Atlantic Charter. On 9–12 August 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met secretly aboard U.S. and British warships anchored in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. The two leaders and their respective staffs brought divergent agendas to their Newfoundland rendezvous. The British sought active American participation in the military effort to block Axis threats in North Africa, the Atlantic islands, and Southeast Asia. Roosevelt hoped to obtain a statement of “peace aims” to counteract isolationism back home and to get on record Britain's commitment to such traditional American goals as open agreements, self‐determination, and multilateral trade.

Both sides partially achieved their goals. Roosevelt confirmed his policy of all‐out American aid for Britain and Russia, and the two leaders agreed on a statement of war and peace aims soon termed the “Atlantic Charter.” The dramatic circumstances of the conference ensured that the document would be celebrated—and endlessly debated—as an epochal event in the struggle for individual freedom and group rights. Five of the Charter's eight principles dealt with individual and group rights: self‐determination, freedom from want and fear, improved economic and social conditions for all, renunciation of territorial expansion, and protection against forced territorial changes. The remaining three embodied liberal internationalist thinking about the causes of war and the foundations of world peace. These were freedom of the seas, open access to markets and raw materials, and disarmament of aggressor nations pending the establishment of a permanent structure to assure world peace. The Atlantic Charter reflected American ideals embodied in President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points of 1918 and FDR's “Four Freedoms” proclamation of January 1941, and it strongly implied the universal applicability of these principles.

Long after the immediate circumstances that led to the Atlantic Conference had faded, the charter remained a living document. Beginning as an assertion of the aspirations of the nations opposing the Axis powers, the charter became the statement of Allied war aims after the United States entered World War II in December 1941. In 1945 it served as the guiding manifesto of the new United Nations, and indeed was formally incorporated in a “Declaration by the United Nations” as a “common programme of purposes and principles.” The Atlantic Charter is today included in the U.S. State Department's listing of treaties still in force, with all the nations adhering to the United Nations Declaration as its signatories. Initially no more than a press release by the leader of a belligerent power and the head of a neutral nation, the Atlantic Charter has come to be considered a pivotal document in the long campaign for universal principles of international human rights and justice.

Bibliography

Theodore A. Wilson , The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay, 1941, rev. ed., 1991.
David Facey‐Crowther and Douglas Brinkley, eds., The Atlantic Charter: Retrospect and Prospect, 1994.

Theodore A. Wilson

ATLANTIC CHARTER

ATLANTIC CHARTER was signed 14 August 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain at a meeting in Argentia Bay off the coast of Newfoundland. The United States, still technically neutral in World War II, had already taken a number of steps that brought it closer to war. The charter resembled President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points in that both declarations expressed idealistic objectives for a postwar world. The charter included the following points: the renunciation of territorial aggrandizement; opposition to territorial changes not approved by the people concerned; the right of people to choose their own form of government; equal access to trade and raw materials of the world; promotion of economic advancement, improved labor standards, and social security; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and disarmament of aggressor nations pending the establishment of a permanent system of peace.

Although only a press release as first issued, the charter was nonetheless well understood to be a pronouncement of considerable significance. It acquired further authority when, on 1 January 1942, twenty-six countries (including the United States and Great Britain) signed the United Nations Declaration, which included among its provisions formal endorsement of the charter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Kimball, Warren F. Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War. New York: Morrow, 1997.

Charles S.Campbell/a. g.

See alsoFour Freedoms ; Great Britain, Relations with ; Treaties with Foreign Nations .

Atlantic Charter, document agreed by Churchill and Roosevelt during the Placentia Bay conference of August 1941. It comprised eight points: (1)neither country sought any kind of aggrandisement, nor(2)desired territorial changes without the freely expressed agreement of the peoples concerned.(3)The right of all peoples to choose their governments was respected and it was desired that self-government be returned to all who had been forcibly deprived of it.(4)The two powers would endeavour, with due respect to their existing obligations, to give to all states, ‘victor or vanquished’, equality of access to the world's trade and raw materials which were needed for their economic prosperity.(5)Both powers supported the collaboration of all nations in the economic field, with the object of securing for all peoples improved labour standards, economic advancement, and social security.(6)After the destruction of Nazi tyranny they hoped to establish a lasting peace which would give all nations ‘the means of dwelling safely within their own boundaries, and would allow all peoples to ‘live out their lives in freedom from fear and want’.(7)Such a peace should enable all men to sail the high seas unhindered, and(8)all nations must abandon force. The USSR adhered to the Charter which was subsequently the basis of the United Nations Declaration.

Atlantic charter. This was drawn up at the first of the Churchill– Roosevelt wartime meetings (9–12 August 1941) during one of the darkest periods of the war. Above all a political gesture and propaganda exercise, the charter had less effect on American isolationists than hoped. The two powers renounced territorial aggrandizement; condemned territorial changes contrary to the wishes of the people concerned; pledged that peoples should be free to choose their own form of government, and to live in freedom from want and fear. The two leaders were not in entire agreement. Churchill insisted on qualifying American proposals to guarantee equal access to the world's riches to ‘all States, great or small’ by calling for ‘due respect for … existing obligations’ within the empire. Roosevelt for his part diluted Churchill's plea for an ‘effective’ post-war international organization by agreeing to no more than the ultimate ‘establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security’. A British bid for Soviet endorsement elicited only a vague statement of approval.

C. J. Bartlett

Atlantic Charter (1941) A declaration of principles of international political conduct that should come into effect after World War II. It was composed at a meeting between the British Prime Minister, Churchill, and the US President, Roosevelt, on the British battleship Prince of Wales moored off the Newfoundland coast, at a time when the USA had not yet entered the war. It stipulated freely chosen governments, free trade, freedom of the seas, and disarmament of current aggressor states. It condemned territorial changes made against the wishes of local populations, and proposed the establishment of an international security system. Both Britain and the USA renounced all territorial ambitions. Fourteen other nations fighting the Axis Powers, including the Soviet Union, declared their support for these principles. The Charter provided an ideological basis for the UN Charter of June 1945. The more immediate aim of the two signatories was to tie the USA more closely to Britain, in the face of isolationist opposition, by underlining that Britain was fighting Nazi Germany in the defence of the values that underpinned the USA itself.

Atlantic Charter , joint program of peace aims, enunciated by Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on Aug. 14, 1941. Britain at that time was engaged in World War II, and the United States was to enter the war four months later. The statement, which was not an official document, was drawn up at sea, off the coast of Newfoundland. It supported the following principles and aims: renunciation of territorial aggrandizement; opposition to territorial changes made against the wishes of the people concerned; restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those forcibly deprived of them; access to raw materials for all nations of the world and easing of trade restrictions; world cooperation to secure improved economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations. In the United Nations declaration of Jan. 1, 1942, the signatory powers pledged adherence to the principles of the charter.

Atlantic Charter A joint declaration of principles to guide a post-World War II peace settlement. It resulted from a meeting at sea between CHURCHILL and F. D. ROOSEVELT on 14 August 1941. It stipulated freely chosen governments, free trade, freedom of the seas, and disarmament of current aggressor states, and it condemned territorial changes made against the wishes of local populations. A renunciation of territorial ambitions on the part of Britain and the USA was also prominent. In the following month other states fighting the AXIS POWERS, including the USSR, declared their support for these principles. The Atlantic Charter provided the ideological base for the UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION.

Atlantic charter This was drawn up at the first of the Churchill– Roosevelt wartime meetings (9–12 August 1941) during one of the darkest periods of the war. The two powers renounced territorial aggrandizement; condemned territorial changes contrary to the wishes of the people concerned; pledged that peoples should be free to choose their own form of government, and to live in freedom from want and fear.A British bid for Soviet endorsement elicited only a vague statement of approval.

Atlantic Charter Joint declaration of peace aims issued in August 1941 by US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It affirmed the right of all nations to choose their own form of government, promised to restore sovereignty to all nations, and advocated the disarmament of aggressor nations.

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