At the beginning of 1944 the governments of the three powers, i.e. US, UK AND USSR, began, as they had agreed at Moscow, to 'draw up a more detailed and comprehensive document' on the form of a postwar organisation. Eden believed that the United States should take the initiative in this process. The Soviet Union, which showed no signs of having formulated any definite views of her own at this stage, did not object. The result was that, throughout the discussions which followed, the United States took the initiative, formulating proposals to which the others reacted. And the UN Charter, as it finally emerged, was an only slightly modified form of the original US plan. Between December 1943 and February 1944 the US State Department prepared a relatively detailed plan for the new organisation. In February President Roosevelt gave preliminary approval to the ideas set out. But the US administration wanted time for further consultation, with Congressional leaders and with service chiefs, and for any further revision which might be necessary, before they could be discussed with other governments. Discussion between the three powers at the first stage, therefore, was only about procedure, the agenda, and the time and place for the conference that was to take place between them. Eventually, after a long Soviet silence lasting several months, it was agreed that the conference should take place at Dumbarton Oaks, near Washington, in August 1944. Because of the poor state of Sino-Soviet relations (the Soviet Union was still officially in alliance with Japan, while China was at war with her), it was agreed that the two powers should not be present together: the Soviet Union would take part in the first part of the conference and China in the second.
Tehran Conference and Its Role in Formation of United Nations
