YouSaid · the spoken record

McINTOSH

lines on the record

59

first

1961-09-24

most recent

1963-09-24

sittings or episodes

2

sources

un-general-debate

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1. “Most of these founders came from small, militarily, weak countries such as my own. They wished to substitute for physical power, based on brute strength and actuated by self-interest, legal and moral sanctions of universal validity. While recognizing the special interests of the great Powers, and the need for sanctions to be backed in the last resort by force, they strove? to substitute for anarchy, and the rule of the physically strong, a true and lasting international order in which all sovereign States possessed equal rights. 10. Unhappily, the full realization of this ideal has so far proved impossible. The world has become polarized between two great forces. On the one hand, there is an expansionist bloc based on a totalitarian ideology.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

2. “Negotiations on these matters should begin immediately and take into account the legitimate wishes of the people of Berlin and of Germany concerning their own future. 8. Small countries, confronted with problems such as these, must be dismayed at the increasing failure to respect international law and the rights of others. Some tension, some conflict, perhaps, between universal values and the solution of immediate problems is probably in the very nature of things, But if we are to achieve a disarmed world we can do so only if there is respect for law and order, and a corresponding t willingness to fulfil the obligations and responsibilities inherent in international co-operation. These were the ideals which inspired those who in 1945 founded this Organization and sought to furnish it with an international and impartial civil service. 9.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

3. “Co-operation in the more limited sphere should surely be more easy to achieve than co-operation in the wider, more complex one. The people of the world have a right to expect that a step such as this, which recent negotiations have demonstrated to be clearly feasible and practicable, should be taken immediately. 7. The renewal of threats and the creation of yet a further crisis over Berlin is another retrograde and dangerously reckless step. The freedom of the people of West Berlin must be respected and, in present circumstances, this freedom can have no sure guarantee without agreement among the four great Powers. Rights of free access to the city must be similarly protected if freedom is not to prove a sham.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

4. “This is a responsibility which is shared by all Members of this Organization, not only the great Powers. If we fail, the world will fail with us. 6. The resumption of nuclear tests has been as great a shock to New Zealand as to other Member States. This is especially so in respect of those tests which are currently being conducted in the atmosphere, with utter contempt for world opinion and with dire hazards to world health, and which, to add infamy to injury, began while negotiations on a treaty to ban such tests were still proceeding and just before a meeting of statesmen from non-aligned countries.; In the opinion of my Government, a treaty to ban tests and to enforce this ban by international "supervision, must be concluded without further delay. It cannot await the overlong-delayed agreement on comprehensive measures of disarmament.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

5. “Some glimmers of hope have recently appeared: the agreement of the USSR and the United States on broad principles to govern disarmament; the publication by the United States of the most comprehensive disarmament plan yet conceived, placing the attainment of the final objective of general and complete disarmament in the framework of a continuous sequence of logical stages, each with appropriate machinery for international inspection and control. But agreement on broad principles is only a beginning; this session of the General Assembly must build upon this achievement and do all it can to ensure that some disarmament machinery is put in motion as soon as possible, and that future negotiation^ on this urgent and vital issue do not proceed, a?, they have done hitherto, in an erratic and fitful manner.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

6. “It is true that the need for common action and solidarity has received some concrete recognition especially in the economic and social fields. But there have also been disturbing tendencies in the opposite direction. 5. Chief among these is the failure of the great Page Powers and the world community to reach agreement on "disarmament and the regulation of armaments", as envisaged by Article 11 of the Charter. The armaments race, with a nuclear holocaust as its only prize, continues unabated.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

7. “One need not catalogue the host of other unsolved problems familial to all Assembly Members and so ably referred to by previous speakers—problems likely at any time to endanger world peace and security. 3. Even a world so inured and case-hardened to the recurrence of crises must realize with fearful anxiety that there persists the real danger of a rupture at any moment, whether through miscalculation or mischance, with fatal consequences for mankind. New Zealand shares that anxiety. 4. Like other small countries, New Zealand has long seen its best hope of security, and the best hope for peace and progress, in world-wide co-operation among nations. This lesson, first learnt in was, has been reinforced by developments since 1945.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

8. “It is hardly necessary to remind ourselves that we are here primarily to preserve peace and security, threatened by the continued failure of disarmament negotiations, by the resumption of nuclear tests, by the crisis over Berlin, by the dangerous deterioration in Laos and South Viet-Nam, by the unresolved question of the representation of China, by the intractability of Middle Eastern problems, and by certain inflammatory racial and colonial questions. Now following the tragic and untimely death of the Secretary- General, these threats are compounded by intensified efforts to undermine the international character and independence of the United Nations itself.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)

9. “Before beginning my statement may I extend to Mr. Slim the congratulations of the New Zealand delegation on his election to the presidency of the Assembly. We are fully confident that under his guidance, characterized by wisdom, patience and impartiality, the sixteenth session of the General. Assembly will be greatly assisted in the completion of its manifold tasks in a manner which will redound to its credit and, we trust and pray, to the lasting benefit of the peoples of the world. 2.”

   1961-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 16 (1961)