The Foreign Service Journal, September 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2020 61 the War and Navy Departments, on the other, over whether the United States would make a trusteeship proposal at the San Francisco Conference. By the time that Bunche took his job at State, official U.S. policy was that trusteeships should be designed to deal with colonial territories that had been under League of Nations mandate, as well as those taken from Axis powers in the war. The American plan did allow for a small, albeit not very effective, proviso for extension of the trusteeship system to other terri- tories placed under it voluntarily by the powers administering them. But many “non-self-governing” territories remained in the hands of colonial powers. Bunche slowly became more involved in high-level deci- sions. He was listed among the State Department officials who participated in the ad hoc group dedicated to the International Committee on Dependent Area Aspects of International Orga- nization to deal with Cabinet-level disagreement. And he was one of a small group sent to the April-June 1945 San Francisco UNCIO Conference to negotiate and coordinate a proposal. According to Larry Finkelstein, Bunche basically wrote the draft single-handedly on the train to San Francisco. In the end, it was not Ralph Bunche but rather his boss Benjamin Gerig who was credited with creating the arrangements for non-self-governing territories. An Architect of the United Nations Of course, the story does not end here, in that no decision was formally made to authorize the U.S. delegation to introduce the document Bunche had so diligently drafted en route to San Francisco. The British provided an opening, and the Australians took the initiative to save the day. The U.N. Charter’s Chapter XI is titled “Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories.” This chapter, which deals with colonial territories not included in the trusteeship system, is based on a weak draft on trusteeship made by the British delegation, designed to counter the stronger American draft. The draft used language from Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant. The Australians had been working on colonial issues dur- ing the war, and their views were closer to those of the Bunche draft. Bunche took advantage of the opportunity and informally passed a copy of the draft U.S. declaration to his Australian counterpart. The Australians drew on it and introduced an amendment to the British proposal, which became Article 73 of the charter, directing colonial administrations to, among other things, “develop self-government” and “take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples.” As Larry Finkelstein has said, “If Bunche cannot claim paternity, he at least attended at the accouchment .” A second opportunity for U.S. contribution to a strong United Nations presented itself on Labor Day weekend in 1945 when the new Secretary of State, James Byrnes, was at sea en route to the first Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in London. He needed information on how to deal with the Italian territories after the end of the war. Bunche quickly rounded up Larry Finkelstein and Thomas F. Power. Under Bunche’s direction, a plan was drawn up, but the Council of Foreign Ministers had already precooked a policy position. Some years later, the Philippine delegation successfully introduced a plan that was amazingly like the earlier American delegation’s proposal. There is little doubt that the precedents set by Bunche in the design and functioning of the United Nations trusteeship system, with objectives that included eventual independence, decisively advanced the process of decolonization around the world. As a government officer dealing with colonialism and man- date matters during World War II, Ralph Bunche established a reputation that paved the way for his recruitment into the United Nations after the war. The service that would win him world renown, as mediator in Palestine and as United Nations peace- maker extraordinaire, resulted from his appointment to the U.N. Secretariat in the spring of 1946 as head of the Trusteeship Division. The State Department circle was completed with the assignment of Larry Finkelstein to that same U.N. division with Bunche, and the assignment some years later of another young State Department diplomat, Ambassador Terence A. Todman. Ralph J. Bunche skillfully moved from the challenge of the epoch, trusteeship, to the threat of the period, conflict resolu- tion—making the transition from the post–World War I territorial issues to the post–World War II peacekeeping contributions. He is rightfully accorded the signature recognition of an accom- plished United Nations architect. n The precedents set by Bunche in the design and functioning of the United Nations trusteeship system ... decisively advanced the process of decolonization around the world.