Atlantic Charter

 

(ətlătĭk, ăt–) , joint program of peace aims, enunciated by Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on Aug. 14, 1941. Britain at that time was engaged in World War II, and the United States was to enter the war four months later. The statement, which was not an official document, was drawn up at sea, off the coast of Newfoundland. It supported the following principles and aims: renunciation of territorial aggrandizement; opposition to territorial changes made against the wishes of the people concerned; restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those forcibly deprived of them; access to raw materials for all nations of the world and easing of trade restrictions; world cooperation to secure improved economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations. In the United Nations declaration of Jan. 1, 1942, the signatory powers pledged adherence to the principles of the charter.

The Atlantic Charter was negotiated at the Atlantic Conference (codenamed Riviera) by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, aboard warships in a secure anchorage at Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland, and was issued as a joint declaration on August 14, 1941.

Course of events

As a cover story, a flag day was enacted at Downing Street, filmed, and then broadcast while Churchill had already set off for the conference. Disembarking at Thurso, he boarded HMS Prince of Wales at Scapa Flow. Though the ship had to make multiple course changes to avoid U-boats and lost her escorts to bad weather, Churchill found the voyage restful, reading novels, watching films and losing at backgammon to Harry Hopkins.

On the morning of Saturday, August 9, the Prince of Wales sailed into Placentia Bay down a line of US ships to the USS Augusta where Roosevelt—who, like Churchill, had left Washington under a cover story (he was supposedly in New England on a ten-day fishing trip)^[1]—his son and his chiefs of staff were waiting. On first meeting, Churchill and Roosevelt were silent for a moment until Churchill said "At long last, Mr. President.", to which Roosevelt replied "Glad to have you aboard, Mr. Churchill". Churchill then delivered to the president a letter from King George VI and made an official statement which, despite two attempts, a sound-film crew present failed to record.

Whilst the chiefs of staff and head of state and head of government met, Churchill's bodyguard Walter Thompson was shown round the ship and lunched with the president's bodyguard Mike Reilly. The following day, Sunday August 10, a church parade was held on Prince of Wales. From a lectern draped in British and U.S. flags, and with a congregation and naval clergy drawn from both nations, hymns selected by Churchill were sung with the sound of the patrolling US aircraft overhead in the background. Walter Thompson was personally presented to the president by Churchill on the last day of the conference.

As the Prince of Wales departed, sailors from both navies lined their ships, the national anthem of the United States was played and Churchill stood at the salute until the whole line of U.S. warships had been passed. The ship then set off for Iceland, on a convoy route. Passing twice through the three lines of a convoy so that it could be reviewed by Churchill, stopping at Iceland for the troops there to be reviewed, and making two more course changes against suspected U-boats, the ship then arrived back at Scapa Flow. Churchill took a train back to London, where he was met by his wife and some of his cabinet members.

Content

The Atlantic Charter established a vision for a post-World War II world, despite the fact that the United States had yet to enter the war. The participants hoped that the Soviet Union would adhere as well, after having been attacked by Nazi Germany in June 1941 in defiance of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

In brief, the nine points were:

1. No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom.
2. Territorial adjustments must be in accord with wishes of the peoples concerned.
3. All peoples had a right to self-determination.
4. Trade barriers were to be lowered.
5. There was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare.
6. Freedom from want and fear;
7. Freedom of the seas;
8. Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common disarmament
9. Defeat of Germany and other Axis powers

Reaction

At the subsequent Inter-Allied Meeting in London on September 24, 1941, the governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia, and representatives of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, unanimously adopted adherence to the common principles of policy set forth in the Atlantic Charter.

The Axis Powers interpreted these diplomatic agreements as a potential alliance against them. In Tokyo the Atlantic Charter rallied support for the militarists in the Japanese government, who pushed for a more aggressive approach against the US and Britain.

The agreement proved to be one of the first steps towards the formation of the United Nations^[2].

Official statements and government documents indicate that Churchill and Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter. No signed copies are known to exist, however. H V Morton, who was with Churchill's party, states that no signed version ever existed. The document was threshed out through several drafts, says Morton, and the agreed text was telegraphed to London and Washington. The British War Cabinet replied with its approval and a similar acceptance was telegraphed from Washington. During this process, an error crept into the London text, but this was subsequently corrected.

Public opinion in the UK and Commonwealth was delighted with the principles of the meetings but disappointed in the fact that the US was not entering the war. Churchill himself admitted that he had hoped the US would finally decide to commit itself. On the other hand American public opinion was delighted with the principles but upset over the fact they seemed to pushed even further into belligerency. Supporters and opponents alike had both views.

Aftermath

Referring to Allied complicity in the planned dismemberment of Germany and expulsion of Germans, British Labour MP John Rhys-Davies stated the following in a speech in the House of Commons on March 1, 1945:^[3]

“

We started this war with great motives and high ideals. We published the Atlantic Charter and then spat on it, stomped on it and burnt it, as it were, at the stake, and now nothing is left of it.

”

Notes

References

• Atlantic Meeting, H V Morton, published by Methuen, 1943
• Douglas G Brinkley and David Facey-Crowther, eds. The Atlantic Charter (1994)

See also

• List of World War II conferences
• Bretton Woods system
• Lend-Lease
• League of Nations
• United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference
• United Nations

External links

• The Atlantic Conference
• BBC News
• The Atlantic Charter (1941) from the U.S. Department of State International Information Programs
• The Atlantic Conference from the Avalon Project
• USS Augusta web site
• U.S. National Archives image of original document
• Letter from The Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley to the U.S. Secretary of State TEHRAN, April 14, 1945. Describing meeting with Churchill, where Churchill vehemently states that the U.K. is in no way bound to the principles of the Atlantic Charter.

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