British ideas about the possible role of an international organization such as the United Nations in the postwar world can be traced back to 1942 and from then until the end of hostilities there was a steady debate within the Foreign Office and wider government circles about what position the UN might play in postwar British foreign and security policy. With the formal beginning of the UN, British frustration did not take long to surface and although Attlee’s Labour Government had, from its early days in office, signalled the UN’s value it was not to be long before the realities of power politics intruded into the Organization’s workings and forced a recalculation about its place in British policy. British disenchantment arose specifically from the Soviet Union’s extensive use of the veto in the Security Council combined with a virulent anti-British propaganda campaign while great power divisions in the Military Staff Committee led to its failure to provide the UN with its own military force. British disillusion was found also in the less than firm diplomatic support from the US delegation in the General Assembly and from what they saw as the inappropriate politicization of the UN Secretary-General’s role. Thus by 1948, only three years after coming to power, the Attlee Government and its Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, had reduced the significance of the UN for British foreign and security policy. This reassessment was a product of the developing cold war and the manner in which it was played out in the UN’s very public forums.