It all began on 25 April 1945, and San Francisco looked glorious in the sun. There were flash-bulbs, red carpets, flowers and, like a Hollywood premiere, the words 'United Nations' flashed in neon outside the cinemas. The billing was a golden moment in history. Here the hopes of the world were unveiled and the Golden Gate would open upon a better, a happier, and a safer world. Fifty years later, in 1995, the dream has gone and, in this meticulously researched book, Linda Melvern tells why it died - and who killed it. In unravelling the history of the United Nations, she has found a secret history of the world since 1945: how the first Secretary General lied to his staff and connived with the FBI to purge idealists from the UN; how the Americans tried to buy the British vote with atomic information; the secret British policy to withdraw from the UN; the secret alliance between Britain and America to keep China out of the UN; why after fifty years the permanent five are still unwilling to prevent genocide and how they stood idly by during three months of massacre in Rwanda; how the Security Council sends untrained soldiers to war - and abandons them to starvation and death; how Mikhail Gorbachev rediscovered the UN - and why it was too late; why Clinton, whose election campaign demanded an international standing army, turned his back on his promise; and why the United Nations is beyond help and reform is impossible.