34. We meet this morning in a mood of accomplishment and gratification. Just twenty-four hours ago a great milestone in the life of the United Nations was passed. The cease-fire between India and Pakistan, first requested and then demanded by the Security Council, has happily taken effect in both countries.
35. I hope that it will not be amiss if I take a moment to pay tribute to the untiring work and the great contribution made by all members of the Security Council, permanent and non-permanent, in bringing about this result. Providence and the rules of the Security Council placed me in the Chair, but it was the efforts of my colleagues, patiently pursued, which resulted in the united resolution which had such a great impact in achieving this necessary result. I have, in my public and private life, had much to do with conflicts of another sort, but I have never experienced such a common dedication as that to the Charter commitment which I experienced during the past weeks by the members and the nations that they represent.
36. It is, I believe, a happy omen for the future of this great Organization that such a grave conflict — the gravest in the history of the Organization — could, in its initial step at least, be contained by this type of common action. And for that, I wish to record a personal note of thanks and appreciation to the men who laboured so hard and long to bring about this beneficial result.
37. I should like also to record the significant contribution made by our distinguished Secretary-General, who took upon himself, pursuant to authorization by the Security Council, the difficult and arduous role of going to the sub-continent in times of travail, storm and tribulation so as to carry the message of peace to the contending nations.
38. Once again, in rebuttal of the sceptics and the cynics, the United Nations proved to be the decisive peacemaker. Once again, the United Nations provided the indispensable and vital element, the only acceptable catalyst to help end the needless bloodshed between the two great countries — two neighbours, whose bonds of kinship and friendship, so commonly shared by all Members of the United Nations, must swiftly be restored to them.
39. Once again — not for the first time, I should like to emphasize — the voice of the United Nations has been heeded and respected. These are welcome and immensely significant developments.
40. I am confident that I reflect the profound feelings of this great Assembly when I express deep gratification that the Security Council's call for a cease-fire has been respected. In addition to the role of the Security Council, it has been of the utmost and greatest value that the voice of the States Members of the United Nations has also, unitedly, been heard in support of the Security Council's efforts.
41. But our task is not over: it is now the task of the two parties to exercise restraint and to make earnest efforts to establish conditions of permanent — and I emphasize permanent — peace in the sub-continent. And it is now the task of the United Nations to seize this great opportunity — this breathing spell, this great and inescapable responsibility — to help reinforce and solidify this gain so that the cease-fire will not be transitory and ephemeral.
42. It is a simple fact of history and a simple fact of life that the differences which gave rise to the recent conflict are deeply rooted. The cease-fire, as the Security Council resolution of 20 September 1965 [211 (1965)], expressly stated, is only the first step; next comes the more difficult task of finding solutions to the underlying sources of conflict and arriving at an honourable settlement and conditions for lasting peace in the sub-continent.
43. I reflect the deep conviction of my own country when I say that it is in the common interest of both India and Pakistan that there be such an honourable settlement and that conditions be restored for a lasting peace between those two great nations, with which we have enjoyed — and hope and expect to continue to enjoy — the most cordial and friendly relations. We applaud the statesmanship of the great leaders of those two countries in responding to the Security Council's appeal. We now appeal to their statesmanship to go forward with the task of building a permanent peace in the sub-continent.
44. In the spirit of operative paragraph 4 of the Security Council resolution of 20 September 1965, the United States will co-operate fully with other members of the Security Council to assist towards a settlement of the political problem underlying the present conflict; we will co-operate fully with the Secretary-General in the steps that he is taking to implement the Security Council's resolution. We stand ready to provide all appropriate assistance to the United Nations and the Secretary-General in strengthening the Organization's machinery for supervising the cease-fire.
45. It is in this mood of vigour and achievement that I wish again to congratulate you, Mr. President, and your country as you assume the office of the Presidency of the General Assembly. As a distinguished Prime Minister, and now Foreign Minister, of a great country, you have amply demonstrated your talent, experience, understanding and skill in directing the fortunes of this great world parliament. Partly through your own labours, Italy as earned for itself a high place in the councils of this Organization and wherever there is work to be done to improve the life of man and to help bring him peace. I am confident that under your leadership this Assembly and this Organization will benefit.
46. I should also like to pay tribute to our outgoing President, Mr. Alex Quaison-Sackey. He has won for himself an outstanding place in the company of men who serve in these halls. In the short period of my personal acquaintance with him I have come to value extremely the fact that I can call him a friend; and I admire the capacity which he has demonstrated irk probably the most difficult General Assembly session in the history of the Organization. We continue in the hope that we will have the benefit of his counsels here, and we wish him well in the important post of Foreign Minister of Ghana, a great country on the African continent.
47. I hope, Mr. President, you will forgive me also if, once again, I sadly record the loss of Adlai Stevenson. Adlai Stevenson was a great voice of America — not only to his own country but to the world. However, the voice of America must go on. I cannot hope that mine can be so eloquent as to capture, as his voice did, the hearts and minds of men everywhere. I can only offer to this Organization the assurance that I share his dedication to the great cause of world peace and security, which are the aims of the Charter.
48. On coming to this parliament from the highest court of the United States, I said that the work of bringing the rule of law to the relations between sovereign States was the greatest adventure in man's history. All of us in this hall are embarked on this adventure together. It is an adventure we dare not fail to conclude successfully. There is no alternative except the excluded one of doom for all mankind.
49. One of my country's most distinguished jurists, who never reached our highest court and whose career demonstrates that distinction does not coincide with appointment to the highest office, once said that freedom could not be preserved in constitutions if it had vanished from the hearts of its citizens. We are charged with the daily task of keeping burning in the hearts of the people of this earth the fires of freedom promised all men by the Charter of this Organization twenty years ago; freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom from indignity and freedom from war. We are charged, as a beloved participant in the deliberations of the United Nations once said — and you will recognize the words and the person — we are charged with the responsibility of keeping the candle of peace glowing. It sometimes appears to be a fragile candle, and its light sometimes appears to be dim, but it has the strength to light the world, if we really believe in it.
50. In this twentieth year of the United Nations we grope for the full meaning of a world changing rapidly under the headlong impact of science and technology. We ask ourselves, I am sure, every day — every person here and millions throughout the world: "Are we heading towards world order or world chaos?". This Assembly should help — this Assembly must help — to provide the answer.
51. In my own country, we are embarked, under the leadership of President Johnson, in a search for a Great Society. This vision of a just domestic order is based on consent of the governed, on due process of law, on individual dignity, on diversity and on the just satisfaction of political, economic and social aspirations. We in the United States reject reactionary philosophies of all extremes. We seek to build instead on what we regard as the most enlightened and progressive philosophy in human history: that the aim of government is the maximum self-fulfilment of its citizens and that the good life should be within the reach of all rather than a monopoly of the few. Both domestically and in international affairs, there can be no islands of poverty in seas of affluence.
52. We espouse equality not only as a principle. We seek equal opportunity for all as an accomplished reality. We are resolved to enrich the life of our society by developing human as well as natural resources. We are determined not merely to increase material production but to ensure such equality, to guarantee genuine social and economic justice, to eliminate poverty and to realize qualitative improvements in the life of our citizens — in more attractive and functional cities, in a more beautiful countryside and through learning and the arts. This is not the programme of any one group or one class or one political party in our country. Nor is the vision it proclaims exclusively American. It is a vision common to all mankind.
53. It fell to my lot for twenty-five years to represent the great labour movement of our country. One o the great labour leaders with whom I was long associated, Philip Murray, when asked what was the aim of the labour movement to which he dedicated his life, paused and thought and then said: "The aim of the labour movement is a society in which each man shall have a rug on the floor, a picture on the wall and music in the home". I think that is a good goal for all mankind. What we seek for our own people in the great society at home we seek for all mankind. President Johnson, I think, has expressed this very well:
"We seek not fidelity to an iron faith but a diversity of belief as varied as man himself. We seek not to extend the power of America but the progress of humanity. We seek not to dominate others but to strengthen the freedom of all people."
54. The diversity of which President Johnson speaks is the diversity represented in the membership of the United Nations — diverse in its needs, in its philosophies, in its races and in its institutions, yet united by a common bond of commitment to the obligations of the Charter and dedicated to justice and social progress and the peaceful settlement of conflict.
55. However, there is, regretfully, a contrasting doctrine of world order which was put before us earlier this month by the Defence Minister of Communist China in a manifesto published in all Communist China’s newspapers and republished broadly throughout the world. The doctrine laid bare by Marshal Lin Piao starts from the premise that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". It rests, he said, on a foundation of war and violent revolution.
56. I quote him again: "The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issues by war is", according to the Marshal and his party and the leaders of his country, "the central task and the highest form of revolution". Again I quote: "War can temper the people and push history forward ... war is a great school".
57. The principle of revolutionary wars, the Marshal says, is not just for China. It, according to him, and I quote him again, "holds good ... for all...countries". The nations of the world are not free, according to this theory, to develop their own choice in accordance with their own needs and experience. The nations of the world are not free, according to this theory, to fly their own flags in their own way. Whether they like it or not, the Marshal and the leaders of Communist China say, they must accept the Chinese model.
58. Nor does newly achieved independence provide immunity from this modern imperialism. Quite the contrary. Chinese spokesmen again and again have emphasized that they do not believe that the revolutions which have taken place and that have led to the national independence of many countries are acceptable revolutions. They do not believe that those countries have the right, as was the great privilege of my country after it made its revolution, to develop their social and economic institutions in their own way. The Marshal said; "... the Socialist revolution is the inevitable sequel to the national democratic revolution". In fact — and I quote him further — "The more thorough the national democratic revolution, the better the conditions for the Socialist revolution". But it should be clear that Marshal Lin is misusing the word "Socialist", that he means "Communist" and he means Communist with the label "Made in Peking".
59. This incredible manifesto is the antithesis of everything this Organization stands for. It is a call to change world order by force and violence in a period when force and violence can lead to most disastrous consequences for the entire world. It leaves no room for difference of tradition, of culture or of national aspiration, or for the legitimate right of every people, large and small, to choose its own social and economic order in its own way. It leaves no room for genuine self-determination. It seeks to squeeze every nation and every people into the grip of Chinese Communist conformity. It should be read — I know it has been read — and pondered by everyone in the General Assembly.
60. The apostles of this philosophy are today attemptting to transform the country of South Viet-Nam into a proving ground for their theories. This challenge must be met, not in the interest of any single nation but in the interest of each Member of this Organization. It must be met, in particular, in the interests of the smaller nations that cherish their right to choose and follow their own path of national development.
61. We are helping to meet this threat because we believe it must be met. Our goals in South Viet-Nam are plain and simple. We seek only to ensure the independence of South Viet-Nam, its freedom from attack, and the opportunity for its people to determine their own future. We seek no territory for ourselves, no preferential position, no permanent military presence. We stand ready to withdraw our forces when Communist aggression has ended and South Viet-Nam is left alone to determine its own destiny in its own way through the principle of self-determination.
62. Above all, we seek a peaceful solution. We have repeatedly stated our willingness to enter into unconditional discussions. I reaffirm that willingness here today. We have asked the Members of the United Nations, individually and collectively, to use their influence to help bring about such discussions. We have asked the members of the Security Council and the Secretary-General to help get negotiations started. We have had no reply. We have offered to join in a massive programme of co-operation for the economic development of South-East Asia.
63. The Members of the United Nations, under the Charter, share a common responsibility to demonstrate to those who use violence that violence does not pay. We can meet that responsibility by using every means to persuade the régimes of Hanoi and Peking to leave their neighbours alone and to begin serious discussions for a resolution of this conflict. We must also meet that obligation by denying United Nations representation to a régime that denies in word and in deed the fundamental restraint on the use of force laid down in our Charter, and hurls insults upon the peaceful efforts of Members of the United Nations to compose this and other disputes.
64. Most of us, fortunately, have already made our choice between a philosophy of violence and the philosophy of world order which underlies our Charter. Yet our search for world order is gravely threatened by a continuing arms race, a race which adds nothing to the world except insecurity and a drain of Valuable resources. Progress has, of course, been made. We have already agreed to cease nuclear testing in the atmosphere, under water and in outer space. We have established a direct communications link to help prevent war by accident or miscalculation. We have resolved not to place weapons of mass destruction in outer space, and today I reaffirm the commitment of the United States to that agreement.
65. Unfortunately, the goal of general and complete disarmament to which we are all committed remains elusive. But it is a necessary and indispensable goal, and we must work towards it vigorously, thoughtfully, and with goodwill, and not be deterred by what must be momentary setbacks. Most of all, we should concentrate on immediate practical steps to reverse the arms spiral.
66. The first priority — and I repeat, the first priority — in this effort must be given to halting the spread of nuclear weapons. If we do not face this problem squarely, now, the opportunity may disappear forever. That is why the United States has submitted to the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament the full draft of a treaty binding its signers from taking any action to increase the number of States and other organizations having the power to unleash nuclear weapons. My Government has fully committed itself to that underlying policy and urges that this draft become an actual treaty as soon as possible. We hope that other nuclear Powers will accept the same commitment as an international agreement. Nuclear proliferation can be stopped, but we must act now. Agreement on this issue clearly is of overriding importance to world peace and security.
67. We recognize, moreover, that as more and more nations face frankly up to this issue, they must make momentous decisions about their own security. And we understand their concern. As President Johnson has indicated, we believe assurances of support against threats of nuclear blackmail should be available to nations which have forsworn a nuclear capability of their own. Action by the General Assembly may be a useful part of such assurances. The United States is prepared to work towards this end: action by this Assembly. Also of great aid in deterring the continuous proliferation of nuclear weapons will be agreement on a comprehensive test-ban treaty.
68. Scientists cannot distinguish between all quakes and underground nuclear tests. But the science of detection is not static and our vigorous research programme indicates the possibility of a substantial improvement in seismic detection capabilities. Furthermore, the United States is now also establishing in the State of Montana a large-aperture seismic array which we hope will hasten major advances in the science of detection.
69. We stand ready to make the results of our experimental study available to scientists everywhere and to assist in the construction of similar facilities in other countries.
70. The United States will shortly issue invitations to a large number of Members of the United Nations to send qualified observers to visit our Montana detection site on 12 and 13 October 1965. We want to let each of them see this installation for himself, and we hope that this invitation will be accepted,
71. Let me say clearly that we do not want inspection for the sake of inspection or for any ulterior motive. Let me also say that we are not inflexible. We do insist on the minimum amount of inspection necessary in the present state of science to give confidence to all that a comprehensive test-ban treaty is actually being observed. But we will insist only on a number and type of inspection which are essential to the attainment of this objective.
72. While pressing ahead, then, on non-proliferation as our very first priority, we must also take steps to reduce the dangers stemming from the high level of nuclear capabilities. There is no reason to wait. We are prepared to take practical steps here and now.
73. First, we should take steps to halt the accumulation of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. We should continue to explore a freeze on the number and characteristics of strategic nuclear offensive and defensive vehicles. If progress is made in this field, the United States would also be willing to explore the possibility of significant reductions in the number of these carriers of mass destruction.
74. Secondly, the United States proposes a verified halt in production of fissionable material for weapons use and the transfer of fissionable materials to peaceful purposes. In connexion with such a halt in fissionable material production', we now propose the demonstrated destruction by the United States and the Soviet Union of a substantial number of nuclear weapons from their respective stocks.
75. The United States is ready to transfer 60,000 kilogrammes of weapons grade U-235 to non-weapon uses if the Soviet Union would be willing to transfer 40,000 kilogrammes. If the USSR accepts this proposal, each of us would destroy nuclear weapons of our own choice so as to make available for peaceful purposes such amount of fissionable material.
76. Moreover, the United States Government stands ready, if the Soviet Union will do likewise, to add to this transfer associated plutonium obtained from the destroyed weapons, in an agreed quantity or ratio, and to place the material thus transferred under the International Atomic Energy Agency or equivalent safeguards.
77. We make these proposals in the interest of rapid and equitable progress in reducing the nuclear threat and as a practical demonstration of our dedication to this end.
78. A more rapid movement toward disarmament would unquestionably decrease anxiety throughout the world. But if we are to progress towards a just world community, we must also constantly improve our international machinery for curbing conflict and resolving disputes.
79. The experience in Cyprus, the continuing aggression in South-East Asia, the shock of violence erupting in Kashmir, all lead to an inescapable conclusion: there is an urgent need to strengthen the United Nations capacity to keep the peace.
80. We urge as one such step the continued development of a flexible United Nations call-up system along the lines proposed by the Secretary-General. We hope that Member States in all regions of the world will earmark and train units for such purposes. We believe also that the military staff — now inadequate - supporting the Secretary-General needs to be strengthened. The added experience and burdens of Kashmir and Cyprus in particular have conclusively demonstrated that the military staff available to the Secretary-General at Headquarters is overburdened, and we must provide him with an enlarged staff whose size is commensurate with the tasks we entrust to him.
81. The peace-keeping capacity of the United Nations is too basic to its purposes and to its very existence to allow it to be frustrated by any one Member. For this reason, we continue to believe — and in this we are joined by the overwhelming majority of United Nations Members — that the General Assembly must retain its residual authority to initiate peace-keeping operations when the Security Council is unable to act. Means must therefore be found to pay for future peace-keeping operations — means which allocate the burden fairly. In cases where this cannot be done by assessment of every Member, we must find some' other means, including assessment of those willing to be assessed, non-obligatory apportionment, or voluntary contributions.
82. Less dramatic but equally important is machinery to promote peaceful change and to allow the satisfaction of just claims. Without a strong international institution able to help in doing this, nations, like individuals, are tempted to take matters into their own hands. We consequently believe it is time to breathe new life into Article 33 of the Charter, a provision of the Charter referred to specifically in the Security Council resolution [211 (1965)] adopted just the other day in the Kashmir, dispute. It had atrophied too long. We must develop workable methods to resolve disputes before they reach the point of potential or actual conflict. If the United Nations is to serve its primary purpose, it must be an instrument for the reconciliation of differences and not merely a forum in which they manifest themselves. Too often has the United Nations had to demonstrate its capacity for quenching fires when it might better have helped to prevent them in the first place.
83. For this reason we welcome the initiative of the United Kingdom in introducing an agenda item on the peaceful settlement of disputes [A/5964]. The United States will eagerly participate in exploring the many paths it may open.
84. It is, if I may say so, an item in which I take a keen personal interest, for the greater part of my adult life has been spent in intimate association with the process of third-party settlement of the differences and disputes which arise between a free labour movement and free employers. I have often seen disagreements become aggravated or prolonged not because they were irreconcilable, but simply because the parties involved could not agree upon the go-between. And we in our own country have now developed machinery, such as the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which has filled this gap and in so doing has greatly advanced the pacific settlement of labour disputes in our own country.
85. I know also that machinery which is successful on the national level cannot always be transposed to the international level. Nevertheless, I am firmly convinced that the United Nations might also develop additional mechanisms which would allow the parties to a stubborn dispute to use a United Nations body of mediation or conciliation.
86. Above all, our basic charge of peace-keeping under the Charter is to join together to assure peace and security. We must continue this quest for collective security and we must renounce collective futility if we are to perform our Charter functions.
87. There is one area in which we have been seeking to promote co-operation well before any dispute arises. That is in the peaceful uses of outer space. Over seven years ago, the United States inscribed the first item to appear on this Assembly’s agenda concerning the peaceful uses of outer space, and introduced a draft resolution, co-sponsored by twenty States, which became the first space action this body had ever taken. That draft resolution was introduced in the First Committee (986th meeting) by the then Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, and as President he continues his interest, dedication and devotion to that principle. By adopting that resolution [1348 (XIII)] the General Assembly went on record as recognizing that — and I quote from the first preambular paragraph — "it is the common aim that outer space should be used for peaceful purposes only". That principle is one to which we fully subscribed then and to which we fully subscribe now.
88. Since then the General Assembly has laid down valuable ground rules for activities in space and on celestial bodies. In accordance with these rules, our space activities have been, and will continue to be, non-aggressive, and peaceful and beneficial in character.
89. But these rules are not enough. Instruments from earth have already reached the moon and photographed Mars. And man will soon follow. Accordingly, we suggest that the United Nations begin work on a comprehensive treaty on the exploration of celestial bodies.
90. But while we aim for the stars, we must also explore maximum resources to promote economic and social well-being here at home. While the possibility of creating a just world society may be contingent on success or failure in such fields as disarmament and peace-keeping, our capability of creating it will depend on the efforts we spend not just to prevent disaster but to build healthy economic conditions everywhere.
91. We are near the midpoint of the United Nations Development Decade. Progress has been made, and this has to be acknowledged, but we all need to do more and to do it better. Much more has to be done, in particular, to increase food production in the developing countries. If current population trends continue, food production will have to be tripled by the end of the century to provide an adequate diet for all. We thus fully support the proposal for an expanded World Food Programme and are prepared to examine further with other developed countries ways of adapting our domestic agricultural abundance, to meet the world’s food deficit while it exists.
92. More action is required to limit excessive population growth. We support the programme now under way whereby United Nations agencies provide advisory services and training in family planning to any country asking for such assistance.
93. We must all do more to help accelerate industrial growth in the developing countries, a question to which the General Assembly will, I am sure, give special attention,
94. We must also speed up and intensify our efforts to enlarge the export earnings of the developing countries, and to counteract excessive fluctuations in those earnings. The United States will continue to make special efforts under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to reduce tariffs on items of special interest to those countries. We shall also participate actively and constructively in the work of the New United Nations trade machinery. It is our hope that in dealing with the hard and difficult problems of trade, developed and developing countries will proceed in a spirit of partnership. There must be a free and sustained dialogue and a common search for ways and means by which we can develop mutually beneficial trade patterns.
95. Of course, experience shows that we need a much greater investment in the development of that most important resource of all — trained people — and must provide more assistance to the educational efforts of the developing countries. To help get on with these jobs, we support the increased target of $200 million for the new United Nations Development Programme, on the understanding that the arrangements worked out will be satisfactory to both the developed and developing countries.
96. We are ready to join, in practical and concrete ways, in a further expansion of multilateral efforts to supply capital for development through regional development banks and international institutions such as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association, on the assurance that there will be sound administration, as well as appropriate contributions from others. We would be prepared to increase the amount of capital flowing through multilateral channels.
97. I recognize that we are not alone in acknowledging the need for action in these areas. I have singled them out because the United States plans to take or join in specific action on each of them — not in the vague future, but in the months ahead. Faster progress in the Development Decade is a central aim in our foreign policy.
98. I come now, in conclusion of these thoughts, to the source from which they derive: our determination to enrich the lives of human beings — domestically in our drive to create a great society, internationally in our support for fundamental freedoms and human rights for peoples everywhere. The ultimate object of United Nations activities, the ultimate object of any organized society — domestically or internationally — is man, the individual. The effect upon his lot, his fate, his well-being, will remain the final measure of our successes and our failures. And if we talk about the competition between States, we mean the only worthwhile competition, as to which system, which society best improves the lot of man and upgrades human dignity.
99. We are well past the midpoint — indeed, in sight of the end — of what history may record as the most exciting and predominantly peaceful revolution in human affairs; and this is a movement vitally linked to the dignity of human beings — the movement of self-determination. This movement has seen people in the past few decades assert and gain their right to be free from colonialism, their right to self-government and independence, and their right to be free from control by other peoples. We applaud this historical development and we are deeply committed to its success.
100. Of course, among the dependent peoples now remaining in the world, whose aspirations for self-determination command our fullest sympathy, are some very small areas with very limited resources. Whether they will be able to meet the requirements of the Charter that Members be not only willing but also able to carry out their obligations, may require early consideration, as the Secretary-General has indicated. But I repeat, we support the historical development of all people being able to gain their self-government or independence, when they desire it, by the principle of self-determination.
101. In our concern for the rights and freedoms of nations, we must not neglect the rights and freedoms of individuals, those who, after all, are the basic unit of any nation. The test of any country’s dedication to human rights is, if I may respectfully suggest, not what that country says in the General Assembly for all the world to hear, but what it does at home for all the world to see.
102. Our record, like that of other countries, is far from perfect. But with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1954, and with the subsequent decisions — in which I hope you will not deem it amiss if I take great personal pride and satisfaction since I participated in some of them—and the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, the United States Government has put into concrete form and terms its full and complete commitment to the principle of full human rights, of freedom and equality for all our people.
103. The United Nations also has a significant role in promoting, in the words of the Charter, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. Much has already been done, but the United Nations has not done enough in this area, and we believe much more will be necessary. We are therefore very pleased that the Government of Costa Rica has proposed the creation of. the post of high commissioner for human rights [A/5963]. We think this is an important first step in implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and we shall give this proposal our enthusiastic support.
104. We can, out of this debate, out of the divergent views expressed here, distil a consensus. As long as we strive for such, a consensus and accept the methods of reason and understanding on which consensus is built, we will strengthen the fabric of this great community of the United Nations. By its very nature, this must always be a community whose doors are open to those who would turn their backs on chaos, threat and violence and seek legitimate ends through peaceful means.
105. I said the other day that I am optimistic about the fate of this Organization, and I am optimistic because if we had not created this great Organization twenty years ago, we would be creating it out of necessity today.
106. The road to world order, the road to a rule of law in the world, is not an easy one. It will continue to be ardour and beset by agonizing hurdles, painful decisions, difficult compromises and, at times, disheartening setbacks. Travelling the road will demand the most from each of us. I pray that we shall be equal to the task.
107. I hope also that twenty years from now, when the General Assembly convenes in plenary meeting, it can look back on a generation of achievement that we are beginning today.
108. President Johnson said:
"We seek to establish a harmony between man and society which will allow each of us to enlarge the meaning of his life and all of us to elevate the quality of our civilization."
109. Out of our diversity, the welcome diversity of nations and peoples, let us be one in our determination to elevate the quality of all our lives and to build a great society of and for all men.