![[picture: Eleanor Roosevelt with John Foster Dulles and George Marshall at the UN, 1947]](../../images/er_67-303.jpg)
Harry Truman
appointed ER to the first American delegation to the United
Nations. She represented the U.S. at the UN from December
31, 1945 until December 31, 1952, when the newly elected
President Dwight
Eisenhower requested her resignation. She was the only
woman in a six-person, bipartisan delegation. Click
here for ER's response to the appointment.
The American delegation, headed by Secretary of State James
Byrnes and former Secretary of State Edward
Stettinius, assigned her to the Committee on Humanitarian,
Social and Cultural Concerns (Committee Three). Committee
Three became one of the UN's most important units when it
became the agency charged with refugee and repatriation
issues.
The UN established a permanent Commission
on Human Rights and unanimously elected ER chair, a
position she held from 1947 until 1951 when she relinquished
it saying that she did not believe in permanent chairs.
She also chaired the subcommittee charged with drafting
the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and also insisted
that a new chair be appointed at the end of her two-year
term. She presented the UDHR to the General Assembly for
adoption December 10, 1948.
As a member of the American delegation, ER represented
the official State Department position and often chafed
at the restrictions her position placed on her. With increasing
skill she balanced the state department requirements placed
upon her as an instructed delegate and the dictates of
her own
conscience,
especially on the issues of civil rights for African Americans
and other peoples of color.
Lastly, ER was the UN's most noted ambassador. She
traveled throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific investigating
conditions and urging both support for the UN and UN humanitarian and diplomatic
aid. Within the United States, she championed the UN tirelessly in "My Day,"
the articles and books she wrote for adults and young people, and on her
lecture tour.
Sources:
Glendon, Mary Ann. A World Made New: Eleanor
Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. New
York: Random House, 2001, passim.
Lash, Joseph. Eleanor, The Years Alone.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1972, passim.
