352 J.-A. PEMBERTON
of war’. The respondents urged the IIIC to rally the ‘leaders of spiritual
and intellectual activities in defence of the principles of civilization and
the moral rules that Nazi philosophy threatened’ and that these rules
‘should be proclaimed as the idea for which free nations were fighting.’^3
As Jean-Jacques Renoliet observes, despite its professedly apolitical
stance in the past, the IIIC saw its role in late 1939 as being that of
‘reinforcing the cohesion of the democracies in the face of the aggres-
sions of the dictators.’^4
The IIIC’s executive committee held its annual meeting for 1939 on
December 15 and 16. At the meeting, it confirmed the decision that
the IIIC would continue to function in Paris, at least for as long as Paris
remained the seat of the French government and the focus of diplomatic
activity in France.^5 At the same time, it had become clear that financial
and logistical difficulties arising from the fact of war would mean that
the IIIC’s activities would have to be curtailed. As a consequence of
this consideration, a number of meetings planned to take place in Paris
in 1940 were adjourned, including the third General Conference of
National Commissions of Intellectual Cooperation.^6
It should be recalled that the second general conference of these
commissions had met in Paris in 1937 during the Month of Intellectual
Cooperation, the major upshot of this conference being the convening
of a diplomatic conference at the French Foreign Ministry. This confer-
ence culminated in a special meeting on December 3, 1938, under the
chairmanship of Fakhry Pacha, the Egyptian minister in Paris, during
which the International Act Concerning Intellectual Cooperation was
signed.^7 In closing the General Conference of the National Commissions
of Intellectual Cooperation, Herriot had stated that ‘[j]ust as the mod-
ern airman, flying across the frontiers, dominates land and sea, moun-
tains and plains, so human thought which seeks to establish unity
among men, should abstain from judging the forms which national will
(^3) Bonnet, Intellectual Co-operation in World Organization, 22, and Informations sur la
Coopération Intellectuelle (a), nos. 1–2 (1939), 1.
(^4) Renoliet, L’UNESCO oubliée, 148.
(^5) Ibid., 149.
(^6) Ibid.
(^7) League of Nations, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1938 (Paris:
International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1939), 6–10, 16.