The first UN delegates could bring “any amount and type of baggage they desire,” with one exception.
Richard Kreitner and The AlmanacThe first session of the United Nations in London on January 10. Photo via the United Nations.
The Nation had previously urged that the United Nations (then abbreviated as UNO, for United Nations Organization) be permanently based in Hyde Park, New York: “Nothing could be more fitting than that the new organization for world peace should select the birthplace and home of the man most responsible for its inception. For Hyde Park has taken on symbolic significance not only for the great mass of the American people but for the peace-seeking peoples of the world.” The UN moved to its present headquarters, on the East Side of Manhattan, in 1952. The following little item appeared in The Nation’s “In the Wind” news-blurb section on January 19, 1946.
Our special agent for UNO affairs swears this story is true. Before the United States delegates left for the UNO conference they asked the British embassy in Washington whether there would be any customs restrictions on the baggage they took. After consulting the regulations, an attaché informed them that “the delegates may bring any amount and type of baggage they desire, except that in firearms they will be limited to one rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition per person.”
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Richard KreitnerTwitterRichard Kreitner is a contributing writer and the author of Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union. His writings are at www.richardkreitner.com.
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