ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two issues. The first is the fact that the gradual construction of the League system was largely conditioned by attempts to integrate the US, especially by developing its technical sections. The second is the notion that the federal government was absent, and that US participation exclusively involved private actors. It is largely based on the premise that the US government was isolationist, and private actors internationalist. While this is not entirely false, it must be put into perspective, for the government also participated actively in the League of Nations (LoN), although its strategy was to make this involvement as informal as possible. Reflecting on these two issues reveal that US participation in the League system resulted from the combination of three strategies: that of the LoN Secretariat, which sought to involve the US in the organization at any cost; that of the federal government, which was aware that it could not ignore the organization, and endeavored to maintain a discrete but permanent presence; and that of private actors, who believed that the US should be involved in the LoN in order to assume its de facto leadership role that had emerged from World War I.
