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Yet the U.N., like the born-lame League of Nations before it, was pretty much a U.S. dream, a product of U.S. idealism and desire for peace. During World War II, President Roosevelt rejected Stalin's concept of a postwar world-dominating league made up of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Britain. The U.S. insisted that the international peace-keeping body must include all peaceable nations, big and small. Against Stalin's cynicism and Churchill's skepticism, Roosevelt made the U.N. idea the cornerstone of postwar allied cooperation. Roosevelt himself thought up the name United Nations.* On Capitol Hill in 1945, only two Republican Senators (North Dakota's Bill Langer and Minnesota's Henrik Shipstead) voted against U.S. membership. Even though postwar allied cooperation has turned into cold war, the U.N.'s popularity has grown steadily with the U.S. public over the years. Today, public opinion polls indicate, nearly 90% of the American people approve of the U.N. and U.S. membership in it.
Sturdy Champion. One big reason for the public's increasing acceptance of the U.N. is to be found in the demeanor, manner and style of the man who is the U.S.'s chief delegate to the U.N., Henry Cabot Lodge. Watching him in action on TV screens or from gallery seats, U.S. viewers are unmistakably reassured that the U.S. has in the U.N. a sturdy champion who presents the U.S. case with force and eloquence, answers every Russian thrust with a hard-hitting counterthrust ("Here is the arsonist, trying his best to start another fire, and demanding the right to lead the fire brigade"). Lodge is dedicated to the U.N. idea, calls the U.N. "the world's greatest adventure in building collective strength," but the most skeptical U.N. doubter can tell from seeing and hearing Lodge at work that the U.S. is not being pushed around in the U.N., and is not likely to be.
Ambassador Lodge, onetime newsman, makes a point of replying to Russian attacks promptly so as to get the U.S. answer into the same wire-service story that carries the Russian charge around the world. As he strides along Manhattan streets, shopkeepers or passers-by who have seen him retorting on TV greet him with such cries of encouragement as "Good work, Mr. Lodge!" or "Keep giving it back to them, Ambassador!"
With his strapping frame (6 ft. 2¾ in.) and cinematically handsome face, Lodge even looks the part of the good guy of stage or screen who triumphs over the bad guys. At 56, Lodge has two grown sons and six grandchildren, but he looks about as much like a grandfather as Marlene Dietrich looks like a grandmother. He glows with a pink sheen of health (he never smokes, rarely drinks) and with an unmistakable aura of success.