On 12 April 1945, a few days before the San Francisco conference opened, President Roosevelt died. President Truman took over. On 25 April Buchman attended the opening ceremony of the Conference, which Truman began by saying, 'Let us not fail to grasp this supreme chance to establish a world-wide rule of reason, to create an enduring peace under the guidance of God.'

Six days later came the end of war in Europe. Buchman listened to the radio announcements early in the morning by Truman in Washington and Churchill in London. Relief that the conflict there had ceased was tempered by the thought of the suffering and destruction it had left behind, and by the fact that a real peace still needed to be created.

The San Francisco Conference ran into difficulties before it began. Molotov would not attend until the West had given the Soviet Union its way on Poland. When he arrived Halifax described him as 'smiling granite'. And Halifax was driven to lose his temper - a rare occurrence - by Gromyko's immobility. Gradually, however, the Charter of the United Nations was painfully evolved, with damaging concessions. The central issue was the extent of the veto to be held by the Great Powers. The smaller powers distrusted it altogether, while the Soviet wished it to be available to stop any matter being even discussed in the Security Council. In the end a compromise was reached. Another main issue was the fate of non-self-governing territories, for which the theory of 'trusteeship' was, not without a good deal of conflict, worked out. Field Marshal Smuts,* in the end, 'thought the whole world could reasonably look forward to an era of security from war, in so far as the three Great Powers were all, broadly speaking, satisfied Powers'.10

(* Prime Minister of South Africa and a member of the British War Cabinet.)

Two of Buchman's friends offered to entertain any of the delegates who wanted to meet with him. Over lunches and dinners in their home, or in the Fairmont Hotel, where he would watch and meet the delegates, Buchman heard many contradictory views aired. One day he lunched with Bishop Bell of Chichester and John Foster Dulles, who told him that the Russians had only temporarily put aside the concept of world revolution. That night at dinner he heard that a leading British diplomat was equally convinced the Russians would not return to world revolution, but wanted to work loyally through whatever organisation was set up by the Conference, an opinion which Halifax shared.11 Sitting in the Fairmont Hotel he watched Molotov with his bodyguard of eight move with a wedge-like unity through the lobby; he also saw the diplomats for whom social contacts and the autograph hunters had the biggest attraction.

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