This is an edited transcript of a presentation given by Gerald Rose, a collaborator of Lyndon LaRouche for over half a century, to the May 31, 2025 LaRouche Organization Manhattan Project meeting.
We had gotten a report that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in front of a meeting of 100 nations (the “13th Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues” May 27-29, 2025), issued a statement. Many of you who’ve been following the LaRouche movement will immediately recognize what this is. Quoting from President Putin:
“We [the Russian Federation] also uphold the principle of sovereign equality and the right to their own model of development. As far as Russia is concerned, its approach remains principled and unchanged. I have said many times and I’ll repeat it: we are convinced that the new security architecture should be equal and indivisible. That is, all states should receive firm guarantees of their own security, but not at the expense of the security and interests of other countries.”
He went on to reference the United Nations, and particularly the UN Charter as the basis to implement such a proposal. I asked to be on the Manhattan Project Podcast for this week, because I wanted to add something very important to this ongoing, profound, dialogue.
Recently, [nuclear arms expert] Ted Postol, in a discussion with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, indicated that he had not known of the drone attack on Putin’s helicopter. But when he heard it, he said, “these people are insane. Putin is the most reasoned, most measured leader on the planet.” Given the cumulative effect of all the betrayals, all the lies, all the attempts to provoke Russia, and particularly him as the leader of Russia, he is completely measured in his response.
People can understand how crucial the role of the Schiller Institute has been, and Helga in particular, in terms of identifying what would be called the higher hypothesis, or, the way we describe it, what seems to be the coincidence of opposites—in the sense that this war can only be solved on a higher plane, with a higher idea of man, as Helga developed, in her Ten Principles for a New Security and Development Architecture.
The Intent of the United Nations
Now, the reason I wanted to speak is because I’ve heard many discussions of the United Nations and its Charter. The Charter cannot be understood fully if you leave out the mission and the intention of the man who founded the UN: Franklin Roosevelt!
Everything I’m going to tell you is documented, even though you never get taught this. If you read Elliott Roosevelt’s discussion reported in his book As He Saw It, what I’m going to tell you is absolutely irrefutable. And it pervaded everything that Franklin Roosevelt did previous to and during World War Two.
In Elliot Roosevelt’s first-hand account, Franklin Roosevelt was clear, and passionately so, that both world wars were caused by the British Empire and colonial rule. It is completely unmistakable that he knew this and described it in passionate detail to Elliott. There is a famous scene in the book where Franklin hits the roof talking to Elliott, because Elliott tries to say [French leader Charles] De Gaulle had some claim to demanding Indo-China [Vietnam] back as a colony after the war. Franklin exploded: They have no claim! What claim could a nation have over the rights and future of other nations? When France ruled Indo-China, they looted and destroyed it! He said the reason the Japanese came in on Indo-China so easily is because the people of Indo-China thought, how could it be worse than the French colonial rule?
And then FDR says to his son, if we don’t end colonial rule— Your son is five years old. He will be in war. And indeed, I think the figure from the point of the end of World War Two until now— American engagement has been over 30 different wars that we have been involved in since 1945. They’re not world wars, but [wars] where American troops have been involved and Americans died, because we did not end colonial rule exactly as FDR had warned. And now we are threatened with nuclear annihilation.
So, to understand the United Nations Charter, you have to understand the Argentia meeting, the first war-time meeting with Churchill. Franklin Roosevelt told him there, “we will not fight this war, to maintain your empire.” Remember this is 1941. All of France had just fallen. Britain was bombed to hell. Italy was already fascist by 1926. Spain was fascist. And Roosevelt said, I won’t enter the war unless you sign on the dotted line called the Atlantic Charter. The Charter directly challenged the very idea of empire, by insisting on the independence and economic development of previously colonially-ruled countries, including India, the so-called jewel of the British Empire. Churchill literally choked on his cigar!
