This session of the General Assembly is a session of decision. Before us lies opportunity for action which can save the hope of peace, of security, of well-being and of justice for generations to come. Before us also lies opportunity for drift, for irresolution, for effort feebly made. In this direction is disaster. The choice is ours. It will be made whether we act or whether we do not act.
22. The peoples of the world know this. They will eagerly follow every word spoken here. Our words will reach them mingled with the sound of the battle now raging in Korea. There, men are dying, as our President said yesterday [277th meeting], are fighting and dying under the banner of the United Nations. Our Charter, born of the sacrifices of millions in war, is being consecrated anew at this very moment to the work of peace. The heroism of those men gives us this opportunity to meet and this opportunity to act. Our task is to be worthy of them and of the opportunity they have given us.
23. We meet also with full knowledge of the great anxiety which clutches at the hearts of the people of this earth. Men and women everywhere are weighted down with fear, fear of war, fear that man may be begetting his own destruction.
24. But man is not a helpless creature who must await an inexorable fate. It lies within our power to take action which, God willing, can avert the catastrophe whose shadow hangs over us. That terrible responsibility rests upon every man and every woman in this room. At the end of this meeting each of us must answer to his own conscience on what each of us has done here.
25. How have we come to this condition of fear and of jeopardy? The lifetime of many of us here in this room has seen the rise and fall of empires, the growth of powerful nations, the stirrings of great continents with new-born hope, the conquest of space and great inventions, both creative and destructive. We have lived in a century of alternating war and hope.
26. Now, the foundation of our hope is the United Nations, Five years ago we declared at San Francisco our determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”; we declared our faith in fundamental human rights, our belief in justice and social progress. During the years that have intervened, some of us have worked hard to bring this about.
27. There is no longer any question whether the United Nations will survive, whether it will suffer the fate of the League of Nations. This question has been answered. If by nothing else, it has been answered by the United Nations action against aggression in Korea. Blood is thicker than ink. But the pall of fear has been cast over our hopes and our achievements.
28. What is the reason for this fear? Why is it that we have been unable to achieve peace and security through the United Nations in these five years? Why has there not been the co-operation among the great Powers which was to have buttressed the United Nations? Why have we not been able to reach an agreement on the control of atomic energy and the regulation of armaments? What has been the obstacle to a universal system of collective security?
29. We have been confronted with many and complex problems, but the main obstacle to peace is easy to identify, and there should be no mistake in anyone’s mind about it. That obstacle has been created by the policies of the Soviet Union.
30. We should be very clear in our minds about this obstacle. It is not the rise of the USSR as a strong national Power which creates difficulties. It is not the existence of different social and economic systems in the world. Nor is it, I firmly believe, any desire on the part of the Russian people for war. The root of our trouble is to be found in the new imperialism, directed by the leaders of the Soviet Union.
31. To be more explicit, the USSR Government raises five barriers to peace.
32. First, Soviet efforts to bring about the collapse of the non-Soviet world, and thereby to fulfil a prediction of Soviet theory, have made genuine negotiation very difficult. The representative of Lebanon, Mr. Charles Malik, stated it precisely at the fourth session when he said: “There can be no greater disagreement than when one wants to eliminate your existence altogether.”
33. Secondly, the shroud of secrecy which the Soviet leaders have wrapped around the people and the States they control is a great barrier to peace. This has nourished suspicion and misinformation, in both directions. It deprives governments of the moderating influence of contact between peoples. It stands in the way of the mutual knowledge and confidence which is essential to disarmament.
34. Thirdly, the rate at which the Soviet Union has been building arms and armies, far beyond any requirement of defence, has gravely endangered peace throughout the world. While other countries were demobilizing and converting their industries to peaceful purposes after the war, the USSR and the territories under its control pushed forward preparations for war. The Soviet Union has forced other countries to re-arm for their own defence.
35. Fourthly, the use by Soviet leaders of the international communist movement for direct and indirect aggression has been a great source of trouble in the world. With words which play upon honest aspirations and grievances, the Soviet leaders have manipulated the people of other States as pawns of Russian imperialism.
36. Fifthly, the Soviet use of violence to impose its will and its political system upon other peoples is a threat to the peace. There is nothing unusual in the fact that those who believe in some particular social order want to spread it throughout the world. But, as one of my predecessors, Secretary of State Adams, said of the efforts of an earlier Russian ruler, Czar Alexander, to establish the Holy Alliance, the Emperor “finds a happy coincidence between the dictates of his conscience and the interests of his Empire”. The combination of this international ambition and the Soviet reliance on force and violence — though it be camouflaged as civil war — is a barrier to peaceful relations.
37. This conduct conflicts with the Charter of the United Nations. It conflicts with resolution 290 (IV), headed “Essentials of peace”, adopted at our last session. It has created a great and terrible peril for the rest of the world.
38. But even this conduct has not made war inevitable — we, for our part, do not accept the idea that war is inevitable. But it has lengthened the shadow which war casts over us. This fact cannot be obscured by propaganda which baits the hooks with words of peace, and in doing so profanes the highest aspirations of mankind.
39. There is only one real way the world can maintain peace and security in the face of this conduct. That is by strengthening its system of collective security. Our best hope of peace lies in our ability to make it absolutely plain to potential aggressors that aggression does not succeed. The security of those nations which want peace, and the security of the United Nations itself, demands the strength to prevent further acts of aggression.
40. One of the fundamental purposes of the United Nations, expressed in Article 1 of the Charter, is that it shall “take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of peace”.
41. The action of the United Nations to put down the aggression which began on 25 June against the Republic of Korea was exactly the effective collective measure which was required. It marked a turning point in history, for it showed the way to an enforceable rule of law among nations.
42. The world waits now to see whether we can build on the start we have made. The United Nations must move forward energetically to develop a more adequate system of collective security, for if it does not move forward it will move back.
43. Article 24 of the Charter gives the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace, and" this is the way it should be. But if the Security Council is not able to act because of the obstructive tactics of a permanent member, the Charter does not leave the United Nations impotent. The obligation of all Members to take action to maintain or restore the peace does not disappear because of a veto. The Charter, in Articles 10, 11 and 14, also vests in the General Assembly authority and responsibility for matters affecting international peace. The General Assembly can and should organize itself to discharge its responsibility promptly and decisively if the Security Council is prevented from acting.
44. To this end, the United States delegation is placing before the General Assembly a number of recommendations designed to increase the effectiveness of United Nations action against aggression.
45. This programme will include the following proposals.
46. First, provision for the calling of an emergency session of the General Assembly upon twenty-four hours’ notice if the Security Council is prevented from acting upon a breach of the peace or an act of aggression.
47. Secondly, the establishment by the General Assembly of a security patrol, a peace patrol, to provide immediate and independent observation and reporting from any area in which international conflict threatens, upon the invitation or with the consent of the State to be visited.
48. Thirdly, a plan under which each Member State would designate within its national armed forces a United Nations unit or units, to be specially trained and equipped and continuously maintained in readiness for prompt service on behalf of the United Nations. To assist in the organization, training and equipping of such units, we shall suggest that a United Nations military advisor should be appointed. Until the forces provided for under Article 43 are made available to the United Nations, the availability of these national units will be an important step toward the development of a worldwide security system.
49. Fourthly, the establishment by the General Assembly of a committee to study and report on means which the United Nations might use through collective action — including the use of armed force — to carry out the purposes and principles of the Charter.
50. I shall request that these proposals should be added as an item to the agenda. It is the hope of my delegation that the General Assembly will act on these and other suggestions which may be offered for the strengthening of our collective security system.
51. In doing so, we must keep clearly before the world the purpose of our collective security system, so that no one can make any mistake about it.
52. We need this defensive strength against further aggression, in order to pass through this time of tension without catastrophe, and to reach a period when genuine negotiation may take its place as the normal means of settling disputes.
53. This perspective is reflected in the proposals of the Secretary-General for a twenty-year Programme [A/1304], a perspective from which we can derive the steadiness and patience required of us. This perspective takes into account the possibility that the USSR Government may not be inherently and unalterably committed to standing in the way of peace and that it may some day accept a live-and-let-live philosophy.
54. The Soviet leaders are realists, in some respects at least. As we succeed in building the necessary economic and defensive military strength, it will become clear to them, we hope, that the non-Soviet world will neither collapse nor be dismembered piecemeal. Some modification in their aggressive policies may follow, if they then recognize that the best interests of the Soviet Union require a co-operative relationship with the outside world.
55. Time may have its effect. It is only thirty-three years since the overthrow of the Czarist regime in Russia, and this is a short time in history. Like many other social and political movements before it, the Soviet Revolution may change. In doing so, it may rid itself of the policies which now prevent the USSR from living as a good neighbour with the rest of the world. We have no assurance that this will take place. But, as the United Nations strengthens its collective security system, the possibilities of this change in Soviet policy will increase. If this does not occur, the increase in our defensive strength will be the means of ensuring our survival and protecting the essential values of our societies. But our hope is that a strong collective security system will make genuine negotiation possible, and that this will in turn lead to a co-operative peace.
56. It is the firm belief of the people and the Government of the United States that the United Nations will play an increasingly important role in the world during the period ahead, as we try to move safely through the present tensions. I have already stressed the importance we attach to the United Nations as the framework of an effective system of collective security. The steps we take to strengthen our collective security are not only essential to the survival of the United Nations, but will contribute positively toward its development. The close ties of a common defence are developing an added cohesion among regional groups. This is a significant step toward a closer relationship among nations and is part of the process of growth by which we are moving towards a larger sense of community under the United Nations.
57. The United States also attaches importance to the universal character of the United Nations, which enables it to serve as a point of contact between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world during this period of tension. As our efforts to strengthen the collective security system become more and more effective, and as tensions begin to ease, we believe that the United Nations will be increasingly important as a means of facilitating and encouraging positive and productive negotiation.
58. The United States is ready and will always be •ready and willing to negotiate with a sincere desire to solve problems and we shall continue to hope that some time negotiation will not be merely an occasion for propaganda.
59. Solving the many difficult problems in the world must, of course, be a gradual process. It will not be achieved miraculously, it will not be achieved overnight, by sudden dramatic gestures. It will come about step by step. We must seek to solve such problems as we can, and we must endure the others until they, too, can be solved.
60. Among the immediately pressing problems which require the attention of the General Assembly are the aggression against the Republic of Korea and the problem of Formosa.
61. In a special and, indeed, a unique sense, the Republic of Korea is a responsibility of the United Nations. The actions of the General Assembly, at its second and third sessions in 1947 and 1948, outlined the United Nations aspirations for the future of Korea. Before the aggression of last June, the failure to achieve those purposes had been a matter of deep disappointment and of deep concern. The aggression of 25 June raised a new challenge, which was met by the stout action to which I have already referred.
62. I have every belief and every confidence that this challenge and this defiance of the authority of the United Nations will be crushed as it deserves to be, .and that thereafter the future of this small and gallant country may be restored where it belongs — to the custody of its own people under the guidance of the United Nations. From the outset, the United States has given its full support to the actions of the General Assembly and of the Security Council. We shall continue to support the decisions of the United Nations as the future course of events unfolds. We shall do our full part to maintain the impressive unity which has so far been demonstrated in connexion with Korea.
63. The aggressive attack upon the Republic of Korea created the urgent necessity for the military neutralization of the island of Formosa. The President of the United States, in announcing on 27 June the measures taken to effect that neutralization, emphasized that those measures were to prevent military attack by mainland forces against Formosa and by forces from Formosa against the mainland. The President made it clear, at that time, and he has made it clear on several occasions since, that those measures were taken without prejudice to the future political status of Formosa, and that the United States had no territorial ambitions and sought no special privileges or position with respect to Formosa.
64. It is the belief of my Government that the problem of Formosa and the nearly eight million people who inhabit it should not be settled by force or by unilateral action. We believe that the international community has a legitimate interest and concern in having this matter settled by peaceful means. Accordingly, the United States delegation proposes that the General Assembly should direct its attention to the solution of this problem in circumstances in which all parties concerned and interested have a full opportunity to express their views, and in which all parties concerned agree to refrain from the use of force while a peaceful and equitable solution is being sought. We shall therefore request that the question of Formosa should be added to the agenda as a matter of special and urgent importance.
65. Advances which can be made on these specific issues, and the improvement which can result from an effective collective security system, may help the United Nations to move in the direction of a settlement of further disputes as well. We also anticipate that, as our collective security system is strengthened, our efforts to achieve the regulation of armaments may begin to be productive.
66. My country reaffirms its support of the United Nations plan for the international control of atomic energy which would effectively prohibit atomic weapons. We shall continue to give sympathetic consideration to any other proposals that would equally or more effectively accomplish this purpose. We reaffirm our support of the efforts of the United Nations to work out the basis for effective regulation and reduction of conventional armaments and armed forces.
67. In talking about disarmament, we must keep one elementary point absolutely clear; that is, that the heart and core of any real disarmament is confidence that agreements are being carried out by every armed nation. No one nation can have that sort of confidence unless it has knowledge of the real facts in other countries and such knowledge can come only from international controls based upon free international inspection in every country. There are no safe shortcuts.
68. . Disarmament has been the subject of a great deal of propaganda, and this will doubtless be the case in the future. To those who advance various disarmament plans for propaganda purposes, the United Nations has only to ask this simple question: if you mean what you say, are you willing to take the first step? That first step is the acceptance of effective safeguards under the United Nations. There can be no other basis for disarmament. Only when every nation is willing to move into an era of open and friendly co-operation in the world community shall we begin to get genuine progress towards disarmament. We believe nevertheless that efforts in this direction should continue, that plans should be made, and negotiations should go on. This subject is of such vital significance that no stone should be left unturned in the hope that these efforts will some day be successful,
69. As Mr. Bredo Stabeli, the representative of Norway, put it so well at a meeting of the Commission for Conventional Armaments: “No good farmer fails to prepare for the summer’s sowing and harvest during the dark and cold days of fall and winter. In my country, lying astride the Arctic circle, the farmer would never reap any harvest at all if he were to postpone his labours until the growing season is upon him.” He went on: “It requires courage and steadfast adherence to the principles of the United Nations to explore the possibilities of regulating and reducing armaments when rearmament to oppose lawless aggression is the dire need of the day. I trust, however, that the United Nations will not be found wanting in foresight and steadfastness in this important field.”
70. To reap the harvests of peace in the future, if I may make use of Mr. Stabell’s excellent image, we must plan and we must work now.
71. I have stressed the work we must do to strengthen and develop our collective security system. This is something that none of us wants to have to do, but in the world in which we live we have no choice but to push ahead energetically with this task.
72. Does this mean that all the other things we should like to be doing — the creative things, the productive things — should be put aside for a later time? Not at all. We must keep pushing ahead at the same time with our efforts to advance human well-being. We must carry on with our war against want, even as we arm against aggression. We must do these two things at the same time because that is the only way we can keep constantly before us the whole purpose of what we are doing.
73. Unlike the medieval monks who all through life kept before them a skull as a symbol of death, we must keep before our eyes the living thing we are working for — a better life for all people everywhere.
74. We have it in our power now, on the basis of the experience of the United Nations and the specialized agencies, and of many of the Member governments, to transform the lives of millions of people, to take them out from under the spectre of want, to give people everywhere new hope. We can meet, and we must meet, the challenge of human misery, of hunger, poverty and disease.
75. As an example of the kind of need to which we must put our efforts, I should like to speak of the problem of the use and ownership of land, a source of misery and suffering to millions.
76. In many parts of the world, especially in Asia, nations have been seeking to achieve a better distribution of land ownership. Leaders in India and Pakistan, for example, are keenly aware of this problem, and are taking steps to deal with it effectively.
77. In Japan, as the result of a land-reform programme, three million farmers — well over half of all the farmers in Japan — have acquired land. In the Republic of Korea, where previously there had been twice as many tenants as owners of land, a redistribution of farmlands had, by the time the invasion took place, changed that ratio so that those who owned land outnumbered those who held their land in tenancy. Plans which were scheduled to be put into effect this summer would have made farm owners of 90 per cent of the farm families, in Korea. In each of those countries, the result of redistribution of the land has been to give the individual, farmer an opportunity to work for himself and to improve his status.
78. These examples I have cited are not slogans or phrases. They suggest what can be done on a cooperative, democratic basis, by processes of peaceful change, which respect the dignity of the individual and his right to self-reliance and a decent livelihood. The result has not been what has been called land-reform in certain other parts of the world — to collectivize the farmer and to place him under the complete control of the government instead of the land-owner.
79. Equally important is the problem of the better use of the land. Control of soil erosion, better seeds, better tools and better fertilizers are needed in almost every country, but especially in parts of Asia, Africa, parts of the Middle East and Latin America, where people suffer greatly from the inefficient use of land.
80. The major responsibility in these fields rests, of course, with governments, but the United Nations should make special efforts to advise and assist governments in improving land use and productivity. A considerable portion of the funds pledged for the technical assistance programme is already available, to enable us. to push ahead with an attack on such problems as these, as well as problems of health, education, industrialization and public administration.
81. A vast opportunity awaits us to bring, by such, means as the United Nations has been developing, new hope to millions whose most urgent needs are for food, for land and for human dignity. These efforts, and this, experience, if concentrated on areas of particular need, can have a combined impact of exciting proportions. The place to begin, I submit to the Assembly, is Korea.
82. Just as Korea has become the symbol of resistance against aggression, so it can become also the vibrant, symbol of the renewal of life.
83. A great deal is being done through the United Nations and under the Unified Command for the relief of the Korean people. This aid needs to be vastly increased. But there is another job which needs to be done, and a greater one than relief. As peace is restored in Korea, a tremendous job of reconstruction will be required.
84. The devastation which has overtaken Korea is a, consequence of the aggression from the north. It is probably unrealistic to expect that those who might have prevented or recalled this aggression will make available the help needed to repair the damage caused by the invasion. The lives lost as the result of this aggression cannot be recalled, but as the people of Korea set about the task of re-establishing a free and independent nation, as they begin to rebuild their country, the United Nations must be prepared to marshal its resources and its experience to help them.
85. Here, by focusing on one place of extreme need, the United Nations and the specialized agencies can demonstrate to the world what they have learned about helping people to combat disease, to build hospitals, schools and factories, to train teachers and public administrators, to make the land fertile.
86. This is a job that can be done. It will take substantial effort and resources, but those are available. Fifty-three governments have pledged their support to the United Nations defence of Korea. Some of these governments have been unable to contribute military personnel or equipment. But all of them, I am sure, will want to contribute food, transportation and industrial equipment, construction materials and technicians to the great task of reconstruction.
87. My Government is prepared to join with the other Member nations in making resources and personnel available. When the conflict in Korea is brought to a successful conclusion, many of the doctors, engineers and other technicians, and much of the resources now being used to support the United Nations military action, will be made available by my Government to a United Nations recovery force.
88. I suggest that the General Assembly should call upon the Economic and Social Council to set up a United Nations recovery force to harness this great collective effort.
89. These measures not only will aid in restoring the people of Korea quickly to a condition of peace and independence, but they will demonstrate to the people of the world the creative and productive possibilities at the command of the United Nations. Out of the ashes of destruction, the United Nations can help the Korean people to create a society which will have lessons in it for other people everywhere on the earth. What the United Nations will be able to do here can help set a pattern of co-ordinated economic and social action in other places, where the need is for development rather than for rehabilitation.
90. We look forward, then, to a time when Members of the United Nations will be able to devote their energies and their resources to productive and creative activities, to the advancement of human welfare, rather than to armaments. When the time comes that a universal collective security system enables nations to reduce their burden of armaments, we hope that other nations will join with us in pledging a good part of the amount saved to such productive United Nations activities as I have been describing. A world such as that, in which nations without exception work together for the well-being of all mankind, seems a very distant goal in these days of peril, but our faith in its ultimate realization illumines all that we do now.
91. In building a more secure and prosperous world, we must never lose sight of the basic motivation of our effort: the inherent worth of the individual human person. Our aim is to create a world in which each human being shall have the opportunity to fulfil his creative possibilities in harmony with all.
92. It is our hope that the relaxation in international tension, which we seek, will be accompanied by a great restoration of human liberty, where it is now lacking, and progress everywhere towards the “larger freedom”. But the safeguarding of human freedom is not a distant goal, nor a project for the future. It is a constant, immediate and urgent concern of the United Nations. The United Nations should keep forever in mind the objectives set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and we should press forward with the work of our distinguished Commission on Human Rights. While we are engaged in creating conditions of real peace in the world, we must always go forward under the banner of liberty. Our faith and our strength are rooted in free institutions and the rights of man.
93. We speak here as representatives of governments, but we must also speak the hearts of our countrymen. We speak for people whose deep concern is whether the children are well or sick, whether there is enough food, whether the roof leaks, whether there will be peace. But peace, for them, is not just the absence of war. The peace the world wants must be free from fear — the fear of invasion, the fear of subversion, the fear of the knock on the door at midnight. The peace the world wants must be free from want, a peace in which neighbours help each other and together build a better life. The peace the world wants must be a moral peace, so that the spirit of man may be free and the barriers between the hearts and minds of men may drop away and leave men free to unite in brotherhood. This is the task before us.