On August 12, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to confer on issues ranging from support for Russia to threatening Japan to postwar peace.
When Roosevelt and Churchill met for the first time as leaders of their respective nations, chief among the items on their agenda was aid to the USSR 鈥渙n a gigantic scale,鈥 as it was desperate in its war against its German invaders. A statement was also drafted, which Roosevelt chose to issue under his name, that made it plain to Japan that any further aggression would 鈥減roduce a situation in which the United States government would be compelled to take counter-measures,鈥 even if it meant 鈥渨ar between the United States and Japan.鈥
The president and the prime minister also agreed to compose and make public a document in which the United States and Britain declared their intention 鈥渢o ensure life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and to preserve the rights of man and justice.鈥 They also promised to strive for a postwar world free of 鈥渁ggrandizement, territorial or other,鈥 addressing those nations currently under German, Italian, or Japanese rule, offering hope that the integrity of their sovereign borders would be restored to them. This document would be called the Atlantic Charter and, when finally ratified by 26 nations in January 1942, would comprise the founding principles of the United Nations.
