48. Just a few months ago, when some signs appeared of a lessening of the tension in Europe and therefore in the world, two voices were raised, on either side of the Atlantic, telling us where to look for the key to the kingdom of peace.
49. President Eisenhower, reckoning in terms of capital and consumer goods the expenditure in money and labour necessitated by a chronic state of insecurity, said that a limitation of armaments carried out simultaneously and under supervision would enable each country to ensure its defence with smaller forces, and that the enormous savings thus effected could be spent on raising the living standards of the peoples.
50. At the same time, Mr. Bidault, welcoming the delegates to the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in Paris, declared: “No problem in the world today can really be settled so long as the armaments race continues. Even those problems which look most difficult will become less difficult as soon as the use of force ceases to be a practical possibility at any moment. The key to the future, and, we believe, the only one that warrants hope, lies in substantial, simultaneous and controlled disarmament, and nowhere else.”
51. In reminding you of these facts today, I am not appealing to this Assembly alone. When all those who bear the responsibility of leadership in the world finally realize that there is no certainty of salvation for anyone, no possibility of any kind of just and lasting settlement, in a world resounding with the din of armaments factories and atomic explosions, the technical problems of simultaneity and control will be seen to be more simple. As yet, we are still at the starting line, marking time, while month by month the technical difficulties of disarmament and control increase, white the scientific improvement of weapons keeps the world in a state of agonizing uncertainty, while the atmosphere is charged with threats.
52. Why should we hide the fact? The differences on this point between ourselves and the USSR have never perceptibly diminished. We never lost hope, however, and when, last April, Mr. Vyshinsky invited us to meet him half-way, we thought that his country was prepared to arrange a settlement, to take action on certain points. We knew that we had done our share only a short while earlier, and the French delegation had never given up hope of a constructive response to the proposals it had put forward either alone or jointly with the United States and the United Kingdom. But nothing came — neither fresh proposals nor a reply.
53. Now we are offered formulas which have not only been rejected time and again by the United Nations in the last five years or more, but which, in recovering what I hardly dare term their original purity, have lost all trace of certain conciliatory efforts. Is that really the prospect offered us on the eve of the resumption of the debate on disarmament? What is clear, however, is that the attempt to secure agreement on the technical aspects of this essential matter must go forward pari passu with the endeavours to settle the major problems; if progress could be made in that respect we should be entitled to expect that, with success in one point leading to success in another, and so on, by possibly rapid stages, the mistrust felt by the protagonists for one another would diminish, the contacts thus made would bring about some partial improvements in the general situation, and the scene would in time be set for genuine negotiations and for agreements on an ever wider scale.
54. But disarmament is of necessity a gradual process and all States, especially those which claim the contrary, will agree to large-scale disarmament only after they have tested the system, to see whether it works fairly and effectively, by taking preliminary steps on a smaller scale. Although, therefore, we still need to frame a general plan, it may be that the method of partial agreements would be the best to adopt in embarking on the great task that the Charter has laid upon us. A limited reduction and a limited control would result. That would be but a modest first success, but it would quickly open the way to further progress, and it would greatly help to ease the general situation. The United Nations can encourage that process by acting wisely and firmly in pursuance of its primary mission.
55. We have already been reminded from this rostrum that the revision of the Charter will appear on the agenda in 1955. My country intends to make an effective and considered contribution to that necessary rectification. A revision of the text would be futile if we did not prepare for it by honestly examining our own positions Experience has already shown that if we wish to pursue the common task undertaken in 1945 and guard against the moral collapse that threatens us, we must be guided by two mutually complementary rules. The first, a positive rule, is to do as much as possible and to do it in the light of the principal objectives which are clearly set forth in the Charter. The second, a negative rule, is to avoid barren and endless debates which, under the pretext of extending the competence, powers and responsibilities of the Organization, in fact misapply the laws that govern it, poison the atmosphere of our debates and thus render them ineffective.
56. When we establish something constructive like the United Nations Children’s Fund; when, slowly but surely, we achieve progress in the international control of narcotics; when we gauge the results of the patient work done by the regional economic commissions; when we make sure that the great international programmes of technical assistance will bring to the peoples of the recipient countries not a passing alleviation merely, but will help them to help themselves — then we can be sure that we are not being deceived by appearances or falling into traps, that we are reaching to the heart of the matter, that we are bringing men, countries and continents closer together, in short, that we are fulfilling our obligation, which is to join forces to sever the chains so rightly denounced by the Secretary-General in his report [A/2404] — the chains of poverty, ignorance and hatred.
57. What serves it, on the other hand — and I take but one example — to spread suspicion and irritation in the Fourth Committee’s debates by trying to use Chapter XI of the Charter as a means or pretext for just the kind of interference which the authors of the Charter wished to prevent? The whole moral value of Chapter XI resides in the fact that it is a voluntary declaration.
58. The fact is that in 1946 only eight nations responded to the appeal made to them and consented to name the Non-Self-Governing Territories under their administration. Is it right that a reward for their good faith and goodwill those eight States should be exposed to criticism and attack, sometimes malevolent attack? It should be dearly understood, and realized once and for all, that we recognize our special responsibilities, that we are in agreement with the United Nations as to the scope and character of those responsibilities, but that for that very reason we cannot agree to share them.
59. I am in a position to repeat this, since the principles laid down in Article 73 of the Charter have been written into the preamble of my country’s Constitution, and since France has long repudiated the objectionable and obsolete notion that States responsible for administering dependent territories should enjoy discretionary rights. Where do we find the true spirit of the Charter? In the labour code of Overseas France, which is a full and guaranteed declaration of the social rights of the individual and the citizen? In the policy of association, which encourages the development of indigenous communities as well as of their individual members? Or in a sort of mixture of xenophobia, racialism and reactionary nationalism directed awards nonsensical fragmentation? To answer that question we have only to remember the perils threatening peace and civilization on every side of this second half of the twentieth century.
60. Let us ponder, rather, the lesson that comes to us from Asia. In Korea, a bloody conflict has just ended. But though the guns are silent, peace has yet to be restored, and that is not the least arduous of our tasks. Only a genuine and lasting peace, peace in men’s minds as well as in their deeds, can justify the sacrifice of those who gave their lives to defend the principles of the United Nations Charter. To that end, we must do all we can to expedite the opening of the political conference on Korea within the time limit laid down by the Armistice Agreement. In that connexion the French Government is firmly opposed to the reopening at the present Assembly of the discussion on the composition of the conference. The position of the United Nations has been dearly defined on the basis of paragraph 60 of the Armistice Agreement. The United Nations has appointed its representatives to the political conference; it is waiting for the other party to do the same. Time is running out. We must not allow ourselves to become involved in another procedural wrangle which might delay the examination of the real problems. The shape of the conference table, after all, is very unimportant. The essential thing is that the conference should meet and that it should be able to consider the means of restoring peace and security to Korea, that unhappy country, devastated and rent in twain, and that we should achieve the ultimate aim of all the Powers that fought under the United Nations flag, the aim so happily defined by the representative of the United States, “a united Korea for free Koreans”.
61. Korea can be united only by peaceful means; and the freedom of the Koreans, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs of Canada reminded us on 23 September [441st meeting], can be assured only under the aegis of a democratic government established as a result of free elections conducted under United Nations supervision.
62. France fully realizes that these two objectives cannot be attained at once and that they will require a protracted effort, immense patience and great political realism on the part both of the principal Powers concerned and, above all, of the Koreans themselves. The most urgent task is assuredly to staunch the wounds inflicted by the war and, so far as possible, to obliterating the unnatural division of Korea by re-establishing relations and exchanges of all kinds between the two parts as soon as possible. In this way, and given time — which will cool passions and quell hatreds — suitable conditions may be created for a general settlement of the Korean problem.
63. Useful advice might have been given us in this respect by certain Asian Powers, particularly India. Although, to our regret, it has been impossible to include these countries from the outset, as participants in the political conference on Korea, my Government firmly hopes — and it will do all in its power to make it possible — that the conference will be able in the near future to associate them in the study of problems with which they are directly concerned and which have a bearing, over and beyond the problem of Korea itself, on all questions affecting the restoration of peace in the Far East.
64. As I stated at the seventh session of the Assembly, there is a war still raging in Asia, a war that has lasted already more than eight years and the main burden of which is borne by my country; the toll in human lives is great and the international atmosphere is poisoned by its continuance. I thank the United Kingdom representative for having said so yesterday [443rd meeting] in such moving terms and with such accuracy. The fact that France is not conducting the war in Indo-China for its own advantage, but in the interest of its associates and of the whole free world, was demonstrated more clearly than ever on 3 July last when the French Government announced its intention of granting complete independence to Cambodia, Laos and Viet-Nam at the earliest possible date. The negotiations which are in process with the governments of those three States will translate the principles contained in that declaration into reality. The situation is now quite clear: on the one side, three governments, fully independent, recognized by a large section of the international community and united to France by their freely accepted membership of the French Union; on the other, a faction trying to seize power by violent means.
65. Certain unofficial statements may have given the impression that the two foreign Powers which are encouraging and arming the Vietminh rebels are prepared to consider opening negotiations to put an end to this war. It remains for them to prove that these ambiguous hints are not purely propaganda and that the French Government’s often reiterated desire for peace finds its counterpart in an equally sincere desire in the opposite camp. Diplomatic negotiations? which might be opened, for instance, either during or after the political conference on Korea with the object of putting an end to the hostilities in Indo-China, would make it possible to envisage the restoration of more normal international relations in Asia.
66. No one any longer dares maintain that France and its associates could threaten anybody at all in that part of the world. Having accomplished in Indo-China a task of which it is proud, and having guided the peoples of that country to the haven of independence, my country’s only object is to defend the liberty of those young nations until they can defend it on their own account. France is conscious of having in that way implemented the principles that inspired the foundation of the French Union, a voluntary community whose purpose is to organize and ensure the interdependence of free peoples.
67. Interdependence and democracy: these two inseparable principles are also the golden rules of our African policy. Is there any need to mention those problems with which, under the Charter and the treaties in force, our Organization is not called upon to deal? Is there any need to repeat that in the measure in which our Assembly oversteps the limits of its competence, it needlessly brings discredit upon itself? For we shall never agree to discuss either the principles or the methods of an illegal interference whose only result has been to multiply illusory encouragements to hatred and disorder. More and more representatives are coming to realize that recourse to violence has become a form of blackmail for attracting the attention of our Assembly.
68. As the representative of the United Kingdom said in the Security Council on 27 August [620th meeting], “experience has shown, unfortunately”, that certain United Nations debates “are usually accompanied by immediate outbreaks of violence” in the countries concerned. And Sir Gladwyn Jebb added: “This, I believe, is by no means a coincidence. Let us therefore act with restraint, and let us not forget that words spoken by us here may mean perhaps tears and bloodshed there.”
69. My Government is firmly determined not to encourage this odious form of blackmail. It prefers to devote its efforts to the task which France, not without faith and calm pride, has undertaken, is carrying out and will continue to carry out: the task of guiding the peoples united to it by treaty and by ties of memory and confidence, towards freedom in the democratic management of their own affairs.
70. Is it possible that at the moment when France, the champion of international co-operation, is boldly taking the initiative of calling upon the ancient peoples of Europe to sacrifice part of their sovereignty in order to achieve the military, political and economic integration of their continent, is it, I say, possible that at such a moment those who congratulate it on doing so should at the same time reproach it for enabling the peoples for whose advancement it is responsible to join a far-flung community which will ensure their material prosperity, guarantee their safety and foster their spiritual growth? Would they forbid France to offer those peoples the help of its experts and advisers, to offer them the outlet of its own markets and those of the French Union, and to throw wide the doors of its universities to their young men and women? Do they censure us for proposing to set up elected representative assemblies at every level of public life, to grant magistrates a status ensuring their independence, to establish a procedure which will safeguard the rights of the individual before the law, or legal provisions conferring on workers the right, not only in fact but in law, to associate in trade unions? Are they trying to suggest facile comparisons which, in the words of the President of the Republic and of the French Union, can prove only how much easier it is to give lessons than to set a good example? Or are they asking, at the risk of contradicting themselves once again, that the African continent should be disintegrated while Europe is federating and uniting?
71. To unite Europe, to bring about a lasting agreement among the great Powers — these are the two primary objects which France is resolved to attain; they are not alternatives but the two mutually complementary expressions of our determination that general prosperity shall be based on general security. This effort to achieve agreement among the great Powers was reflected in proposals made to the USSR by the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and France. France looks forward hopefully to a conference which should enable us to put an end to the division of Germany and so, perhaps, to the division of Europe. The problems which France, in agreement with its allies, suggested should be examined are the key to any European settlement. Those problems are not insoluble. All they amount to is the conclusion at long last of an Austrian treaty which, to say the least of it, has been adequately examined in all its aspects, and an agreement on the conditions for the establishment of a provisional government of Germany based on free elections. It is perfectly clear that these problems are by no means insoluble, given goodwill on both sides. Be that as it may, and whatever the development and outcome of the conference, the French Government wishes to state that it will not relax its efforts to settle by negotiation all the problems now facing Europe.
72. I should like to take this opportunity publicly and frankly to convey to Mr. Vyshinsky the feelings of a country that has not forgotten the immense sacrifices made by the Soviet people to ensure the common victory. No nation realizes better than France the meaning of the spectre of invasion or what is involved in an obsession with security. We are anxious to believe that the Soviet Union will cease seeking what it calls political security in the greatest possible disunion between States which are independent and determined to remain so; or what it calls geographical security by bringing more and more territories directly or indirectly under its control. The Soviet Union must have learned that an expansionist policy inevitable results in a realignment of the threatened countries.
73. Yet if that is really the case why should it fear the policy of European organization initiated by France? What deters it from supporting the persevering efforts made by the French Government, in concert with the United States and United Kingdom Governments, to achieve a settlement of the German and Austrian problems? That policy and those efforts, far from being in conflict with each other, are mutually complementary and are based on the same overriding consideration, the same basic truth which all of us can and should support — that, to set peace on a firm foundation, we must ensure the security not of this country or of that, but of all.
74. Mr. Vyshinsky fears the revival of a militarism that has inflicted cruel suffering on his people, as on ours and on all the peoples of Western Europe. He is resolved that the resources on which that militarism was based shall never again be used for aggressive ends. But he certainly knows that, in every refusal and in every choice we have had to make since 1950, these legitimate anxieties have been uppermost in our minds. Why, then, should we agree, nay, even offer to make the sometimes heavy sacrifice entailed by conformity with the rules of a European community _ if not so as to prevent any member of that community from being in a position to use its power to further its own ambitions, and to prevent any country from again diverting its industrial resources and its manpower to preparations for a war of conquest or revenge against anyone? I repeat, Mr. Vyshinsky, against anyone.
75. But it is not only for that basic reason that the policy of European construction now pursued by the governments of Western Europe is by definition a policy of peace. It is in harmony with the United Nations ideal on two counts: first, because it comes within the framework of the regional arrangements mentioned in the Charter; and secondly, because it will help to create a zone of prosperity which will make a powerful contribution to the economic equilibrium of the world by bringing about — as we have never ceased to hope — the resumption of a universal flow of trade.
76. Even if the problems of common defence had never arisen, even if their countries had never been threatened by aggression since 1945, the governments of Western Europe would have been bound to establish rules and common institutions to regulate vaster markets and wider spaces, that is to say, to create appropriate conditions for raising the living standards of their peoples. That is why the building of a European community, strictly defensive in itself, is in addition a factor making for stabilization and hence for a lessening international tension.
77. The day will come, Mr. Vyshinsky — I feel sure of it — when the Soviet Union will realize that in refusing to admit the truth of these two facts it will be betraying its own most vital interests. On that day, I can assure you, you will find us ready to seek with you the means of completing the organization of the West — which is in itself a guarantee against the recrudescence of aggressive militarism — by a system of additional guarantees, in particular, against the modification of existing frontiers by force.
78. At San Francisco, fifty-three nations expressed their faith in United Nations action to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. Together we have witnessed and have been subjected to developments different from those we dreamed of eight years ago. Have we the right to abandon our mission and our hope? Everything tells us to reject any such idea — the courage with which Mr. Hammarskjold has confirmed the Secretariat in its tradition of hard work and efficiency, while expending the most praiseworthy efforts, in accordance with the spirit of the Charter, to ensure the necessary independence of its members, as recently reaffirmed by the Administrative Tribunal; the presence of Mrs. Pandit in the Chair, and the high moral qualities which make her an example to us all; and, lastly, that faith in an ideal which, in the words of a great French historian and poet, “alone can guide our perseverance along the difficult paths of life”.
79. In a speech he recently made, Mr. Georges Bidault said: “If man needs to measure himself against an adversary in order to gauge his full strength, must that adversary necessarily be his brother? Is not the fight against hunger, that scourge from which a large part of humanity still suffers today, a fine crusade? And to make the desert fertile to that end, to replant forests, to harness energy in all its forms, is an undertaking which surely is not beyond the resources of a generation which has seen the most astounding and, so far, the most frightening discoveries in history. We have lived together through a war which is still fresh in our memory. Were it not for fanaticism and constraint, which stand in the way of men of good will, great things could be achieved with the help of all peoples. To develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes, to draw up development plans for the whole of mankind — these are plans which are neither fantastic nor selfish. A tremendous task awaits the men of goodwill. The challenge should make co-operation less difficult for those who think of the future. If it is a dream, it is a beautiful dream. There is a common task for us on this earth, this earth which we can destroy tomorrow or make a more just and kindly place to live in.”