150. Mr. President, my delegation has already expressed at this session of the General Assembly our congratulations to you on your election to the Presidency, but I think that the friendship between us which has lasted for so many years justifies my voicing, once more, my satisfaction that the Assembly has appointed you to conduct our debates and to lend us your wisdom and your guidance towards the attainment of the lofty goals to which all Members of the United Nations aspire.
151. Since the end of that murderous, period of the Second World War, the General Assembly of the United Nations has brought here, year after year, first fifty and now 109 States, all having the same objective — to free every people of the earth from fear, insecurity, enslavement and poverty.
152. Each of us, spokesmen for our Governments and peoples, has proclaimed in this forum his determination to pursue social justice in peace and freedom; each has affirmed the supremacy of right over might; each has spoken out for the peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights, the self-determination of peoples, non-intervention in domestic affairs, and international cooperation to raise levels of living and to combat the poverty, disease and ignorance which still afflict man in every region of this planet.
153. Who could rightly claim that the conduct of Governments has been in keeping with the preachings of their representatives? Oral faithfulness to the loftiest principles is daily belied by conduct and deeds. Action and practice, departing from the principles and goals of the Charter, daily strike a note of propaganda and polemics, in which not even theoretical lip-service to concord and peace is paid. Recriminations and threats resound on all sides. Actions are based on mutual distrust and fear.
154. We know that no people is ignoble or given over to evil. Yet the policy of recrimination, which keeps mistrust alive, tends to give the impression that there are such peoples, and fosters in nations continually exposed to arbitrary denunciation a feeling of rancour and inflexibility. What people, what nation, what Government can honestly affirm that it has a monopoly of justice and truth? What unclouded mind can believe that error and evil exist only in our opponents?
155. The world is not divided into good peoples and bad peoples: the peoples as a whole constitutes world of nations which respond to different spiritual Impulses, have different histories and are characterized by different trends of philosophy.
156. Instead of persisting in judging each other one-sidedly, we should strive to learn to understand one another and to recognize, in the voice of each nation, the universal voice of man, the common essence Which belongs to the heritage of mankind. Only to this spirit shall we be able to create a climate favourable to negotiation, agreement and the peaceful settlement of international disputes.
157. This General Assembly, as the parliament of mankind, has as its paramount duty the exercise of this function for peace and concord, as the essential condition for the achievement of all the lofty purposes set forth hi the United Nations Charter.
158. A few days ago, Pope John XXIII, speaking in the Sistine Chapel to the diplomatic representatives of eighty Governments, urged the statesmen responsible for the fate of the nations to heed the anguished cry for peace arising from all parts of the earth, and said; "May this thought of the reckoning that they are to face spur them to omit no effort to achieve this blessing, which for the human family is a blessing greater than any other. "Let them continue to meet each other in discussions and reach just and generous agreements that they' faithfully observe. Let them be ready to make the sacrifices that are necessary to save the world's peace. The nations will then be, able to work in an atmosphere of serenity; all the discoveries of science will assist progress and help to make life on this earth, which is already marked by so many other inevitable sufferings, ever more delightful"
159. These concepts, and others parallel in spirit expressed by persons in high places whose authority and influence over the minds of millions of men constitute a moral and political force, are useful in the present hour of peril to orient the behaviour of Governments and peoples towards international concord and co-operation.
160. The General Assembly, wherein so many States are represented, can and must serve as a centre to harmonize the nations' efforts for the achievement of those purposes, which are also those that we proclaim in the preamble and in Chapter I of the Organization's Charter.
161. In the introduction to his Annual Report, the Acting Secretary-General tells us: "I have faith that the United Nations will survive this 'crisis' and emerge stronger than before as a force for peace. In restating my faith in the United Nations I am moved by one more consideration, and that is the increasing tendency to involve the United Nations in the process, of combating want and poverty and disease and in helping the advancement of the developing countries." [A/5201/Add.l, p, 5.] In order that these noble goals may be attained; it is necessary to preserve peace in freedom.
162. The survival of the human species and the continuity of our history require, above all, that the arms race, the continuance of which will inevitably lead to a nuclear conflict, be halted. The present scene is not entirely gloomy. At this session, we have welcomed the admission of new States and their accession to independent life. We have also witnessed the extraordinary undertakings of contemporary science and technology, which have opened outer space to man's curiosity and enterprise.
163. I have already had occasion to say that we men of today are taking part in the bringing to birth of a new era, characterized by two equally impetuous and encouraging forces: the irresistible impulse towards freedom, and the liquidation of colonialism, and the scientific and technical potential which opens man's way to outer space. The first of these forces is a revolutionary and unifying one, born of the irrepressible yearning of individuals and peoples and effectively brought to bear, with compelling urgency, in despite of political and ideological differences and inter-national conflicts.
164. Our fraternal welcome to the new States has already been expressed at this session. We share their present joy, and shall co-operate with them in the arduous task which independence and sovereignty lay upon them. History teaches us that the attainment of independence is not the end of the struggle, but the beginning. To reach independence is to reach the point of departure, the start of an endless battle to defend sovereignty, territorial integrity, social justice and human rights. Freedom's defence lies in the exercise of freedom.
165. Mexico wishes all the new Members of the United Nations a happy destiny. Our people has unceasingly demonstrated its devotion to freedom; we proclaim and defend the right to self-determination and the right of every nation, in the exercise of its sovereignty, to opt for the structures best suited to it. Our people rejects all injustice and every form of foreign hegemony, and its voice has been raised in defence of every just Cause. From the time of our birth as an independent nation, we have linked the Concept of equality between States with the no less generous - idea of equality between men. We condemn the unjust and despicable practice of racial segregation and discrimination, as being in absolute conflict with our faith in human dignity, our national feeling and our history.
166. The exploration of outer space, made possible by the formidable progress of technology and science, is, together with the impetus towards freedom and decolonization, an essential characteristic of our age.
167. In order that the use of outer space may be truly peaceful, it must become an international cooperative venture, legally regulated in the common interest. Otherwise, competition in the conquest and mastery of space cannot be peaceful, any more than nuclear competition at present is; one attempt at competition will soon give rise to another, and it will then be impossible either to separate or to restrain them. The exploits of the cosmonauts, while admirable in themselves, increase the seriousness and urgency of the need for the Powers to put a permanent end to their nuclear weapons tests.
168. The rockets propelling space-craft may in the future be fed by nuclear fuel, and this would completely change our present concept of international inspection and control.
169. The most urgent problem of our time, the most urgent problem facing this session, is that of halting the arms race.
170. The most serious manifestation of this race is the competition in nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapon testing. We want all tests to be suspended, and we want the suspension to last and to be reinforced by a legally binding obligation, contained in a treaty. We also want nuclear competition to cease and a date to be set as the final limit for all tests. We do not want our atmosphere to be contaminated with radioactivity, or any more explosions to take place under water or in outer space; When and where should we begin? We are not unaware of what to do; whatever we can do, we should do now.
171. The nuclear Powers are unleashing upon the nations forces of which they are not the masters but the slaves—forces beyond their command and control, which will ultimately destroy both them and all others.
172. There is a dear and deep conviction in the minds of scientists and statesmen, and in world opinion, that general and complete disarmament is an illusion unless an end can first be put to all nuclear weapon tests. To seek disarmament while the nuclear competition which whips up the arms race continues is just as illogical and useless as it would be to seek factual confirmation of theoretical astronomy and of the scientists' findings and conclusions without special rockets or vehicles for that purpose.
173. The peoples wish to live in perpetuity not simply as long as the nuclear Powers will allow; and they want to live without the continual poisoning of the air they breathe. By what right do those Powers act? Who has given them the title-deeds to the high seas, the atmosphere and outer space? The only title-deeds they can produce are those of right based on might, which is not quite the same as might based on right.
174. Universal requirements, and duty of stopping this deadly competition, should not be subordinated to the wishes of a single Power. No single Power, we believe, has the right to choose between the path of explosions and the path of their cessation. No Power has the right to prescribe life or death for its own people; far less does it possess that right in respect of the other peoples of the world, and even less, does it. have the right to destroy our civilization. Who has given the nuclear Powers the right to do as they please with mankind, to annihilate it or to allow it to continue its progress?
175. Life is a process of movement and change. Nothing on this planet remains static and immutable. This inviolable law governs the constant flow of international life, which is never stemmed in its inevitable process of growth and transformation.
176. The longer the nuclear Powers delay their agreement, the more time and opportunity is allowed for other Powers to compete in the arms race. With each new entry into the nuclear "club", the national security of each of its members and the security of the world as a whole are irremediably diminished. Every series of nuclear tests carried out by each Power will make it scientifically and politically necessary for the Power which tested previously to analyse the latest tests and in turn to reply with new tests, on the pretext that it has been compelled to carry them out for reasons of national security or military balance, with an eye to reprisals, or because it is entitled to the last turn; and so it will go on. How long?
177. The reasons now advanced to justify answering one series with another will, in the opinion of the nuclear Powers, still be valid next year and the following year, and every year thereafter until the end of the twentieth century. We do not think this is possible, since no one is unaware that, if there is not a change in direction soon, the danger of a cataclysm of ravaging destructiveness — the only possible outcome of this suicidal struggle — will increase day by day.
178. One of the greatest obstacles to a treaty banning nuclear weapon tests is the fear that the Power which tested last might, as a result, have gained some military advantage or made discoveries and completed experiments marking a significant advance in the nuclear field. The Power entertaining that fear would not readily be disposed to sign a treaty prohibiting tests until it, in turn, had attempted to re-establish the military balance regarded by it as having been upset by the tests of the rival Power.
179. World opinion is weary of listening to bad arguments in defence of a worse cause. Where the testing of nuclear weapons is concerned, the great Powers are governed by one another. They say; "We shall not carry out any more tests unless we are forced to do so", and what happens is that one party continues to force the other and is forced by the latter in tarn,
180. it is hardly to be supposed that the studies which scientists make of nuclear tests by the opposing party lead them to conclude that such tests have been repetitive, useless and negative and have given the enemy no technical advantage. On the contrary — every Study which one party makes of the tests carried out by the other will yield evidence, or at least a reasonable scientific presumption, that technical improvements and a nuclear advantage have been secured. So long as a date for the final ending of tests is not established by mutual agreement, no Power will find it desirable to drop out of the nuclear weapon testing race or see any scientific or political reason for doing so.
181. So long as the Powers remain free, juridically speaking, to carry out tests with a view to perfecting their nuclear weapons and trying to obtain a military advantage, mutual fear will persist and it will be hard for the Powers to find a suitable moment for ending the nuclear competition by a treaty. But if a date for the final cessation of nuclear weapon tests, acceptable to the parties, was established by mutual agreement, the fear that one of them might disturb the existing balance would be removed, and it would then be less difficult to reach agreement on the nature of the control, functions and powers to be exercised by an international scientific body of the type suggested at Geneva in the eight-Power memorandum of April 1962.
182. It must be recognized that the nuclear competition is a race leading, not to security or the maintenance of peace, but to negation and nothingness. It is a race in the dark between the abyss and the tempest. Human intelligence and the instinct of self-preservation should be capable of finding another solution and preparing the future of peace and progress merited by mankind. From this standpoint, the President of Mexico, Mr. López Mateos, and the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Nehru, in a joint communique issued a few days ago at New Delhi, stated as follows; "The President [of Mexico] and the Prime Minister [of India] agreed that the preservation of world peace is the most important task before mankind if the human race and its civilization are to survive. They believe in the abolition of war as an instrument of national policy and in the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means. "They are resolved therefore to continue to work for the early realisation of agreements to achieve general and complete disarmament under international control and a total ban on all nuclear tests"
183. In these circumstances, we feel that it becomes daily more urgent and essential to work out an agreement for fixing forthwith the date for the ending of the tests, even if it unfortunately proves impossible to achieve this before the conclusion of the series of tests now in progress.
184. A final date must be set to the test programmes of both parties, and that date must be established forthwith in a treaty, because it is dangerous to wait until the completion of both series of tests in the hope that an effective agreement, setting a final date for the end of the nuclear race, can then be negotiated. If we postpone the negotiation of a treaty until both series, of tests are concluded, it is very unlikely that either party will refrain from advancing, once again, the same reasons of military balance which they have now advanced in justification of the present tests.
185. When the scientists and military leaders of one Power discover that the opposing Power has gained important information or made technical and scientific progress in the direction of perfecting nuclear weapons or defence against them, and when they argue that this entails a nuclear imbalance or a military advantage, the Governments of both Powers will be unable to resist the scientific and military pressures which impel them to answer tests with tests, and so on ad infinitum.
186. Who or what would then be able to halt them in their downward course?
187. We have repeated time and again that we denounce the tests of both parties, and we regret that the clamour of world opinion has not yet been able to prevent them; but if the nuclear Powers have persisted in ignoring the passionate demands of all peoples and in snapping at the bait of a lasting military advantage, we Members of the General Assembly must all strive to help those Powers to fix by mutual agreement a date — here and now, before the series of either party is completed — on which, this year or early next year, a final and definitive end will be put to the senseless competition in nuclear weapons.
188. The statesmen and rulers of both the conflicting groups have said, at one time or another, that a nuclear war would mean the end of civilization as we know it, the destruction of mankind and of all life on this planet. We have been told that existing nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons, and the means and vehicles for delivering them to the intended targets, are enough and more than enough to wipe from the face of the earth absolutely everything that is worth preserving — the treasure accumulated through the efforts, the sufferings and the spirit of man down the ages, since the dawn of his history. Why, then, try to "perfect" existing weapons which are already so diabolically effective?
189. The delegation of Mexico believes that the General Assembly, echoing world opinion, must express its ardent desire and its conviction that nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapon tests should cease at the earliest possible moment.
190. With the aim of contributing to this end, the delegation of Mexico is prepared, at the appropriate time, to submit in the First Committee a draft resolution, which might be in the following or similar terms: "The General Assembly, "Concerned at the continuation of nuclear and thermo-nuclear tests, "Bearing in mind that the cessation of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapon tests is urgently necessary, since radio-active fall-out causes grave damage to present and future generations. "Considering moreover that the effects of such fall-out range beyond the national jurisdiction of the State which produces the explosions and encroach upon other jurisdictions, entailing serious peril to the health of other peoples and of mankind in general, "Considering that nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapon explosions are the most dangerous manifestation of the arms race which, if continued, can have no other outcome than war; "Decides: 1. To call on the nuclear Powers to suspend all nuclear and thermonuclear weapon tests — underground or at sea, in the atmosphere, or in outer- space — as soon as possible and in any event not later than 1 January 1963; 2. To call on the nuclear Powers to continue, as a matter or urgency, negotiations for the conclusion of binding agreements which will prohibit all nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapon explosions for ever."
191. The cessation of nuclear weapon tests not later than 1 January 1963 — the date we suggested at Geneva — would have salutary effects on the international climate and would help to solve other related questions on the agenda of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament, such as the question of halting the spread of nuclear weapons, the question of denuclearized zones, the problem of how to avoid a war by accident, error or break-down of communications the problem of the peaceful use of outer space, and so forth.
192. We have noted with interest the observation made by the chairman of the Brazilian delegation in his statement of 20 September last to the General Assembly. Mr. de Melo Franco said: "Brazil also favours, in principle, the establishment of denuclearized zones in the world, provided that proposals to that effect are not merely made for the purposes of the cold war, from which we have always held aloof. Latin America might form such a zone." [1125th meeting, para. 25.]
193. I wish to point out in this connexion that the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mexico spoke at Geneva as follows: "In our view, denuclearization can and must be carried out — while world agreement is being sought — by spontaneous decisions of States. Thus, the Government of Mexico has decided neither to own, nor to admit to the national territory, nuclear weapons of any kind, or vehicles which might be used for their delivery."
194. As we have said before, we regard the establishment of denuclearized zones as a temporary and partial measure, because we are opposed to nuclear weapon tests wherever they may take place and what ever Power may be responsible for them.
195. The world views with alarm the prospect of series after series of nuclear weapon explosions, of greater and greater power and at greater and greater altitudes in out space. Outer space is res communis; the high seas are res communis; but since the start of the competition in nuclear weapon tests, the great Powers have treated the res communis as their private property and have exercised their jurisdiction in outer space and on the high seas limiting the rights of others whenever they chose to do so. We hope that this situation will change and that the great Powers, with the help of the General Assembly at its present session, will be able to reach that indispensable agreement which will ensure maintenance of peace and remove, for ever, the danger of a nuclear war.
196. The Berlin question is one of the critical problems of the current international situation. World opinion sees with disquiet the threats to peace involved in this situation, and hopes and prays that the Powers concerned can solve the problem peacefully.
197. The Berlin problem is not among the items on the agenda of this session of the General Assembly, but we believe that it would be useful if you, Mr. President, with the high authority vested in you and with the respect which you deservedly enjoy, could perhaps consider and explore the possibility and desirability of making, with the consent of this Assembly, an appeal to the Powers concerned to do all they can to solve this grave and perilous problem by peaceful means, so that world peace may not be disturbed by this issue.
198. I have already said that the principles on which both national policies and international life are based will change. What now seems to us impossible will become practicable, and the springs of human conduct will be adapted to the new reality and necessities of the atomic age. Perhaps we do not quite grasp the importance and the implications of this new age of science and technology. The most realistic of scientists and the most imaginative of thinkers cannot conceive the limits, the speed and the physiognomy of a civilization which is developing at an unsuspected tempo, and in an unsuspected direction.
199. Our generation, is a bridge and a link between two epochs. The transition from the present to the future involves painful and radical changes in thought and action. On our ability to measure up to the responsibilities of the present hour depends the future of mankind. It depends on us whether civilization will continue to hand on the torch from generation to generation.