500.CC/6–2645
The Secretary of State to President Truman
The President: The undersigned, the Secretary of State, has the honor to lay before the President, with a view to its transmission to the Senate to receive the advice and consent of that body to ratification, a certified copy of the Charter of the United Nations, with the Statute of the International Court of Justice annexed thereto, formulated at the United Nations Conference on International Organization and signed in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, in the [Page 1432] Chinese, French, Russian, English, and Spanish languages, by plenipotentiaries of the United States of America and forty-nine other nations.
Respectfully submitted,
[For text of the Charter, with the Statute and Interim Arrangements annexed thereto, reproduced photographically from the certified copy proclaimed by President Truman, see 59 Stat. (pt. 2) 1031, Department of State Treaty Series No. 993, or Department of State Conference Series No. 76 (publication No. 2368). For press release of August 8, 1945, concerning ratification of the Charter and annexed Statute by the United States, and deposit of instrument of ratification, see Department of State Bulletin, August 12, 1945, p. 214.
The signing ceremony took place in the Auditorium of the Veterans Building, beginning early on Tuesday morning, and the United States delegation appeared for signature of the documents about 3:10 p.m., with President Truman a witness to the ceremony. Immediately afterward, the delegation attended the final Plenary Session of the Conference at the Opera House which began at 3:30 p.m.
For addresses by Mr. Stettinius, presiding at the closing session, and by President Truman, see Doc. 1209, P/19, June 27, UNCIO Documents, vol. 1, pp. 658 and 679; also, Department of State Bulletin, July 1, 1945, pp. 3–6. For statement by Cordell Hull, Senior Adviser to the United States delegation, released to the press on June 26, see ibid., p. 13.
In his Diary for June 26, the sixty-third day of the Conference, Mr. Stettinius described the conclusion of the closing plenary session as follows:
“I congratulated President Truman at the end of his speech, while the audience accorded him standing applause and he made a gesture of appreciation, opening his arms wide toward the audience. I then in a businesslike and prophetic manner announced that there would be a meeting of the Preparatory Commission at 11:00 the next day. I was told afterward that, while this statement was obviously a tremendous let-down from the previous tension of the meeting, it was quietly reassuring and inspiring, as giving a feeling of continuity now that the deliberations of the Assembled United Nations had once begun. Pausing a moment, I then said: I hereby declare the United Nations Conference on International Organization adjourned …—with a single heavy rap of the gavel …
“The band played the Star Spangled Banner, and then it seemed as if school was over and everybody was going home for vacation.…”]