Years after the White House
President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 after suffering a cerebral hemorrage at Warm Springs, Georgia. Eleanor Roosevelt later learned that Lucy Rutherfurd had been with FDR when he died. Her biographer, Joseph P. Lash, called it a "bitter discovery" and wrote that Roosevelt alluded to this in her memoir of the White House years, This I Remember:
All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another's failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration ... He might have been happier with a wife who was completely uncritical. That I was never able to be, and he had to find it in some other people. Nevertheless, I think I sometimes acted as a spur, even though the spurring was not always wanted or welcome.
In the 1950s she became a leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic party. With Herbert H. Lehman and Thomas K. Finletter, she headed a movement in New York City to wrest control of Democratic policy from Tammany Hall. Her dedication to the cause of human welfare won her affection and honor throughout the world as well as the respect of many of her critics.
United Nations
In 1945, U.S. President Harry S. Truman appointed Roosevelt as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. In April 1946, Roosevelt became the first chairperson of the preliminary United Nations Commission on Human Rights. She remained chairperson when the Commission was established on a permanent basis in January 1947. She played an instrumental role, along with René Cassin, John Peters Humphrey and others, in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). On the night of September 28, 1948, Roosevelt spoke on behalf of the Declaration calling it "the international Magna Carta of all mankind".The Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948.The vote of the General Assembly was unanimous except for eight abstentions by 8 countries (Byelorussian SSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, as well as Yugoslavia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia) which took exception to the implications of the Declaration as to freedom of the individual. Roosevelt also served as the first United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and stayed on at that position until 1953, even after stepping down as chair of the Commission in 1951.
In 2008, a plaque commemorating Roosevelt's driving force in the creation and adoption of the UDHR, was inaugurated by Swiss Federal Councillor, Micheline Calmy-Rey in Geneva. This "Magna Carta of our time" was Roosevelt's greatest success – for she forged a common standard of achievement among delegates who had differing government systems, philosophies, religions, cultures and economic levels.
Politically, Roosevelt supported Adlai Stevenson for president in 1952 and 1956 and urged his renomination in 1960. She resigned from her UN post in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower became President.
Although Roosevelt had reservations about John F. Kennedy for his failure to condemn McCarthyism, she supported him for president against Richard Nixon. Kennedy in turn reappointed her to the United Nations, 1961–1962.
All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another's failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration ... He might have been happier with a wife who was completely uncritical. That I was never able to be, and he had to find it in some other people. Nevertheless, I think I sometimes acted as a spur, even though the spurring was not always wanted or welcome.
In the 1950s she became a leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic party. With Herbert H. Lehman and Thomas K. Finletter, she headed a movement in New York City to wrest control of Democratic policy from Tammany Hall. Her dedication to the cause of human welfare won her affection and honor throughout the world as well as the respect of many of her critics.
United Nations
In 1945, U.S. President Harry S. Truman appointed Roosevelt as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. In April 1946, Roosevelt became the first chairperson of the preliminary United Nations Commission on Human Rights. She remained chairperson when the Commission was established on a permanent basis in January 1947. She played an instrumental role, along with René Cassin, John Peters Humphrey and others, in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). On the night of September 28, 1948, Roosevelt spoke on behalf of the Declaration calling it "the international Magna Carta of all mankind".The Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948.The vote of the General Assembly was unanimous except for eight abstentions by 8 countries (Byelorussian SSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, as well as Yugoslavia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia) which took exception to the implications of the Declaration as to freedom of the individual. Roosevelt also served as the first United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and stayed on at that position until 1953, even after stepping down as chair of the Commission in 1951.
In 2008, a plaque commemorating Roosevelt's driving force in the creation and adoption of the UDHR, was inaugurated by Swiss Federal Councillor, Micheline Calmy-Rey in Geneva. This "Magna Carta of our time" was Roosevelt's greatest success – for she forged a common standard of achievement among delegates who had differing government systems, philosophies, religions, cultures and economic levels.
Politically, Roosevelt supported Adlai Stevenson for president in 1952 and 1956 and urged his renomination in 1960. She resigned from her UN post in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower became President.
Although Roosevelt had reservations about John F. Kennedy for his failure to condemn McCarthyism, she supported him for president against Richard Nixon. Kennedy in turn reappointed her to the United Nations, 1961–1962.