With the Axis powers tottering toward defeat in World War II, Roosevelt reported that the recently concluded Yalta conference of Allied leaders had agreed upon “a common ground for peace.” It would “spell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries―and have always failed.” These approaches would be replaced by “a universal organization,” a “permanent structure of peace upon which we can begin to build . . . that better world in which our children and grandchildren . . . must live, and can live.”