never be granted to the government, but must be kept in the hands of the people.”40