ABSTRACT
President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed just as strongly that a small group of major powers should be responsible for policing the world. As the war progressed, Roosevelt came to see the need for greater decentralization of power in a security system whose effectiveness depended largely on near-universal membership. Nearly three years of discussion within the Roosevelt administration, and between the administration and Congress, produced a government-wide position on the powers of the United Nations (UN) that was accepted at San Francisco in all of its essentials. The UN Charter's approach to conflict resolution can be seen as part of the historic tension between centralization and decentralization in the management of power. The immediate cause was Secretary General Hammarskjold's independent direction of the UN Force in the Congo, and specifically his support for an anti-Soviet faction in the struggle for power, over the fierce opposition of the Soviet Union.
