1. Mr. President, I should like first of all to convey to you the warmest congratulations of the delegation of Ireland on your election as President. Your election is not only a high tribute to you personally; it is also a compliment to the country you represent and to the continent of Africa, whose progressive emergence to freedom has been such a welcome feature of the past decade. I wish you all success during your term as President.
2. A few days ago the Foreign Minister of Denmark, Mr. Haekkerup, was good enough, on behalf of a number of Member States, including Ireland, to welcome the admission of three new Members to the United Nations (1287th meeting]. I desire to confirm our deep feelings of satisfaction at this event. We in Ireland have watched with keen interest the advance of Malawi, Malta and Zambia towards independence, and we are very happy that this advance has now been crowned by their, admission to the United Nations. We wish their Governments a hearty Godspeed in their future work for their peoples.
3. It is appropriate, I think, to recall that the Irish delegation has on many occasions expressed its grave concern at the failure of some Members to contribute to the expenses of the Organization as apportioned by the General Assembly in accordance with Article 17 of the Charter. Some delegates may remember that on 4 October i.962 [1142nd meeting] I devoted the whole of my address in the general debate to the crisis which then threatened the finances of the United Nations. Last year [1226th meeting] I again dealt at length with the same subject.
4. All of us here, I believe, know and appreciate that the heart of the discussion on United Nations financing lies deeper than any legal arguments about Article 19. It is more than a question of dollars and cents. The very survival of the United Nations as at present constituted, with its checks and balances between the Security Council and the Assembly, is involved. The final outcome of the present crisis will show whether there is enough combined wisdom, tenacity and forbearance among its Member States to preserve the world Organization, while we gradually evolve a system of law and combined law enforcement capable of maintaining peace based on justice and guaranteeing all States against aggression. The United Nations cannot fulfil every desire of every Member all the time, but it gives opportunity to all for fruitful discussions of international problems and provides an invaluable informal meeting-ground for bilateral talks and for multilateral pressures on disputants to find reasonable compromises.
5. This second attempt at a world organization not only gives weaker nations the opportunity of combining to bring moral influence to bear on the great Powers, but in addition, through their right of discussion and of granting or refusing assessments in the Assembly, they can act as a counterweight to the permanent members of the Security Council, as a curb on their power of destruction which is now near absolute, as a conciliatory influence on their differences, and as a spur for the extension of freedom, security and prosperity to all peoples of the earth.
6. I can, of course, understand, and indeed sympathize with, the attitude of a great Power which might wish to establish for itself a second veto — a financial veto - on the peace-keeping operations of the United Nations. But when the Charter was vising framed at; San Francisco, it was deliberately and expressly drafted to give the Assembly the power to act by a two-thirds majority as a counterweight — "le contrepoids" as one statesman put it — to the Security Council. Neither the Charter nor the "Uniting for Peace”resolution envisages this second veto. Any attempt to establish it now can only be regarded as a revolutionary act designed to destroy, first, the right of the Assembly to decide on assessments for peace-keeping operations, even those unanimously adopted by the Security Council and, secondly, to destroy the vital modicum of power residing in a two-thirds majority of the Assembly to answer an appeal for a peace-keeping force when, and only when, the Security Council has refused to give assistance through lack of unanimity of the permanent members.
7. It seems to me that if we in the Assembly, composed in the majority of smaller States, are persuaded by legal sophistry to let slip the power to mount and maintain a peace-keeping force when the Security Council has failed to act, or if we allow that power to be wrenched from our grasp by threats of disruption, it will be regarded as a sure proof that we did not deserve to have it and that we failed in our duty to the peoples of the smaller States, and indeed to the common people of the great States as well. I appeal to this Assembly to stand firm by its rights in this crisis, not out of any spirit of opposition to the permanent members of the Security Council but indeed in their best interest as well as that of the smaller States. I ask the Members also to see to it that the Secretary-General shall at all times have sufficient funds to carry out the important decisions of the Assembly. If we do so, I am convinced that though the United Nations may be faced with a period of great difficulty, it will in the end weather the storm triumphantly and emerge greatly strengthened In its capacity to promote and defend world peace and in its ability to develop the resources of the world for the welfare of all mankind.
8. In these critical days in the life of the United Nations, let us remember that when we joined the United Nations we pledged ourselves to promote the aims of the Charter. Our attitude on the matter of financing is being keenly watched by all men of goodwill, to discover whether we are determined to make the United Nations an efficient and effective instrument to achieve the Charter aims, or to allow it to become a tragic shadow of a noble idea. Reasonable men everywhere recognize that an organization, if it is to be successful, must have a sound financial basis and that, even if Article 19 were not expressly written into the Charter, when we accepted its aims we must have presumed the means, and therefore were fully aware that we were undertaking to subscribe our fair share of the means necessary to achieve those aims.
9. Speaking for my own country, I can say that when we applied for membership of the United Nations, we did so after due deliberation, fully conscious of the duties and responsibilities our small nation was shouldering. It was clear to us that in accepting and signing the Charter, each Member pledged itself to pay its due portion of the expenses of implementing the decisions of the Organization and to provide, if necessary, its due quota of soldiers for peace-keeping operations. Had we believed that by any stretch of the imagination or legal sophistry the Charter could be- interpreted otherwise by the Assembly, I doubt whether we would have thought it wise or worth-while to apply for membership.
10. In any event, as representatives may be aware, since becoming a Member Ireland has supplied to the United Nations peace-keeping operations, in which we were invited to participate, more soldiers in proportion to population than any other Member State. We mourn the loss of the soldiers who fell, but are proud that they volunteered to serve the noble cause to which the Irish people, like their forefathers, are dedicated: the defence of the rights of men and nations set forth in the Charter of the United Nations and the fostering of the spirit of brotherhood among all races, classes and creeds.
11. I would appeal to the representatives here present, particularly the representatives of the smaller States, to remember that if the United Nations were to fail, as the League of Nations failed, it is not the great Powers which would be the first to feel its loss. Rather it would be the weaker States, bereft as we would be of the protection and support afforded by the moral influence of this Organization. The Irish people, which had to fight for its personal and national rights for over seven centuries against great odds and practically without assistance, recognizes that it was the influence of this Organization more than any other factor which brought freedom to half its Members. It is because we are keenly aware of the value of the United Nations as the protector of weak nations and the friend of the poor, and our own best hope for the security and reunification of the Irish nation, that our people are prepared to do their share and, if necessary, something more than their share, to support the United Nations in its peace-keeping activities.
12. Let me hasten to point out at the same time that it is not only the smaller nations which benefit from the existence of a strong and efficient United Nations. Had it been destroyed before Cuba, the great Powers, without the conciliatory initiative this Organization exercised to bring them to negotiations, might well^ have destroyed each other in a nuclear holocaust^ and have polluted the atmosphere of the world with radioactive fall-out.
13. In the case of the most recent peace-keeping operation — that of Cyprus — Ireland has refused to accept payment of the usual United Nations allowance for our soldiers. We did so to demonstrate our rejection of the voluntary fund method by which the Cyprus peace-keeping operation was financed. This stand has imposed a heavy financial burden on our small country, but we are convinced that the United Nations cannot achieve the aims of the Charter if the Assembly does not insist that the cost of carrying out its decisions is shared by all Members on an equitable basis in accordance with the Charter. The Irish people are prepared, I believe, to see the Cyprus operation through in the hope that it will bring stable peace to its sorely-tried people and its Mediterranean neighbours, and they are prepared to allow a reasonable opportunity to the Assembly to assess the expenses of peace-keeping operations, including those in Cyprus, on a fair and equitable basis for all Member States; but we are not prepared to agree that the pay of Irish soldiers in the United Nations peace-keeping force should be dependent on the voluntary subscriptions of a few States. We regard it as vital for a small country like ours that our soldiers serving in a United Nations contingent should have the clear and unequivocal status of a United Nations force, paid and equipped only out of the Irish exchequer and funds contributed under regular assessment procedure by all Member States.
14. Great as is my personal faith in the inherent capability of our Organization to promote peace and welfare throughout the world, I see little but confusion and disaster if it has not the resources to carry to a successful conclusion its commitment to supply peace-keeping forces to a State that has asked its assistance. In my opinion, the recent tragedies in the Congo are due more than anything else to the failure of the United Nations to live up to its commitment to the Congolese people, and that failure arose from a lack of funds contemptibly small in amount in relation to the combined resources of our Member States.
15. Let me conclude my remarks on this subject by saying that the Assembly has the right to assess every Member for its fair share of the expenses of implementing its decisions and that each has the duty to pay, even if it is opposed to any particular decision. If one Member is allowed to refuse payment without penalty, how is the Organization to be financed if all other Members exercise an equal right not to pay? If we are to take a successful stand on this issue which we regard vital to the life of the United Nations and that means so much to the smaller Members, we must, I submit, stand firm now.
16. I wish to turn now to another grave and pressing problem — that of preventing the growth of international tension through the spread of nuclear weapons. The great Powers, as we know, are prisoners of the terrible weapons which they possess. As they confront each other, with fingers frozen on the triggers of instruments of total destruction, they deserve our sympathy, our prayers and our help.
17. Even the smallest countries can do something to help the great Powers to reduce the tension which forces them to keep their nuclear weapons at the ready. We can help, I suggest, by co-operating to avoid strife in all areas in a spirit of peace, conciliation and brotherhood, and by moderating our demands for action to redress injustices in cases where action is not yet in the realm of the possible without war. We can help too by establishing, wherever possible, areas of law and limited armaments in which a group of States would conclude an agreement not to attack one another, to settle their differences peacefully and to limit their armaments to police level, on the condition that the United Nations, backed by the nuclear Powers, guarantee them against aggression from outside or inside the area.
18. We can help to reduce tension also by providing and supporting adequate United Nations peace-keeping forces to patrol and guard the frontiers between small States at war with each other or in grave danger of being attacked.
19. There is one way above all in which the nonnuclear States can help, particularly those among them which have the capacity to make nuclear weapons; that is by declaring their readiness, in accordance with the General Assembly resolution [1665 (XVI)] on prevention of the wider dissemination of nuclear weapons to sign an international agreement not to manufacture or acquire such weapons and to accept inspection to ensure they are keeping their pledge. The counterpart to this pledge would be that the nuclear Powers bind themselves not to give control of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear States and to go to the assistance of a non-nuclear State attacked by a nuclear Power.
20. Those who suggest that an agreement against the spread of nuclear weapons should be made dependent upon the reaching of agreement on general disarmament do not, I think, appreciate that the advent of nuclear weapons and missiles, with their capacity of instant, unheralded and total destruction, is something completely new — and irreversible — in the history of man, and that to cope with it requires an equivalent revolution in political thinking on international affairs. Luckily, the necessary change in thinking does not require the revision of the Charter; for the discussions on revision, like general and complete disarmament conferences, could go on forever without conclusive result. And in the meantime the list of nuclear States would continue to increase. We must therefore, I am convinced, endeavour to win through to a stable world peace and the restriction of armaments, on the basis of the present constitutional position and division of power in the United Nations and of accepting the monopoly of nuclear weapons in the hands of the five nuclear Powers for many years to come.
21. Though we are all inclined, from time to time, to cavil at the right of veto possessed by the members of the Security Council, I think that we should accept the present division of power and responsibility between them and the other members as a realistic division and a reasonable compromise in the circumstances of the world today. The whole constitutional position would, of course, be greatly clarified and strengthened if the five nuclear Powers occupied the five permanent seats in the Security Council. But, however desirable it might be to have the People's Republic of China as a member of the Security Council, particularly now that it has become the fifth nuclear Power, it would, in my opinion, be intolerable that this should be done by denying Taiwan and its twelve million people a right to membership of the United Nations. For I am sure that the people of Taiwan wish to govern themselves, as they did before being occupied by China and, later, Japan.
22. The small States in this Assembly which suffered occupation by foreign Powers for much longer and more completely than Taiwan — and many of us with much smaller population — should bear this in mind when asked to eject Taiwan from the United Nations.
23. It would be intolerable also, in my opinion, if Peking were admitted to a seat in the Security Council and were, left under the illusion that it was not to be bound by the provisions of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or that its colonial occupation of the ancient nation of Tibet or its attack on Korea and India would be forgotten. Neither should it be allowed to think that it would not be subjected, in the United Nations, to the same pressure to refrain from aggression and to free its colonies as other colonial Members have been.
24. I do not know, of course, whether it would be possible to negotiate an agreed settlement of the problem which is called the representation of China. I suggest, however, that the Secretary-General and the four nuclear Powers in the Security Council should be asked to negotiate with Peking and Taiwan between now and the twentieth session to find out whether agreement could be arrived at on the following basis: that Taiwan would take a seat in the Assembly and that Peking would assume the position of a permanent member of the Security Council, accepting to be bound by the purposes and principles of the Charter, by a non-dissemination agreement and by an agreement that all other nuclear States would go to the assistance of a non-nuclear State attacked by a nuclear Power.
25. It may not be possible to get the agreement suggested between Peking and Taiwan, but now that Peking has become a fifth nuclear Power it is a matter of the greatest urgency that an all-out effort should be made to find out. For it requires very little reflection to see that a number of States in the Eastern part of the world may feel compelled to follow Peking's example unless it is soon brought under the rules of the Charter and the direct influence of the United Nations, and unless, in conjunction with the other nuclear Powers, it accepts an agreement of the kind I have mentioned. The President of the United States said on 18 October 1964 that: "the nations that do not seek national nuclear weapons can be sure that if they need our strong support against some threat of nuclear blackmail, then they will have it.” That statement is to be greatly welcomed, and I am sure it will have an encouraging effect on those who are trying to persuade their Governments not to embark on the production of nuclear weapons at great cost to their peoples.
26. President Johnson's assurance, however, would be far more effective to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons if, as I suggested in an address to the Commonwealth Club at San Francisco on 27 November 1964, similar assurances were given by the other nuclear Powers, and if those assurances were incorporated in a treaty, such as I have suggested, between the nuclear Powers and were confirmed and ratified by their treaty-making authorities. Even if all five nuclear Powers are not now prepared to sign a treaty of that kind, it would, I am convinced, be a strong brake on the spread of nuclear weapons and a vital step for the prevention of war and the establishment of stable peace if as many nuclear Powers as possible negotiated and ratified such a treaty without delay.
27. It may be said that the nuclear Powers could not be trusted not to spread nuclear weapons or relied upon to go to the assistance of a non-nuclear State attacked by a nuclear Power. But I have always believed that all great Powers, like small States, can be trusted to keep an agreement which it is in their vital interest to keep. It is clearly in the common interest of the nuclear Powers with highly concentrated urban populations and industrial facilities to restrict the monopoly of nuclear weapons and to prevent the balance of terror from being upset. The balance might, of course, be dangerously threatened by an addition to the number of nuclear Powers or a change in the control or strategic distribution of nuclear weapons. Indeed the sensitiveness of the nuclear Powers in regard to the strategic balance has been well illustrated by their reaction to the establishment and maintenance of missile bases and by the warnings which have been issued to other countries not to allow nuclear weapons on their territories and not to allow observation aircraft to use their airfields.
28. It is therefore, I think, well demonstrated that the nuclear Powers consider it vital to prevent other nuclear Powers from seizing, or even using, further territory which might be equipped as air, sea or missile bases. I am firmly convinced that if the nuclear Powers had committed themselves before the world to go to the assistance of a non-nuclear State attacked by a nuclear Power, none of them would violate its pledge, knowing that it would be in the interests of the other nuclear Powers to prevent the agreement from being broken and that its aggression would destroy its influence in the world — an influence which each of them is trying strenuously to extend.
29. In the light of those considerations, my delegation would appeal to the non-nuclear States to urge the nuclear Powers to negotiate and conclude a treaty of non-dissemination and of guarantee to non-nuclear States against attack. We are greatly encouraged in making this appeal by the fact that Prime Minister Shastri has given the lead by indicating a few days ago in London that India, a non-nuclear State with the reputed capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons, would not produce such weapons, and urging that the nuclear Powers should guarantee non-nuclear States against attack. India has thus given the lead to countries with a capacity to make nuclear weapons, and it. is devoutly to be hoped that they will follow India's example.
30. I fully realize that it appears to be asking much of non-nuclear States with the capacity to make nuclear weapons to renounce their right to equip themselves with nuclear armaments. But I know of no case in any strategically sensitive part of the world where a non-nuclear State could proceed to manufacture or acquire a significant number of nuclear weapons without attracting a violent reaction from its nuclear or non-nuclear neighbours. I think it is clear that in some cases an effort to produce them might bring about, before it had proceeded very far, the very attack it wished to protect itself against with the help of a nuclear arsenal.
31. As I see the situation, the best defence of the smaller States against aggression in the nuclear age is to help stabilize the number of nuclear Powers and help to evolve a reliable system of international law and law enforcement in co-operation with the other Members of the United Nations. The first step in the evolution of the ideal system must be, I believe, an agreement that for many years to come the nonnuclear States will provide the forces necessary to keep the peace among smaller States and that the nuclear Powers will police themselves.
32. In conclusion, in the interest of all our peoples I appeal once more to the five nuclear Powers to negotiate and conclude without delay a non-dissemination agreement complemented by an agreement in which they will solemnly undertake to protect the non-nuclear States from attack by a nuclear Power. And I appeal also to the non-nuclear States which have the resources to make nuclear weapons to refrain from doing so. Let us, in the interest of the survival of mankind, make an all-out effort in the days ahead to put a stop to the mad use for destruction of our God-given resources, and use them instead to abolish the appalling misery and want which exist throughout the world, even in some of the most highly developed countries,