The Atlantic Charter

August 14, 1941

In August 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met aboard warships in Argentia Bay, Newfoundland, to discuss joint war aims. It was the first time the two men had met.  Churchill was anxious to gain assurance that the assistance of the powerful but still neutral United States would continue, and Roosevelt sought to gain British support for his policies to avoid a showdown with the Japanese. Aside from those general issues there was no agenda, and the talks were informal.  The two leaders did, however, sign the "Atlantic Charter," below.  Roosevelt’s signature aroused anger among the remaining isolationists in the U.S. who wondered how the president of a neutral nation could agree to what some described as war aims.  Others saw it as an enlightened statement of principles about what the two nations hoped the ongoing worldwide struggle would achieve.

The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

[Agreed]

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Winston S. Churchill