{"id":118,"date":"2011-10-09T10:45:12","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T14:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/?p=118"},"modified":"2011-10-09T10:45:12","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T14:45:12","slug":"august-14-1941-the-atlantic-charter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/2011\/10\/09\/august-14-1941-the-atlantic-charter\/","title":{"rendered":"August 14, 1941: The Atlantic Charter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 574px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.historyplace.com\/worldwar2\/ww2-pix\/atlantic-conf.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"564\" height=\"394\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image courtesy of the U.S. National Archives<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/usinfo.org\/docs\/democracy\/53.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The Atlantic Charter<\/a>, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 off the coast of Newfoundland.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>purpose: &#8220;provide an opportunity for the two leaders to become aquainted and to discuss military strategy&#8221; (Hess, 24)<\/li>\n<li>published as a press release and not a &#8220;formally signed document&#8221; (Hess, 27)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif\">Dennis Kux, <em>India and the United States: Estranged Democracies, 1941-1991<\/em>\u00a0(1992).<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Marks early 1941 as beginning of U.S. interest in Indian affairs; gives example of Lend-Lease policy<\/li>\n<li>For India to receive aid, accepts British proposal of having a direct Indian representative in the U.S. and it turn suggests to establish an American position in New Delhi: Sir Girja Shakar Bajpai (Agent-General in Washington) and Thomas Wilson (Commissioner in New Delhi) \u00a0(7-8)<\/li>\n<li>May 1941- Adolph A. Berle, Assistant Sec. of State for Economic Affairs, suggests that Britain &#8220;explore the possibility of making India equal of other members of the British Commonwealth&#8221; (FRUS, vol. III, pg. 176-177)<\/li>\n<li>Atlantic Meeting: according to Elliot Roosevelt (FDR&#8217;s son) FDR and Churchill had lengthly disagreements about colonialism with FDR stating: &#8220;I can&#8217;t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people from all over the world from a backward colonial policy&#8221; (from the disputed <em>As He Saw It<\/em>, by Elliot Roosevelt)<\/li>\n<li>Americans argued that article 3 applied universally but the British claimed it only referred to territory taken over by the Nazis, an interpretation that Kux argues: &#8220;caused bitter disappointment in India and dissatisfaction in Washington&#8221; (10)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Harold Gould, <em>Sikhs, Swamis, Students, and Spies: The India Lobby in the United States, 1900-1946<\/em>\u00a0(2006).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>cites the &#8220;ideological spin-off&#8221; from the Atlantic Charter as one of the motivating factors behind the Cripps Mission (26)<\/li>\n<li>quotes Robert Sherwood on the Charter: it &#8220;turned out to be incluculably more powerful an instrument than the officers of the British Government intended it to be when they first proposed it. They discovered indeed that <em>when you state a moral principle, you are stuck with it, no matter how many fingers you have kept crossed at the moment<\/em>&#8221; (emphasis added by Gould, from Sherwood, <em>Roosevelt and Hopkins<\/em>\u00a01950)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hess, <em>America Encounters India, 1941-1947<\/em>\u00a0(1971)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Charter as the &#8220;ideological focus of American concern with Indian nationalism&#8221; (24)<\/li>\n<li>The extension of Article 3 first raised in Burma and Iran, only after Churchill&#8217;s September 9 statement that it did not apply to the British Empire and therefore India (27-28)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;American liberal reaction to Churchill&#8217;s speech reflected disillusionment&#8221; (examples given include <em>The New Republic, The Christian Century, Asia<\/em>)\u00a0(29)<\/li>\n<li>When Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to her husband about his stance on India on August 21, FDR replied: &#8220;I cannot have probable feelings on India&#8221; (qtd. in Hess, 32)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Atlantic Charter, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 off the coast of Newfoundland. &#8220;Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/2011\/10\/09\/august-14-1941-the-atlantic-charter\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39568],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-timeline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-solnit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}