YouSaid · the spoken record

Mir. GROMYKO

lines on the record: 96
first: 1962-09-24
most recent: 1962-09-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: un-general-debate

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“Everyone gains from such a programme; the countries which owing to colonialism are economically backward, the socialist countries, and the industrialized capitalist countries. 89. According to the calculations of the economists, if one fifth of the money spent on military needs by the States belonging to military-political groups were used to promote the development of the economically backward countries, the sum for this purpose would amount to $20,000 million a year, or $500,000 million over twenty-five years. This sum together with their domestic resources, would suffice to enable the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America to approach the current level of industrial output in countries such as England and France within the lifetime of the present generation; namely within the next twenty to twenty-five years.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“It would be also possible to convert to peaceful, needs the enormous sums at present immobilized in all kinds of armaments, ammunition and strategic reserves. One hundred million people who are uselessly employing their knowledge and strength in service in the armed forces or are working for war in industry, agriculture and transport could be successfully transferred to peaceful creative work. The removal of military inventions and techniques from the secret list would give, a powerful stimulus to peaceful industry, and would transform the technology of civil branches of the economy. 87. Disarmament alone, of course, will not remedy all the troubles and adversities which at present afflict mankind; but it can materially expedite the development of all countries and, above all, help people to satisfy their most pressing needs. 88.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“The Soviet Government is therefore proposing the inclusion, in the General Assembly's agenda, as a separate question, of the item Economic programme for disarmament" [A/5233]. 85. The experts who carried out an examination of the economic consequences of disarmament in accordance with a decision taken by the General-Assembly at its fifteenth session [resolution 1516 (XV)], established, on the basis of official data, that the world was spending roughly $120,000 million annually on military account. It followed that, if the arms race is not ended, at least $3,000,000 million will be spent on military account in the next twenty-five years. 86. What would happen if these resources were directed to a productive end? It has been calculated that the available riches of the world could be more than doubled; and this, is by no means all.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“General and complete disarmament signifies not only destruction of the apparatus of war, but the freeing from the clutches of armaments of enormous material and financial resources. 83. The World Congress for General Disarmament and Peace which took place this summer at Moscow, and at which most nations and political trends of the present-day world were represented, stressed that the struggle for disarmament was also a struggle for a sound economic-policy, which would enable disarmament to be carried out in such a way as to serve, to the maximum, the progress of mankind. 84. Diverting the resources spent on armaments to the development of the peaceful economy of States, and to a raising of the lining and cultural standards of the peoples, is a great and worthy task which merits the most serious consideration.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“It is not armaments that are destined, in our age, to decide which, social and political system is the best and to which the future belongs, but the demonstration, in peaceful competition, of the advantages of one system over the other. No matter, what ideology they proclaim or what God they believe in, each and every nation wants to live. The cause of-disarmament is therefore their common cause. 81. The Soviet Government calls on the Governments of Member States of the United Nations to take full cognizance of all their responsibility to the peoples in the matter of disarmament. 82. They are accustomed to looking at the problem of disarmament from only one angle —that of the elimination of the war machine of States. There is, however, another side to the matter.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“They have reaped a bloody but rich harvest from the First and Second World Wars. Traders in death, they want to secure, both today and tomorrow thousands of millions in profits. Tomorrow, as yesterday, they want no drying-up of the golden fountain of profit derived from the arms race, and therefore give the people no chance of escaping from the vicious circle —from war, through the creation of ever more destructive means of annihilation, to yet more destructive war. It is they who have fixed a hundred locks on the door between disarmament and the frenzied arms race. But in comparison with the consequences of a feverish arms race, in comparison with the thermo-nuclear war, the interests of a handful of people waxing fat on armaments are as nothing. 80.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“The Soviet Government is making corresponding amendments to its draft "Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict international control" which it is submitting for the consideration of the General Assembly of the United Nations at its present session. 78. There is no wider international forum for the discussion of the disarmament problem than the United Nations General Assembly, in which Over 100 States are represented. And this is the place where the truth should be made known about those who are stifling the hope for disarmament, who are placing their narrow, selfish aims above the vital interests of the peoples. 79. It is the monopolies which have made the production of instruments of death, their trade that are the chief enemies of disarmament.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Taking into account the position of the Western Powers, the Soviet Government agrees that in the destruction; during the first stage of disarmament of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles an exception should be made for a strictly limited and agreed number of global (intercontinental) missiles, anti-missile, missiles and anti-aircraft missiles of the "ground-air” type, to remain at the disposal of the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively alone. Means of defence would thus be retained, for a fixed length of time, to guard against the eventuality, as to which Western leaders have expressed anxiety, of someone deciding to violate the treaty and conceal missiles or combat aircraft. 77.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“The Head of the Soviet Government, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, stated in 1960 from this rostrum [882nd meeting] that the Soviet Union was ready to accept any proposals of the Western Powers oh control if the Western Powers, for their, part would accept the Soviet proposals on general and complete disarmament. For two years now we have been waiting for a reply. 75. At the Geneva talks, the United States Government objected categorically to the elimination, in the first stage of disarmament, of all vehicles for delivering nuclear weapons to their target, declaring that State's embarking on disarmament would still for a time need some kind of protective umbrella. We do not consider such conclusions to be justified; but in order to start a real move forward, we are ready to make yet another effort. 76.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“We have no doubt that the demand to retain military bases on the territory of other countries has been specially devised to bury disarmament before any steps are taken to make it a reality. 73. The fact that the Western Powers are now putting their demands on, control in a new form in no way changes the substance of these demands. They now propose that we should turn the territories of other States into something resembling a chess-board, divided into zones, and on this board play out the game of control. But the moves in this game would be made with the old aim in view —the securing of reconnaissance data which could be of interest only to a potential aggressor. 74.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“It is a fact that the Governments of the Western Powers , and particularly the Government of the United States of America, stop short of no tricks and no juggling in order to justify the need for retaining their military bases on the territory of foreign States, virtually up to the very end of the disarmament programme's implementation. This means that they make disarmament itself impossible, since it would be naïve to think that the Soviet Union and the other socialist States would agree to accept so absurd a demand. Acceptance of this demand would mean that the Soviet Union and other peace-loving States would, in effect, be obliged to throw themselves on the mercy of the imperialist Powers and place their security in the hands of those Powers.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“If the business of disarmament has so far failed to make any headway, as though it were frozen deep in centuries-old ice, the blame for this must be placed on the NATO Powers and on them alone. The proposals which the Western Powers brought with them to Geneva were stuffed with all sorts of things, but the, main thing was lacking —the readiness to scrap the war machine of States. These proposals are based, as before, on the desire to establish control over armaments, and not over disarmament; to breach the defence system of the USSR and the other socialist countries; and to maintain, for an indefinite length of time, the military bases and armed forces of the Western Powers on foreign soil. 72.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“It accepted the ideas of the Western Powers regarding the reduction of conventional armed forces and armaments, and met the Western Powers half-way in regard to the levels of armed forces, although it considered that a more radical reduction in armaments and the numbers of men under arms would be more in the interest of the quickest possible accomplishment of disarmament. 70. The Governments of the Western Powers complained that the time-limits for disarmament envisaged in the Soviet draft were too rigid. The Soviet Government favours the swiftest possible implementation of a programme of general and complete disarmament; but on this point, too, we did not insist on our conditions, and agreed that the time-limits for disarmament be spread over five years. 71.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“[DC/203, annex 1, section C.] 68. If the proposals of the Soviet Government were implemented, then by the time the children born in the year, of the disarmament treaty's conclusion were old enough to go to school there would no longer remain in the world any armaments which might some day threaten their lives. 69. During the work of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament, the Soviet Government made a number of important additions ; and amendments [A/5200-DC/205, annex 1, sect. D] to its draft treaty, in order to make it easier to find a common language in discussions with the Western Powers.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Even after completion of the first stage, the world would be radically different from the world in which we live today, in that there would no longer be any danger of a nuclear attack by one State upon another. For under the Soviet draft the first stage would see the destruction of all vehicles for delivering nuclear weapons to their targets, the liquidation of military bases on foreign territory, add the withdrawal of foreign troops to within their national frontiers. This means that nuclear weapons would already be rendered harmless and would lie, like worthless stuff, in depots. As a result of the measures to be taken during the second stage nuclear weapons would be destroyed and the very conception of "nuclear Power" would disappear. By the end of the third stage, the abolition of all armed forces and armaments would be complete.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Even now the Eighteen-Nation Committee, charged with drafting an agreement on general and complete disarmament under effective international control, has been unable to gratify the General Assembly with any successful fulfilment of the task assigned to it. 66. What is the matter? Why is the negotiating machinery merely "ticking over"? The reason is that by no means all the participants in the negotiations are really trying to reach agreement on disarmament. 67. The Soviet Government submitted to the Committee a comprehensive draft treaty on general and complete disarmament [DC/203, annex 1, sec; C]. This draft provided that general and complete disarmament would be brought about, in three stages over a period of four years.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“General and complete disarmament —such is the programme of action which is now being advocated by no less than three quarters of the world's countries. This programme will be carried out sooner if fewer people are victims of the notion that the arms race and, war are inevitable, and if they fight with more resolution and solidarity for disarmament as an urgent and per- formable task. 55. The United Nations has been discussing the problem of disarmament for over sixteen years. It might be said that this problem has become a United Nations "sputnik". A large number of commissions, committees and sub-committees have already been put into orbit around this problem. Unfortunately they too have experienced a state akin to weightlessness, for, translated into realistic terms, the decisions they have taken in fact weigh nothing at all.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“In such an atmosphere, each State would fear that the other side would lose its nerve and fire the first shot. Would not this create the temptation to prevent the opponent from gaining a lead? This would be exactly like, a duel of olden times when the opponents raised their pistols, aimed at each other's foreheads, and waited for the other's shot —with perhaps this difference, that there would be no seconds to see that the rules of the duel were, observed and to give the signal for it to begin. 63. The military doctrine, of the "balance of fear" is simply half a step towards the even more dangerous doctrine of a preventive nuclear war. But the Soviet delegation will discuss this point separately. 64. There is only one reliable way of preventing a new world war from breaking out, and that is to destroy the material apparatus of war.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“And since each side realizes this, the fear of retribution should restrain it from beginning to resort to the language of arms. And therefore, we are told, the higher the mountains of arms that are piled up, and the more destructive and murderous those arms become, the better it will be, because the greater will be the fear. 61. In other words, in the view of the advocates-of this dangerous and aggressive doctrine, which in some NATO countries has been elevated to the status of a Government policy, the supreme expression of a love of peace is general and complete ... armament, a frenzied orgy of arming. 62. But to base the policy of States on a feeling of universal fear would be tantamount to keeping the world in a permanent state of feverish tension and eve-of-war hysteria.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Study the newspapers, and magazines and listen carefully to the voices on the radio of a number of countries, and you will come to the inescapable conclusion that those circles which have diverted one of science's greatest achievements —the liberation of atomic power—to purposes of destruction and annihilation are working day and night to becloud the minds of the peoples and accustom them to the thought that nuclear war is inevitable. 60. Policy-making officials in the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western countries can often be heard saying that the best guarantee against a new war is the "balance of fear", Means of destruction and annihilation have become so powerful, argue the proponents, of this view, that no State will run the risk of , starting a nuclear war since it will inevitably sustain a retaliatory nuclear blow.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“An attack on Cuba would lead to the consequences of which the Soviet Government warned the whole world in its well-known declaration of 11 September 1962. 58. Those who have formed aggressive military groupings and thrown a network of their own military bases —those spring-boards of aggression— around the world, those who are preventing the elimination of the traces of the Second World War, can hardly be expected to come to this rostrum and say "Yes, we are initiating and taking part in preparations for war". It is a well-known fact that wars are almost always prepared behind a screen of assurances about devotion to peace. That is the bitter truth. And the alarm must be sounded, not after the fatal events, but today. 59.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“That is why the Soviet Government considers it necessary to raise its voice in warning and draw the attention of States Members of the" United Nations to the full seriousness of the implications, for peace, of the policy pursued by the United States of America in regard to the Republic of Cuba. If the States represented here wish to preserve the United Nations and to make it an effective instrument for the preservation and strengthening of peace, then such a policy and such actions must be resolutely condemned. 57. In our time —and this applies particularly to a great Power— we cannot lose our heads or our composure and treat questions involving war and peace as lightly as some United States political leaders treat the situation in regard to Cuba.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“For that reason, questions in dispute must now be settled, not by rattling the sabre and threatening other States, but by seeking reasonable arguments and arriving at decisions such as to strengthen peace and security for all peoples. 55. Respect for the sovereign rights of every State, renunciation of all intervention in the domestic affairs of other States, recognition of the right of Governments to establish the social and political system corresponding to the interests and wishes of their people —such must be the fixed and infrangible rules of contemporary international life. Without the unswerving observance of these rules there can be neither peace, nor peaceful coexistence, nor, in the final analysis, even a United Nations. 56.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“But times are altogether different nowadays. They are far from what they were in the period of the League of Nations, and are not even what they were in the first years after the Second World War. In our day of the conquest of space, States possess rocket-nuclear weapons, with all their appalling destructive power. Today only a madman could conduct a policy from "positions of strength, or even think that such a policy might in any way be successful and enable him to impose his ideology, or his own form of political organization upon other States; The Soviet. Union and the socialist countries possess, at the very least, the same implements as the capitalist" countries.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“These raids are executed with the support of the United States, which provides Cuba's inveterate enemies with all the arms and equipment they need. Full responsibility for the piratical activities and banditry of the Cuban cut-throats rests, therefore, with the Government of the United States. 54. If one State Member of the United Nations arrogates to itself the right to announce and conduct a policy threatening the independence and security of its neighbours, then other States Members will obviously be unable to rely on the United Nations and will be compelled to seek other means of repelling the insolent imperialistic encroachments of those who wish to rule the world by force of arms. It will then only remain for the United Nations, as for the League of Nations in its day, to look on at its own collapse.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“It the United Nations were to concur in the principles proclaimed by the President of the United States of America in his statement on Cuba, that would lead straight to its' collapse. This is a policy capable of destroying the United Nations. And the United Nations will intact be destroyed if that policy prevails. 52. The situation is becoming all the more dangerous in that the United States is not only using with independent End peace-loving Cuba the language of menace, but is also engaging in concrete acts of aggression against that State. 53. It is a matter of common knowledge that many cut-throats driven out by the Cuban people have found, shelter in the United State's or live, on American money, in neighbouring countries, whence they carry out piratical raids on the Republic of Cuba.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“This is indeed to undermine the one foundation upon which the United Nations can rest: non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other States, and respect for their institutions and way of life. It would seem that the countries belonging to the capitalistic system consider it possible, in order to ensure the dominance of that system throughout the world, to attack a State having a different, a socialist, social system. But such a policy would be the death-sentence for the United Nations, since the Organization can exist only if all countries, regardless of their social or political structures, respect each other's independence and sovereignty and do not permit interference by one in the affairs of another.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“What value attaches to the statements of United States representatives when, under the roof of the United Nations, they speak of economic co-operation and assistance to other countries while at the same time this mighty Power tries to snatch a crust of bread from the hands of a small country? • 50. Can the United Nations tolerate the fact that one of its Members loudly proclaims its right to attack another country which is also a Member of the United Nations? And that it does so because the domestic institutions of that other country conflict with the way of thinking of the United States Government and are not to its taste? 51. No, it is not possible to disregard such statements.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“The less-bridled politicians in the United States, clearly losing control of their reasoning, say, if you please, that it is necessary to control the movements of Soviet ships carrying goods to Cuba and from Cuba to the Soviet Union, and of the specialists who are helping the Cubans to put their industry and agriculture on an even keel. But who is going to permit the exercise of such, control? Is it not clear that such demands are a call to piracy and must be decisively condemned? It would be better if those making such demands understood their reckless nature. 49. And what can be said about the crude pressure exerted by the United States upon a number of other States, including its own allies in NATO, with a view to preventing them from supplying ships for the transport of goods to and from Cuba?”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Obviously, upon a notion inherited from barbaric times: you are strong, then throttle the less strong and especially the weak. But such are the laws of the wild animal kingdom, where the strong devour the weak. These, however, are beasts. Human beings must surely distinguish themselves from the beasts. 48. Some statesmen of the United States speak of the need to tighten control over the whole Caribbean area, as if the Caribbean Sea were some kind of internal lake within the United States of America. Let us merely ask: Who agrees to recognize United States control over the international waters of that sea? The United States might with equal success claim the Atlantic Ocean as its own, as the self-appointed heir of the god Neptune, who in ancient mythology was the lord of the seas.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“The statesmen of the United States of America also know this full well. They are further quite aware of the fact that the assistance rendered by the Soviet Union to Cuba for the strengthening of its independence has none of those objectives in view, since they are foreign to our policy. 46. A number of other equally trumped-up charges against Cuba could be adduced, each and all amounting to one, and the same things that the United States of America announces the circumstances in which it may commit an act of aggression against Cuba, and that the United States. itself assumes the role of judge in determining whether or not such circumstances have arisen. 47. It may be asked: What sort of a policy is this? It is a policy of aggression, a policy of international banditry. Upon what is such a policy based?”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“44. Another of the listed pretexts for attacking Cuba is the existence of a threat to the security of the United States military base at Guantanamo, which is maintained on the territory of Cuba without the consent of its Government. But is it not clear that any incident can be invented in the United States of America and declared to foe evidence of a threat to that base? 45. It is also said that the United States of America will be prepared to attack Cuba if it considers that Cuba is building up its forces to such a degree that it may constitute a threat to the United States of America, a threat to United States communications with the Panama Canal, or a threat to any State of the Western hemisphere. Any clear-thinking person knows that Cuba is pursuing neither the first, nor the second nor the third of these objectives.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Of course, those who contemplate aggression against Cuba will find no difficulty in levelling any charges they wish against that country, however absurd the charges may be. In the final analysis, Cuba can be blamed for any failure of rocket tests on Cape Canaveral. Apparently, Cuba is already at fault for being situated so near to Florida. 43. If this logic is taken as a guide, it would appear mat any State, especially a powerful one, can accuse its neighbour of hampering the execution of pertain measures in a given area. But since it is impossible to remove even a small State in the way that houses, for instance, are nowadays moved from one place to another, and since Cuba cannot be moved farther away from Florida or Florida from Cuba, what is the solution? Does this mean that the stronger neighbour has the right to gobble up the weaker?”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Representatives gathered here for the General Assembly have doubtless already been able to realize the extent to which war hysteria in regard to Cuba has arisen in the United States, and what a campaign of hostility against the Cuban people is rampant in American newspapers, radio, and television. Things have reached such a point that a list of pretexts which could be used to justify an invasion of Cuba has been published in advance, and this list includes everything under the sun. 42. For example, if the United States of America considers that Cuba is in any way "hampering" the functioning of the experimental rocket-launching pads at Cape Canaveral in Florida, that would apparently suffice for the mightiest Power of the Western hemisphere to bear down upon little Cuba with all its military strength.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“We may ask: Where are the obligations; solemnly assumed by the United States of America under the United Nations Charter, which provide for non-intervention by States in each other's domestic affairs? Are we to believe that when the United States delegation, which sat at the same table with us at the Conference of States founders of the United Nations in 1945, affixed its signature to the Charter in the name of the United States of America, that was nothing but an empty farce? In those days, after all, the leaders of the United States Government assured us that the United States of America took seriously the obligations it was assuming, under the United Nations Charter. But where is this serious attitude now? 41.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“But the tone is set, not by these sober pronouncements, but by crude threats —which in fact cancels out what was positive in the statement. It follows from the President's words that the United States of America is free to take military action against Cuba and will decide for itself the juncture at which it regards it as necessary to undertake such an invasion. The President said that the United States Government would continue as before to collaborate with the leaders of the Cuban counter-revolution, who have found refuge in the territory of the United States. The events of recent days do not reduce, but intensify the alarm felt by States Members of the United Nations with regard to United States policy towards Cuba. 40.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“It would seem that such a Country and its statesmen, if only because of the responsibility weighing upon the United States of America as a great Power, should show particular respect for the United Nations Charter and frame their policy accordingly. But this statement by President Kennedy indicates precisely the contrary. 39. The Soviet Government has naturally observed that the statement of the President of the United States also contained some sound appraisals, revealing a realistic understanding of certain aspects of the Cuban question and of the situation which has developed. It must be noted that the Government of the United States of America has publicly dissociated itself from the bellicose circles in its country which have been calling-for immediate armed Aggression against Cuba.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“An analysis of the position which has now developed suggests a certain analogy with the period of sore trial for the League of Nations which preceded its disintegration. The present situation in the United Nations cannot but alarm all those who stand for the maintenance of peace and peaceful coexistence. 38. A circumstance bound to arouse particular concern among the Members of the United Nations gathered here for the General Assembly's seventeenth session is the statement on Cuba made by Mr. Kennedy, the President of the United States of America, at a press conference held on 13 September last. The United States of America is one of the founders of the United Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council; economically and militarily it is the most powerful of all the capitalist countries.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“Moreover the fascist States, seeking to Create conditions of impunity for themselves and to have their hands-free for aggression, left the League of Nations altogether. As we know, Japan was the first to go, after having attacked China, and was followed by Hitlerite Germany and finally by fascist Italy. 36. At that time, the Soviet Union issued forceful warnings and called for effective measures to prevent aggression and to avert the outbreak of a world war, but the League of Rations disregarded those proposals and did nothing to prevent the catastrophe, 37. After the Second World War, the United Nations was created, with the object of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“The United Nations would not justify the hopes of the peoples if it were to repeat the lamentable experience and mistakes of its predecessor, the League of Nations, which, like the United Nations, was intended to combat aggression and the arms race and to strive for the strengthening of peace and the security of States. It is common knowledge that the League of Nations disintegrated, like a metal structure eaten away by rust, because it was under mined and shattered by aggressive forces. Those forces prevented the adoption of proposals for disarmament, and for the suppressing of aggression and international provocation, submitted by the Soviet Union and other peace-loving countries; in other words, they did not allow the League of Nations to become a real instrument for the defence of peace.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“However, in that uniformly coloured map we should have to stick flags of a different colour, showing the location of those who are impelling mankind towards a new war. 34. But the existence of the possibility of averting war, is one thing, and the realization of that possibility another. The General Assembly of the United Nations cannot fail to be aware that with, every passing day preparations for a rocket-nuclear war are expanding throughout the world and that the threat of the outbreak of such a war is consequently increasing. 35.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“It no longer displays Hitler’s Reich, which unleashed the Second World War. The backbone of German militarism, as a result of that war, was broken. A peace-loving German State, the German Democratic Republic, has established itself east of the Elbe. This, too, will promote the maintenance of peace. 33. But no geographical atlas can reflect yet another very important factor which has changed the situation in the world —the peoples’ growing determination to manacle the forces planning war. If we were to choose any specific colour for indicating the places where people concerned to prevent war live and labour, we should probably have to shade, with that colour, every inhabited tract of land.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“The map of 1938 did not show the mighty confraternity of the socialist countries, now embracing more than one third of the world’s population and more than one quarter of its territory. Socialism by its very nature aspires to peace, just as aggression and military adventure are foreign to it. For this reason the socialist countries throw the whole of their international authority and might into the scales of the struggle for peace. 31. As the result of national-liberation wars and anti-imperialist revolutions over fifty sovereign States have arisen on the ruins of colonial empires, most of them having attained their independence during the past six years. And these States are swelling the ranks of those who defend the cause of peace. 32. Look at the map of Central Europe.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“But the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced people who had not yet been able to recover from the horrors of the Second World War into, familiarity with the spectre of a third one. 28. The invention of rocket-propelled nuclear weapons did not represent merely the addition of yet another type of weapon to those already in existence. It meant an incomparable, a colossal, leap forward in the development of means of destruction and annihilation. It presented, in all its magnitude, the task of saving mankind from a destructive world war. And this task the peoples are now in a position to undertake. 29. A comparison of the political map of the world on the eve of the Second world War with a similar map of the present-day world clearly reveals the radical evolution which has altered the aspect of our planet during that period. 30.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“To ensure the peaceful coexistence of States with different social structures and to create conditions which will make it possible completely, to exclude war from the life of society —such is the basic task, in the field of international relations, set by the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which was adopted last October by that Party's Twenty-second Congress. The foreign policy of the, Soviet State is determined by that objective. 27. For thousands of years, periods of peaceful life, have been mere breathing spaces between one war and the next. War simply left the stage for a time, just as servicemen go into the reserve after having completed their term of duty.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)
“I take this opportunity, Mr. President, to congratulate, you on behalf of the Soviet delegation on your election to this high post. 25. The Soviet Government's attitude towards the crucial international problems of our times has been expounded from this rostrum on, more than one occasion. Twice, in 1959 and 1960, the General Assembly Hall has been the scene of statements by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, the Head of the Soviet Government [799th and 869th meetings], in which the foreign policy of the Soviet Union was set forth in detail. These statements proclaimed throughout the world the optimistic outlook of the Soviet people, and its conviction that a new world war was not fatally inevitable and that the present generation of mankind was capable of averting such a war and preventing it from breaking out. 26.”
1962-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 17 (1962)