Quick Assistance

AT the beginning of 1944, Herbert H. Lehman had a difficult task before him. The former New York governor had recently been appointed director general of a newly created international organization called the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which was tasked with providing aid to the Allied countries invaded by Axis powers. The organization, made up of forty-eight nations, was to become the largest international relief effort up to that point in history. In January 1944, however, Lehman was its only official employee and he was struggling to build it from scratch. Testifying before the US Congress, he stated: “UNRRA is ... the first great test of the capacity of the present world partnership of the United Nations and associated governments to achieve a peacetime goal. It represents a first bold attempt of the free peoples to develop efficient habits of working together. It is now up to all of us to prove that it is not only for war and destruction but also for help and healing that nations can be united to act for the common good. Then will peace have her victory no less than war.” Unlike other large, multifaceted organizations, this one did not have the luxury of being developed gradually; human needs and the devastation