24. I should like to take this opportunity to extend my warm congratulations to Mr. Belaúnde on his election as President of the fourteenth session of the General Assembly. Over the years Mr. Belaúnde has served the United Nations with great devotion and ability. I am sure he will guide the deliberations of this session of the Assembly to a successful conclusion.
25. This, my first appearance before the General Assembly, gives me a welcome opportunity to express my strong belief and firm faith in the United Nations. There is a special personal satisfaction to me in being here for this purpose today. A little over forty years ago I served on the staff of a distinguished President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, when he went to France to negotiate what we then hoped would be an enduring peace. President Wilson held strong convictions concerning the need for an effective international organization to provide means for nations of the world to work together to solve their common problems.
26. Twenty years ago this month the structure of peace that President Wilson had helped to build collapsed in war. In the backwash of the Second World War, however, man continued his quest for peace through international organization. The States subscribing to the United Nations Charter at San Francisco in 1945 sought to build a new and more effective instrument for this purpose. This meeting is one more step in our continuing effort to strengthen that Organization and to fulfill its goals. If all of us devote ourselves faithfully to this task, and thus carry out the obligations of the Charter, I believe that we can achieve the peaceful world which people everywhere earnestly desire.
27. To do this, we must deal with a major problem that the League of Nations did not master and that the United Nations has not yet been able fully to resolve: that of preventing change through the use of aggressive force, while devising processes to accomplish needed and constructive change through peaceful means. The United States accepts the principle of change. Our history, as evidenced by the recent admission of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union, proves the capacity of our system of government to meet and adjust to change. But the way in which change comes about is of overriding importance in the nuclear age. Attempts to change the international situation through force could destroy us all. Total nuclear war has now become, quite literally, a suicidal enterprise. Peaceful progress, on the other hand, could open up new vistas for all mankind.
28. The United Nations itself is one of the major instruments both for deterring force and for accomplishing peaceful change. The United Nations helped to resist force when aggression threatened the Republic of Korea. It helps to deter force through its effort to create stand-by arrangements, which could enable national contingents to be brought together quickly in meeting any future need for a United Nations force. We hope that Members will respond positively to the Secretary-General’s efforts in this regard. The United Nations assists peaceful change through fact-finding and conciliation processes, which can help to prevent disputes from exploding into wider conflict. The United States stands ready to work peacefully, within the framework of the Charter of the United Nations, with all States which share our objectives of ensuring peaceful progress.
29. The past year has seen continued movement toward this goal of peaceful change, on the one hand, and renewed threats of violence which would impede its fulfilment on the other. Progress has been encouraging, in comparison with the situation existing at this time a year ago, in five major areas. In the Middle East, a period of relative quiet prevails. This is in sharp contrast to the crisis of a year ago, when the Assembly had to take important emergency measures. The enlightened actions of the States in the area during the past year have helped to improve the situation. The agencies of the United Nations and the outstanding leadership and diplomacy of the Secretary-General have also contributed significantly to the lessening of tensions and the development of greater stability.
30. We regard these trends as a hopeful portent that further progress can be made on the problems which still confront this area. The future welfare of the Palestine refugees is one such problem. It will be an important item for consideration at this session of the Assembly. Progress toward a satisfactory solution of this tragic problem is important not only to the human beings directly involved, but also to continued peace and stability in the area as a whole.
31. Another problem in this area has arisen with regard to passage through the Suez Canal. The United States continues to support the principle of freedom of passage, as endorsed by the United Nations. We are confident that, if those immediately concerned seek to reconcile their differences in a spirit of mutual accommodation, progress can be made toward a solution.
32. Africa is an area where there has also been steady forward movement. Four new African States are to achieve independence in the coming year. Progress towards self-government is a development which the United States welcomes, in accordance with its historic policy that all peoples should have independence who desire it and are able to undertake its responsibilities.
33. Political advancement in the Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories of Africa is a tribute to the imagination, good will, and skill of the peoples of those Territories and of the Powers that administer them. It is also a tribute to the encouragement and assistance given by the United Nations and the specialized agencies to the advancement of these Territories.
34. In Europe, NATO has continued to grow in peaceful power during the past year. It now represents an even more formidable bulwark of peace in support of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The recent visit by the President of the United States, Mr. Eisenhower, to the NATO area has produced new evidence of the unity, strength and purpose of the Atlantic community.
35. We welcome particularly the progress that has been made during the past year towards a just solution of the Cyprus problem, which directly concerns three of the NATO countries. These countries and the people of Cyprus are to be congratulated on this progress.
36. In Latin America, important steps have been taken in the last year to strengthen the peace machinery of the Organization of American States. The recent conference of the Foreign Ministers of the American Republics in Santiago, Chile, is an encouraging example of how a regional organization can complement the work of the United Nations. It clearly demonstrates the determination of the American Republics to maintain peace in the hemisphere through common action on problems creating international tensions.
37. The Far East has also seen continued progress during the past year in promoting domestic welfare and in strengthening security. War-torn economies have been, for the most part, rebuilt and the foundations laid for further progress.
38. We regret that the Republics of Korea and Viet- Nam are still excluded, by the veto of one Power, from United Nations membership, although both have been found fully qualified by the General Assembly.
39. The member countries of SEATO have carried forward their programmes for economic, social and cultural advancement; SEATO also plays a vital role in the collective defence of the area and is now carefully watching events in Laos.
40. Side by side with these encouraging developments, which augur well for peaceful and constructive change, events in the past year have underlined the continuing danger posed by attempts to mould the international situation through the threat or use of force.
41. Most recently, the freedom and independence of Laos have been threatened by forces from outside its borders. The Security Council Sub-Committee under resolution of 7 September 1959 is now in Laos. We hope that it will not only succeed in collecting the facts, but also by its presence contribute to easing a potentially dangerous situation. In this circumstance, there is no need for a conference as proposed by the USSR. Such a conference would be disruptive and would ignore the authority of the United Nations. This recent action of the Security Council demonstrates the ability of the United Nations to act quickly in a case involving possible efforts to subvert the freedom and undermine the security of a Member State.
42. The United States is pledged under the Charter of the United Nations to resist aggression. It will fulfill this pledge without equivocation. We will support the Royal Government of Laos in its own efforts to preserve independence.
43. In Tibet, we are confronted by the revolting spectacle of the brutal Chinese Communist repression of the fundamental human rights of the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama, under the threat of force, was driven from his country, from his exile in India, he has told the world a tragic Story of persecution, of forced labour, of deportation, of executions in such numbers as to threaten the survival of the Tibetan people. Yet the Tibetans only crime was their desire to live in peace and freedom. This is a matter which is of deep concern to the United Nations. Certainly this Organization must speak out in clear terms in the face of such events.
44. In the Taiwan Strait area where, last year at this time, we were seriously concerned by the military action of the Chinese Communists, Communist China has continued its sporadic campaign of military harassment. Despite months of negotiations, it has refused to renounce the use of force.
45. In Korea, the Chinese Communist regime continues to reject the principles for unification that would assure the freedom and independence of a united Korea. It has flouted the terms of the armistice in Korea. It still stands condemned as an aggressor.
46. In supporting efforts to subvert the will of the free people of Laos, in attempting to exterminate the people of Tibet, and in its incursions into India, the Chinese Communist regime has demonstrated more clearly in the past year than at any time since its aggression in Korea its complete unfitness to be admitted to this Organization. We are confident that the Members of this Assembly will continue to resist efforts to obtain China’s seat in the United Nations for the Communist regime. That seat is honourably occupied by the representative of the Republic of China, a charter Member of this Organization. That Republic has given renewed evidence of its continuing dedication to the principles of this Organization in the past year by its historic declaration that it would rely primarily upon peaceful principles and not upon force to secure the freeing of the mainland.
47. Hungary is another area where the effects of the threat and use of violence are manifest. The tyrannical rule which was imposed on that unhappy country by the ruthless use of outside force still obtains. Every effort of Sir Leslie Munro, the United Nations Special Representative on the Question of Hungary, to investigate the situation at first hand has been rebuffed by the puppet Hungarian regime, which Soviet troops imposed and now maintain. The continued, deliberate defiance of this Organization by Hungary augurs ill for our continuing efforts to secure international peace and security.
48. These events of the past year must be viewed in perspective. The progress that has been achieved testifies to the opportunities which lie ahead. Continuing threats of force and violence underline the dangers which still confront us.
49. To avert these dangers and fulfill those opportunities, we must seek to promote peaceful change which will lay the basis for a just and lasting peace. We must seek such change in political, military, economic and other fields.
50. We will always negotiate with other States to achieve peaceful political change which derives from the freely given consent of the peoples concerned. I speak of our approach to the Geneva negotiations on Germany and on Berlin which reflected this philosophy in concrete terms. I spent ten long weeks in Geneva with the Foreign Ministers of France, the United Kingdom and the USSR in Seeking agreement on the problem of a divided Germany and a divided Berlin. The Geneva Conference met against the backdrop of a potential crisis over Berlin. This had been artificially precipitated by a Soviet threat to take unilateral action against West Berlin. It was only after this threat had been withdrawn that the Western Powers agreed to negotiate in the interests of peaceful change,
51. The Governments of France, the United Kingdom and the United States had as their purpose at Geneva to secure the reunification of Germany in freedom. Such peaceful change would have solved the Berlin question on a lasting basis by restoring Berlin to its rightful place as the capital of a united Germany.
52. To this end, the Western Powers put forward a comprehensive Western peace plan. That plan was designed to achieve the reunification of Germany according to the will of the German people and on a basis which took into account the expressed concerns of the Soviet Union, The Western peace plan was a phased plan which provided time for a mixed German committee to draft an electoral law and to work out proposals for increased technical contacts between the two parts of Germany and for freedom of movement and respect for human rights throughout all of Germany. While this process went on, there would be related preliminary steps for the exchange of military information, for the limitation of the over-all strength of the forces of the four Powers, and for measures of inspection against surprise attack. In the next phase, safeguarded elections for an all-Germany Assembly would be held. This all-German Assembly would draft a constitution on the basis of which an all-German government would be formed. That government would then be responsible for negotiating an all-German peace treaty. In this phase, further disarmament and security measures were contemplated, including the establishment of a zone on either side of a line to be mutually determined in which there would be agreed ceilings for the indigenous and non-indigenous forces. Moreover, if the all-German government decided to adhere either to NATO or to the Warsaw Pact, additional security arrangements were to be made. These would contemplate special measures regulating the disposition of forces in the area closest to the eastern frontier of a united Germany. They would provide for agreements between the four Powers and other European countries about joint reaction against aggression.
53. Unhappily — and I use the word advisedly — the Soviet Foreign Minister rejected the Western peace plan out of hand. He seemed uninterested in studying this carefully devised programme to which the Western Governments had devoted many months of preparation.
54. The Conference then turned to the question of how to arrive at a modus Vivendi on Berlin which would ease the tensions that the Soviet Union itself had created. For this purpose the Western Powers made many proposals. All of them seemed to meet aspects of the problem concerning which the Soviet Union complained. None jeopardized the freedom and the security of the people of West Berlin.
55. What we must never forget is that the problem of West Berlin is not really a legal problem or an abstract case history in political science. It is the matter of the lives and freedom and happiness of these more than two million people who live in West Berlin — people who have shown by their courage and the fruits of their labour the blessings that freedom brings, These people are surrounded by territory and forces under the control of an unfriendly regime. They rely on the presence of the token contingents of United States, United Kingdom and French troops for their security.
56. The long-drawn-out discussion of this problem of Berlin resulted in no agreement. The negotiations did, however, usefully isolate the areas of possible agreement. That is why the Foreign Ministers of France, the United Kingdom and the United States have some hope that a resumed Foreign Ministers Conference could agree on arrangements for Berlin which would safeguard the future of the people of West Berlin. Through their dedication to this continuing negotiation, the Western Powers evidence their support for the process of peaceful change in the political field.
57. Acceptance of this process would be of at least equal importance in the military field. Perhaps the greatest contribution that could be made to peaceful change would be for the Powers to move from reliance on unlimited arms competition to reliance on safeguarded agreements as a means of preserving national security.
58. During the past year, there have been both promising and disappointing developments with respect to our efforts in this field which are of such critical importance to the future of all mankind. The United States took the initiative in proposing a technical conference on measures to guard against surprise attack. While the problems are understood more clearly as a result of that conference, we regret that little progress was made.
59. The United States and the United Kingdom continue the negotiations begun a year ago with the Soviet Union for an agreement on the discontinuance of nuclear weapons testing. There is some progress to report. The three Powers have agreed on a number of details which would have to be a part of a full accord, and technical agreement has been recently reached on the means of detecting and identifying nuclear explosions at high altitudes and in outer space. However, there are still three central issues on which agreement has not been achieved. They all relate to effective inspection, which remains the key to agreement.
60. First, there is the problem of staffing control posts — the listening-posts that would be established to register data which might indicate an unauthorized nuclear explosion. The Soviet Union has insisted that a major portion of the personnel at each control post must be from the host country, a form of self-inspection which we cannot accept.
61. The United States and the United Kingdom have proposed that all technical and supervisory positions at each post be staffed on the basis of one-third United States or United Kingdom specialists, one-third Soviet specialists, and one-third specialists from countries other than these three. This would allow for reasonable host-country representation. It would be a genuinely international staffing pattern in which all countries could have confidence. Finally, it would provide a role for other Members of the United Nations, which have a deep interest in assuring a successfully operating system.
62. The second key control issue is the matter of onsite inspections required to identify suspected underground explosions. While the United States does not object to placing a limit on these inspections, we believe that the number should be based on a scientific judgement, not on political arguments. To assist in making this judgement, we have submitted scientific data bearing on the complex problem of detecting underground explosions and determining whether they are nuclear explosions or earthquakes. We remain convinced that this information should be considered, although the Soviet Union has thus far refused to do so.
63. The third key issue in the negotiations is the veto. The Soviet Union wants the veto in one form or another. The United States firmly believes that any control system which could be frustrated in its day-to-day operations by the veto power would be worse than useless. It would create the illusion, and not the reality, of control.
64. These are the principal issues. It is clear that the points at issue are real. They cannot be ignored. We hope that these three issues can be resolved and that an agreement can be achieved for a comprehensive test ban. We will pursue this approach with vigour, but there is another approach if the Soviet Union is not willing to agree to the necessary means of verification.
65. On 13 April of this year, President Eisenhower offered to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Mr. Khrushchev, to enter immediately into an agreement to ban nuclear weapons tests within the atmosphere and under water, if the Soviet Union remained unwilling to accept effective safeguards for a complete discontinuance of the tests. This would be only a first step toward the ultimate objective of a total ban. However, it would represent a very good start. It would also ease concern over levels of radio- activity. This offer still stands.
66. In the meantime, President Eisenhower recently announced that the one-year unilateral ban on tests which the United States voluntarily undertook last October would be continued to the end of this year. Our hope is that, if we allow a reasonable extension of time for the negotiations to proceed, significant progress can be made.
67. These are the principal developments regarding a possible agreement on a comprehensive test ban.
68. But the question of disarmament is much broader than that of the suspension of nuclear weapons testing. What we earnestly seek is the general limitation and control of armaments and armed forces. The degree to which we succeed may determine man's future. There would fc j growing danger in an indefinite continuation of the arms race. We must use all of our imagination and ingenuity to devise a way of controlling this race, to prevent it from exploding into a conflict fought with nuclear weapons.
69. In an effort to renew disarmament negotiations, the United States and the United Kingdom and France have agreed with the Soviet Union, with which they share a major responsibility for reaching a solution on this problem, to resume discussions on disarmament early next year. These four Powers have invited a small group of other States to join them. The United States regards the coming negotiations as a major opportunity. We hope that the Soviet Government will view them with equal seriousness. Successful negotiations could not only open new avenues of progress toward the limitation and control of armaments but also pave the way for the settlement of other outstanding problems.
70. Recognizing that progress in disarmament might be slow, however, the United States has urged that the peaceful uses of outer space be considered as a separate step toward constructive change.
71. Last year my distinguished predecessor, John Foster Dulles, proposed that the General Assembly take the first step toward establishing a framework for international co-operation in this field [749th meeting]. The United States hoped then that it would prove possible for all Members to share in the benefits that seem certain to emerge from this challenging new frontier of human activity.
72. Recent events have demonstrated how rapidly this frontier is being crossed. The American paddle-wheel satellite, Explorer VI, still circles the earth six weeks after its launching, sending messages back to earth with energy from the sun. We believe this development advances the day when the nations of the world will be linked by a communications network extending to the heavens.
73. The Soviet moon probe — certainly a very great accomplishment — foreshadows the early extension of terrestrial problems into the universe. It also warns us to speed up our efforts to obtain peace on earth. And it signals the pressing need to get on with international arrangements to make a start on the regulation of man’s activities away from his earthly home.
74. In the early years after the development of atomic energy, the United States tried long and hard to interest the Soviet Union in an international approach to harnessing this natural force of such great danger and promise to humanity. The Soviet Union refused to cooperate, apparently believing that its late start in the atomic-energy field would prejudice its national interests if an international approach were adopted. The deadly arms race of the past decade stands as an ugly witness to the human tragedy of that Soviet non-co-operation.
75. Now humanity is on the threshold of another and perhaps more fateful technological development — the penetration of outer space. Again the United States has called for an international approach. This time surely the Soviet Union cannot plead a lack of Soviet 'advancement in this technology. But we see little sign of any Soviet disposition to co-operate as yet. The Soviet Union has declined to participate this past year in the work of the United Nations' Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
76. Arguing that only the Soviet Union and the United States were carrying on activities in the field of outer space, the Soviet Union contended that the Committee should be made up of an equal number of States from these "two sides". This concept was rejected by the Assembly. The world is not divided into two "hostile camps", as the Soviet Union maintains. The world is diverse. This concept is inherent in the United Nations.
77. The United States believes that major committees of the United Nations should continue to reflect the principle of fair geographical representation. This principle derogates in no way from the relative contribution which those States with superior technical capacity can make.
78. We hope that the Soviet Union will join in the cooperative efforts of the United Nations. There could be no more dramatic illustration of a spirit of co-operation in the world today, as we stand at the threshold of the space age, than for the General Assembly to act unanimously in this field. This would be a major step forward in the process of peaceful change.
79. Peaceful change in the economic and social field is also of key importance, if our purposes are to be fulfilled. The United Nations is contributing to social progress through its activities in such fields as health, refugee assistance, narcotics, and the United Nations Children's Fund. Economic improvement can be promoted by healthy competitive trade, which helps assure greater enjoyment of the fruits of economic activity, and by continuing economic development.
80. Last year Mr. Dulles proposed that the nations dedicate the year 1959 to taking stock of their current accomplishments in the field of economic development and to charting long-term courses of action [749th meeting].
81. The United States has now taken the major steps which Mr. Dulles said that we would take in this field.
82. First, the United States has vigorously pressed its development-financing programmes. The Congress has appropriated additional funds for the Development Loan Fund. The flexibility possible in the administration of this Fund enhances its importance as a source of loans for less-developed countries.
83. Secondly, the United States and other nations have doubled their subscriptions to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and have increased their subscriptions to the International Monetary Fund by 50 per cent in the past year.
84. Thirdly, the United States will propose to the forthcoming meeting of the Governors of the International Bank a resolution calling for definite steps toward the prompt establishment of an international development association. Such an organization will provide a new and effective means of financing in less-developed countries sound high-priority projects which cannot be adequately aided under the existing criteria of the Bank.
85. Fourthly, United States acceptance of the Agreement for the Establishment of the Inter-American Development Bank has been approved by our Congress. Establishment of this institution will help to hasten the development of the countries of the Western Hemisphere.
86. Fifthly, the United States continues and will continue, in co-operation with other Member States, to give full support to the existing organizations devoted to the extension of technical assistance. We are gratified that the newly-established Special Fund has taken hold so quickly and begun its important operations. It is my strong hope that the Governments of other Member States will find it possible to increase their contribution to both the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and the Special Fund in order that the initial goal of $100 million for both programmes can be reached as soon as possible.
87. In these and other ways, including the work of all the specialized agencies, the United States dedicates its resources and energies to the only kind of world war that any of us can hope to win: the war on poverty, on disease and on illiteracy.
88. The fact that more than 1,500 million people in this world live in dire want poses a challenge to which we must respond. To try to escape this challenge would deny the common bond that joins all human beings regardless of race, sex, language or religion.
89. Make no mistake about it: wherever men despair of being able to meet their needs through peaceful means, there will be found the seeds of tyranny and conflict. If peaceful change is to be accomplished in the political and military field, it must also go forward at an increasing pace in the economic field.
90. There is the other avenue to peace and peaceful change which I would like to mention before I close. This avenue is to achieve that "world community of open societies" which President Eisenhower stressed at the third emergency special session of the General Assembly in 1958 [733rd meeting]. This "openness" has long been a fundamental characteristic of American society and of many other free societies. The achievement of "open societies" could make an important contribution to peace.
91. But it must be recognized that this goal cannot be fully achieved as long as Governments and regimes disregard the basic principles of international conduct. Realizing this, we regret the need for maintaining safeguards in the interest of peace and stability. For example, the concept of "open societies" cannot be fully achieved as long as the Chinese Communist regime uses increased contacts to subvert and to undermine neighbouring peoples and countries.
92. Within a number of other countries, artificial barriers still exist to free, open and friendly communications. There are barriers of secrecy and of artificial restrictions. There is censorship of the printed and broadcast word. There is jamming of radio broadcasts from without, jamming based on fear that uncensored information may incidentally enter. Let me say right here, however, how heartened we have been to note that Soviet jamming of the Voice of America ceased on 15 September. We profoundly hope that this beneficial change may prove of long duration. There are rules which severely limit the contact of nationals with foreign visitors or travel from one part of the country to another.
93. Behind such barriers are bred images, false reports and false fears of imaginary enemies. These conditions feed upon themselves. They contribute to needless arming and counter-arming. They can give a powerful impetus to the spiral that leads toward war. So long as such barriers exist to the flow of news and information into a country, we cannot even begin to weave the fabric of lasting peace.
94. Openness is particularly important in those countries which possess great destructive power and which bear a great responsibility for peace.
95. Today when we take stock of the situation, two impressions stand out. First, encouraging beginnings in breaking through these barriers have been made. Secondly, there are additional areas in which further removal of restrictions would be helpful to the cause of peace.
96. Recent developments within the Soviet Union, despite their limited scope, provide a glimmer of hope that the Soviet Government may be willing to permit a freer exchange of ideas and information between its own people and other peoples. These developments permit the hope that the Soviet Government may now be prepared to go even further. They prompt me to make a proposal comparable to the one the United States put forward during a Security Council meeting last year - that the Soviet radio transmitters suspend their jamming sufficiently to permit the Soviet people to hear in full the proceedings of the General Assembly. The debates in the Assembly are extremely useful in indicating the numerous and diverse viewpoints which are held on a variety of international issues. Public knowledge of these viewpoints cannot be regarded as subversive to any government, regardless of its structure or policies.
97. We have thus sought and continue to seek peaceful change through many approaches. These efforts draw force and inspiration from the work of the United Nations.
98. Under its Charter, the United Nations is pledged to resist aggressive force. It can be the real catalyst in the process of constructive change. In assisting this process all Members of the United Nations, large and small, have a voice. Bringing diverse viewpoints to bear, while respecting each others' interests and viewpoints, the Members of the United Nations are united in a common effort, in the words of the preamble of the Charter, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind and... to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom".
99. The principles of the Charter directly reflect the precepts of all the great religions. Let us then proceed to the task of fulfilling these principles. In the words of Abraham Lincoln: "…with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us Strive on to finish the work we are in ... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace ..."
100. The United States here rededicates itself to this noble effort to achieve peace and justice for all mankind.