The Presidency and Our Role in and with the United Nations

Abstract

I was a young man about to enter the military as the 1952 presidential election approached. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman had defined the principles of the politics that I believed in. As the Republicans chose a national hero of immense popularity, General Dwight Eisenhower, to be their candidate, Democrats were generally discouraged, believing that no candidate could successfully oppose him. The Democratic Convention convened in Chicago. The delegates were welcomed by the Governor of Illinois. He gave an electrifying speech. In a few short minutes, he restored a sense of hope, gave purpose to our history, and seemed prepared to lead us to Armageddon.

William J. vanden Heuvel served as Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as U.S. Ambassador to the European Office of the UN in the 1970s. He was a supporter of Adlai Stevenson for President in the 1950s and was supported by Stevenson in his race for Congress in New York City in 1960. He is Co-Chair of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and of the Council of American Ambassadors, Vice-Chair of the World Federation of United Nations Associations and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Ambassador vanden Heuvel is of counsel to the law firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in New York City, and Senior Advisor to Allen and Company, a New York investment banking firm. He has served as President of the International Rescue Committee, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United Nations Association and Chairman of the New York City Board of Correction. A graduate of Cornell University Law School, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. He also served as Executive Assistant to General William J. (“Wild Bill”) Donovan, Special Counsel to Governor Averell Harriman, and Assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

He is author (with Milton Gwirtzman) of Robert F. Kennedy: On His Own, 1963–68, published by Doubleday, 1971, and also authored The Triumph and Sorrow of Hungary, 1957 and numerous subsequent articles on refugee matters; various articles on prisons, including Attica: Analysis of a Crisis (1971), Death of a Citizen; and How to Report Prisons, Columbia Journalism Review; various commentaries on criminal justice, public law, and matters relating to the history and contemporary agenda of the United Nations; America and the Holocaust, American Heritage Magazine, July 1999; the Foreword to The Future of Freedom in Russia, the Templeton Foundation Press, 2000; and editor, along with historians Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Douglas Brinkley, of the St. Martin’s Press Series on American Diplomatic and Political History (now 22 volumes).