Malcolm Adiseshiah
From 1 to 16 November 1945 a United Nations Conference was convened in London for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF). In the conference, a new organization was created to establish the “intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind” and thus prevent the outbreak of another world war. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded by thirty-seven countries. Its Constitution to promote collaboration between member states in the fields of education, science and culture was signed on 16 November 1945 and came into force on 4 November 1946. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former President of India, was a former student of Adiseshiah’s father. He made a referral to Sir Julian Huxley, then Director-General of UNESCO, who invited Adiseshiah to the organization in 1948. He was posted as Deputy Director of the department of exchange of persons. In that capacity Adiseshiah signed the UNESCO Fellowship letter in 1949 to M. S. Swaminathan, eminent scientist and administrator, to pursue research at the Agricultural University in Wageningen, the Netherlands which was the starting point of his illustrious career.
Ben Mark Cherrington
In 1938, Cherrington accepted the job of organizing the work of the newly created Division of Cultural Relations in the U.S. Department of State at the invitation of Secretary of State Cordell Hull and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also served as an adviser to the United States delegation to the eighth International Conference of American States in Lima, Peru that same year. In 1939-1940 he was the chairman of the International Relations Committee of the National Education Association of the United States. In 1940 he served as a United States delegate to the eighth American Scientific Congress . In 1945 Cherrington worked as an associate consultant for United States delegation at a United Nations Conference in San Francisco, California. He served as Director of the Rocky Mountain Institute of International Education. In February 1946 he was invited to return to the U.S. Department of State as a consultant on the establishment of UNESCO. He was appointed adviser to the United States delegation to the Third General Conference of UNESCO in Beirut, Lebanon in October 1948. He was elected by the U.S. National Commission as a member of its executive committee, and from 1952 to 1953, he served as the vice-chair.