The Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations was a committee created by

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Cordell Hull Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871July 23, 1955) was an American politician from Tennessee and the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years (1933–1944) in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevel ...

on December 27, 1939, to examine "overseas war measures." It came about after Leo Pasvolsky, Hull's assistant, wrote a memorandum urging such a committee concerned with "problems of peace and reconstruction" that would review fundamental principles of a "desirable world order" and was originally called the Committee on Problems of Peace and Reconstruction. It was one of many such committees that Hull would create, reorganize, rename or abolish. Successors included the Division of Special Research and the

Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy The Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy was a secretive committee created on February 12, 1942, to prepare recommendations for President Franklin D. Roosevelt on post World War II foreign policy. Predecessors included the similar Advisory C ...

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was chairman of the fifteen member committee, which included two people from outside the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

, Norman Davis of the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank focused on Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi ...

and

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of the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees.Domhoff, p.119 Pasvolsky headed the economics subcommittee. Other members from the State Department included Assistant Secretary

Adolf A. Berle Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. (; January 29, 1895 – February 17, 1971) was an American lawyer, educator, writer, and diplomat. He was the author of ''The Modern Corporation and Private Property'', a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, a prof ...

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and Political Advisor

Stanley K. Hornbeck Stanley Kuhl Hornbeck (May 4, 1883 – December 10, 1966) was an American professor and diplomat. A Rhodes scholar and the author of eight books, he had a thirty-year career in government service. He was chief of the State Department Division of ...

. The committee came up with tentative ideas about a world organization, reviving some aspects of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

design. The sketch included an "Executive Council" and a "General Assembly" with different powers, but the League's principle of unanimity was to be replaced by some type of majority rule. The organization was envisioned to be based on nine regional blocs represented in the assembly, and with an independent police force. After the

phony war The Phoney War (; ; ) was an eight-month period at the outset of World War II during which there were virtually no Allied military land operations on the Western Front from roughly September 1939 to May 1940. World War II began on 3 Septembe ...

in Europe became a real one, the committee became defunct in the summer of 1940.

Notes

References

* * * * Rofe, J Simon, "The Roosevelt Administration’s Essential Dilemma during the ‘Phony War’: Pre-war Postwar Planning and the case of the Advisory Committee on Problems in Foreign Relations". Diplomacy and Statecraft Vol.22:3 2012 History of the government of the United States Politics of World War II United States Department of State American advisory organizations {{World-War-II-stub