"Within a few weeks the organization for the maintenance of international peace and security, established by the San Francisco Charter, will be formally launched through the convocation of the first General Assembly of the United Nations"
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The sentence is bureaucratic on its face, but it’s doing something more ambitious: converting the wreckage of a world war into a calendar event. Hull’s phrasing makes history feel procedural. “Within a few weeks” doesn’t just set a timeline; it manufactures inevitability. Peace is no longer a hope or a prayer, it’s an organization with a launch date.
The key move is the double-anchoring of legitimacy. By invoking “the San Francisco Charter,” Hull ties the project to a specific founding moment and document, not a vague ideal. Then he points to “the first General Assembly” as the public performance that will make the institution real. “Formally launched through the convocation” is pure statecraft language: the kind that signals to skeptical capitals that this is lawful, ratified, and recognized. In the mid-1940s, after the League of Nations’ failure and with the U.S. newly committed to global leadership, formality isn’t pedantry; it’s a credibility strategy.
Subtext runs in the careful pairing of “peace and security.” Peace alone can sound sentimental; security is the hard-edged promise that nations, especially the big ones, care about. Hull is selling the United Nations as both moral architecture and practical machinery, with maintenance baked in. “Maintenance” implies that peace is not a permanent state but a system requiring constant upkeep, rules, and enforcement.
It’s optimistic, yes, but not naive. The sentence anticipates the postwar world’s defining tension: you can’t wish away power politics, so you try to administer it.
The key move is the double-anchoring of legitimacy. By invoking “the San Francisco Charter,” Hull ties the project to a specific founding moment and document, not a vague ideal. Then he points to “the first General Assembly” as the public performance that will make the institution real. “Formally launched through the convocation” is pure statecraft language: the kind that signals to skeptical capitals that this is lawful, ratified, and recognized. In the mid-1940s, after the League of Nations’ failure and with the U.S. newly committed to global leadership, formality isn’t pedantry; it’s a credibility strategy.
Subtext runs in the careful pairing of “peace and security.” Peace alone can sound sentimental; security is the hard-edged promise that nations, especially the big ones, care about. Hull is selling the United Nations as both moral architecture and practical machinery, with maintenance baked in. “Maintenance” implies that peace is not a permanent state but a system requiring constant upkeep, rules, and enforcement.
It’s optimistic, yes, but not naive. The sentence anticipates the postwar world’s defining tension: you can’t wish away power politics, so you try to administer it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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