WHEN ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL MET secretly at sea in 1941, months
before the U.S. entered World War II, the two leaders laid out
an 8-point peace plan that provided the foundation for the
United Nations. Here are some articles from the TIME archive
that will help you know how the U.N. was founded to prevent
future wars and why the atom bomb changed the hopes for that
ideal even before the U.N. charter was signed: President
Roosevelt ... had been gone from Washington 13 days. For most of
that time his whereabouts had been unknown to his country. He
brought back his half of the unknown fruits of a conference that
had no parallel. The U.S., though not at war, had conferred
through the head of its Government with Great Britain, a nation
at war, on how Nazi Germany was to be defeated, had further
agreed on 'certain common principles' as a basis for a future
peace, a better world. From Home from the Sea Aug. 25, 1941 A
new phrase, the United Nations, slipped into the world's
vocabulary. Editorial writers and militar