PEARL HARBOR: For Roosevelt Historians

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The spade of history last week turned up a hitherto secret set of facts. For biographers of Internationalist Franklin Roosevelt, the great salesman of the United Nations Organization idea, the facts were somewhat awkward. They showed that when he co-authored the Atlantic Charter with Winston Churchill in August 1941, Franklin Roosevelt:

Was opposed to any immediate postwar organization of the nations.

Felt that nothing could be more futile than re-erecting some international body such as the Assembly of the League of Nations.

Thought that the U.S. and Britain should police the world for peace.

Thought that any later joint police action with lesser powers should be on an "ostensible" basis.

Was insistent that the conversations at sea in no way involve future commitments between the U.S. and Britain except as authorized by Lend-Lease.

These facts, set down in official memoranda by former Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles (who was at the Atlantic Charter meeting), were introduced last week into the records of the Pearl Harbor investigation. They were of little value to Republicans, who had hoped to unearth some evidence that the late President had sought a way to wangle the U.S. into war. Cracked one Senator: "About the only thing this investigation has shown is how isolationist Franklin Roosevelt really was."