800.42/8–1044
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)19
Sir: Reference is made to the Department’s telegrams No. 8257 of December 31, 194320 and No. 2111 of March 31, 1944 regarding collaboration with the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education. You are requested to bring informally to the attention of Mr. Eden21 the enclosed tentative draft22 of a United Nations Organization for Educational and Cultural Reconstruction. It is suggested that a discussion of recent developments in London with Mr. Kefauver, the London representative of the American Education Delegation, may be desirable before taking up the matter with Mr. Eden.
The attached draft, which is slightly modified from the one originally adopted by the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education and the American Education Delegation, when adopted, will bring about the creation of such an organization on a temporary basis. The Department does not propose at this time to consider the matter of a permanent organization in this field. An exchange of views on the main points of the draft between the British and American Governments is desired before formal reply is made to the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education, under whose auspices the original draft was issued.
Discussion with the Russian and Chinese Governments will be undertaken before this reply is made. Also discussions will be held with members of Congress after the summer recess.
[Page 975]The Department emphasizes that its primary objective in furthering the establishment of such an organization is to make a beginning of cooperation in the educational and cultural field. It believes that cooperation in dealing with concrete aspects of the problem of educational reconstruction is the most satisfactory approach to the development of international cooperation in these fields for the post-war period.
Very truly yours,
- Similar instructions were sent to Moscow, July 13 (No. 219), and to Chungking, August 3 (No. 755).↩
- Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. i, p. 1162.↩
- Anthony Eden, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
- Not printed.↩