Rebuilding IUPAC after WWII by Danielle Fauque and Brigitte Van Tiggelen
T
he League of Nations’ failure to ensure global peace by solving conflicts through diplomatic and peaceful means prompted Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to discuss the creation of a more efficient international organization as soon as the Second World War erupted. These preliminary efforts led to the signing of the Charter of the United Nations (UN) in San Francisco in 1945. In January 1946, the first general UN assembly took place, along with the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council. The latter created several international bodies, among them UNESCO. At first, UNESCO seemed to be the continuation of the International Institute for the Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) coupled with the International Commission for the Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), but was actually based on new rules [1]. In this new international framework, what would become of ICSU, which had gathered the scientific unions since 1931? There were three possibilities: 1) disband ICSU, and with it all the unions, 2) adapt ICSU to the new framework and continue to exist or 3) become completely independent of any umbrella organization, taking the risk of seeing parallel unions created inside UNESCO on different grounds and principles. During a meeting in London in July 1946, pragmatism prevailed and ICSU decided to cooperate with UNESCO. The main concern was the potential scattering of traditional disciplines into specialized unions that were already emerging.
From London (1946) to Amsterdam (1949), from the “Reprise de contact” to new Statutes At the ICSU meeting in London in 1946, the Unions presented their activities during the war. As for the International Union of Chemistry (its name was Union internationale de chimie, UIC, since 1930), Marsten T. Bogert (USA, 1868-1954), who had been elected president back in 1938, had written in 1940 to all members urging them to keep the Union going as much as possible, and encouraging the chemical societies of nations at war to remain active [2]. As a result, in 1946, the UIC was able to announce that the Annual Tables of Physical Constants had been published for the period 1931-36
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Chemistry International
July-September 2019
Marsten T. Bogert, USA, elected President in 1938 (Portrait collection, Science History Institute, Philadelphia; https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/z029p478k)
and that a US group at Princeton, under the direction of Hugh S. Taylor (1890-1974), had prepared the table for 1941-1942, with the support of Jean Timmermans (1882-1971), director of the Institut international des étalons physico-chimiques in Brussels, who had taken refuge in London [3]. The Commission on New Analytical Reactions and Reagents (CNARR) had also kept close contact with its members located in Delft, Ghent, and Geneva, and published its works in Basel, situated in neutral Switzerland, in 1945. A delicate matter was preoccupying the Council though. Jean Gérard (1890-1956), who had served as a most efficient secretary general since 1919, was accused of collaboration with the German occupying authority that had been hosted at the Maison de la Chimie (Paris), the Union headquarters. Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1900-1958), director of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and a figure of the Resistance, had already demanded his exclusion in 1944. In 1945, Bogert received Gérard’s resignation and designated Raymond Delaby (France, 1891-1958), as provisional secretary general, on the recommendation of Joseph Bougault (France, 1870-1955), vice-chair of the Union. Delaby was member of the CNARR that had so diligently worked during wartime. At the “Reprise de contact” [4] meeting in London,
