helped our General Assembly to achieve virtually unanimous cohesion around my humble person, and this I deeply appreciate.

I am convinced that our Organization has at the present time a special need for such cohesion in order to face the distressing and delicate situation in which we are placed and to find an appropriate solution, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations, which will strengthen it and guarantee its future, for the greatest good of humanity as a whole and especially of all those small and peaceable countries which, like mine, have placed their trust in it for the safeguarding of peace and the inauguration of an era of stability and international co-operation, based on justice and freedom, in accordance with the noble principles of the Charter.

I know that the merit of the office is the merit of him who holds it.

The task which I am today undertaking seems to me all the greater in that I have the honour of following Mr. Boland, whose qualities of impartiality and patience won the admiration of all and thus enabled him to guide, with tact and consummate skill, a session which was extremely difficult and delicate. Conscious, therefore, of the importance of the function which you have entrusted to me, I shall try to preside over your work with all the necessary impartiality and in strict conformity with the rules of procedure. I venture to hope that you will give me generous and understanding co-operation, so that our work may be brought to a successful issue.

The honour you have conferred upon me extends well beyond my person; it is an honour bestowed upon my people and my country, Tunisia, which I have represented here since its accession to independence in 1956 and which has worked, in this Organization, for a right achievement of the objectives specified in the Charter. I am profoundly convinced that my brothers in Asia and Africa and especially my African brothers will regard this honour as their own, since this is the first time in the Organization's history that a man from Africa has been elected President of this Assembly. I should like to see, in this fact, the confirmation of Africa's appearance on the international stage. Is it not significant that it should be the national of a small country, situated precisely in that part of the world and in that continent, thought by some to be eternally cast for a passive rather than a competitive role, who is called upon, as a result of your confidence, to preside over your work, in the difficult circumstances of the present-day world? Furthermore, the admission, at the last session, of the sixteen new Members from Africa 25 has shown even more clearly how desirable it is for our Organization to place its work for constructive peace and assured international stability on an increasingly universal basis. What however I most fully realize, as I take up my new and heavy responsibilities, is the gravity of the present international situation and of the problems with which it confronts this General Assembly of ours. It means that during this session we shall have to exercise both patient vigilance and constructive imagination, if we want to find appropriate peaceful solutions based on the principles of the Charter and on right and justice.

I therefore hope, and I can assure you that I shall spare no effort in that direction, to be worthy of the formidable honour which has been done me— formidable, because the task we are undertaking, now that the threat of an apocalyptic conflagration is reappearing, will certainly not be an easy one. However, I have faith that with the co-operation of all the Members of the Assembly and of the United Nations Secretariat, whose devotion is known to us all, we shall be able to accomplish our task; in this way we shall, I hope help as best we may, if not to overcome all crises at least to reduce their gravity and dimensions, to promote welcome initiatives towards an improvement in international relations, mutual understanding and a narrowing of gaps between views, and thus to remove the threat of war and the terrible losses and vast devastation which war can inflict upon the whole of mankind.

In particular, I should like to hope that through this Assembly, destined once more to be the meetingplace of men of good will, substantial progress will be made on the important question of disarmament and an immediate and conclusive result achieved in the extremely serious matter of the discontinuance of

25

See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, pp. 55-58.

nuclear tests. A concrete and rapid solution of these two questions could effectively help to promote the cause of peace.

There is no problem, however complicated it may be and whatever the passions it may arouse, which cannot be solved by the persistent efforts and good will of men. Thus, in the question of the Congo progress has been made towards the solution desired and recommended in the various resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly. In the Congo the United Nations has achieved progress, which is known to all, through the understanding shown by every country and through the unremitting efforts of a staff whose courage is equalled only by its complete devotion. The aim which the United Nations is pursuing in this great African country, and which has cost the lives of many men of different nationalities, must be attained.

It is true that the current situation there is serious and has been aggravated by the tragic death of Mr. Hammarskjold. However, with a little perseverance, it seems that the time is not far distant when we shall at last see a united and peaceful Congo resume its place in the international community, as well as in the great African family which is still being so sorely tried by the upheavals inflicted upon it by a hesitant but none the less inevitable process of decolonization.

For in many places in Africa people are still suffering; new African nations are in the embryonic stage; may they be born without further suffering, may Algeria and Angola, in particular, enter international life in peace and concord and with the friendship of their former tutors! So long as the African continent is experiencing upheavals, world peace will not be assured; it will remain seriously threatened until the ghastly spectre of racialism has been banished forever; the peoples of South Africa and elsewhere must regain their rights in full and, above all, their dignity in their own country.

God grant that this session of the General Assembly, which opens on a note of grief, may close with the hope, at last well founded, that concord and peacepeace throughout the world-will reign over the human race, in freedom and justice!

41. "LET US CALL A TRUCE TO TERROR.... LET NO MAN OF PEACE AND FREEDOM DESPAIR": Address by the President of the United States (Kennedy) Before the U.N. General Assembly, September 25, 1961 26

We meet in an hour of grief and challenge. Dag Hammarskjold is dead. But the United Nations lives. His tragedy is deep in our hearts, but the task for which he died is at the top of our agenda. A noble servant of peace is gone. But the quest for peace lies before us. The problem is not the death of one man; the problem is the life of this Organization. It will either grow to meet the challenge of our age, or it will be gone with the wind, without influence, without force, without respect. Were we to let it die, to enfeeble its vigor, to cripple its powers, we would condemn the future.

For in the development of this Organization rests the only true alternative to war, and war appeals no longer as a rational alternative. Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and

26 White House press release dated Sept. 25, 1961 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, Oct. 16, 1961, pp. 619-625).

27 See post, docs. 392 and 396.

fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.

So let me us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live-or die-in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings peace. And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.

of

This will require new strength and new roles for the United Nations. For disarmament without checks is but a shadow, and a community. without law is but a shell. Already the United Nations has become both the measure and the vehicle of man's most generous impulses. Already it has provided-in the Middle East, in Asia, in Africa this year in the Congo-a means of holding violence within bounds.

But the great question which confronted this body in 1945 is still before us: whether man's cherished hopes for progress and peace are to be destroyed by terror and disruption, whether the "foul winds of war" can be tamed in time to free the cooling winds of reason, and whether the pledges of our charter are to be fulfilled or defiedpledges to secure peace, progress, human rights, and world law.

In this hall there are not three forces, but two. One is composed of those who are trying to build the kind of world described in articles 1 and 2 of the charter. The other, seeking a far different world, would undermine this Organization in the process.

Today of all days our dedication to the charter must be maintained. It must be strengthened, first of all, by the selection of an outstanding civil servant to carry forward the responsibilities of the SecretaryGeneral-a man endowed with both the wisdom and the power to make meaningful the moral force of the world community. The late Secretary-General nurtured and sharpened the United Nations' obligation to act. But he did not invent it. It was there in the charter. It is still there in the charter.

However difficult it may be to fill Mr. Hammarskjold's place, it can better be filled by one man rather than by three. Even the three horses of the troika did not have three drivers, all going in different directions. They had only one, and so must the United Nations executive. To install a triumvirate, or any rotating authority, in the United Nations administrative offices would replace order with anarchy, action with paralysis, and confidence with confusion.

The Secretary-General, in a very real sense, is the servant of the General Assembly. Diminish his authority and you diminish the authority of the only body where all nations, regardless of power, are equal and sovereign. Until all the powerful are just, the weak will be secure only in the strength of this Assembly.

Effective and independent executive action is not the same question as balanced representation. In view of the enormous change in membership in this body since its founding, the American delegation will join in any effort for the prompt review and revision of the composition of United Nations bodies.

But to give this Organization three drivers, to permit each great power to decide its own case, would entrench the cold war in the head

Doc. 41

quarters of peace. Whatever advantages such a plan may hold out to my own country, as one of the great powers, we reject it. For we far prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war, in the age of mass extermination.

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of tension. The mere existence of modern weapons ten million times more powerful than anything the world has ever seen and only minutes away from any target on earth-is a source of horror and discord and distrust. Men no longer maintain that disarmament must await the settlement of all disputes, for disarmament must be a part of any permanent settlement. And men may no longer pretend that the quest for disarmament is a sign of weakness, for in a spiraling arms race a nation's security may well be shrinking even as its arms increase.

For 15 years this Organization has sought the reduction and destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream; it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

It is in this spirit that the recent Belgrade conference, recognizing that this is no longer a Soviet problem or an American problem but a human problem, endorsed a program of "general, complete and strictly and internationally controlled disarmament." 28 It is in this same spirit that we in the United States have labored this year, with a new urgency, and with a new, now-statutory agency fully endorsed by the Congress, 29 to find an approach to disarmament which would be so far-reaching yet realistic, so mutually balanced and beneficial, that it could be accepted by every nation. And it is in this spirit that we have presented, with the agreement of the Soviet Union, under the label both nations now accept of "general and complete disarmament," a new statement of newly agreed principles for negotiation.30

But we are well aware that all issues of principle are not settled and that principles alone are not enough. It is therefore our intention to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race but to a peace raceto advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved. We invite them now to go beyond agreement in principle to reach agreement on actual plans.

The program to be presented to this Assembly for general and complete disarmament under effective international control 31 moves to bridge the gap between those who insist on a gradual approach and those who talk only of the final and total achievement. It would create machinery to keep the peace as it destroys the machines of war. It

"See ante, doc. 39. 29 See post, doc. 550. 30 See post, doc. 562. 31 See post, doc. 564.

would proceed through balanced and safeguarded stages designed to give no state a military advantage over another. It would place the final responsibility for verification and control where it belongs-not with the big powers alone, not with one's adversary or one's self, but in an international organization within the framework of the United Nations. It would assure that indispensable condition of disarmament-true inspection-and apply it in stages proportionate to the stage of disarmament. It would cover delivery systems as well as weapons. It would ultimately halt their production as well as their testing, their transfer as well as their possession. It would achieve, under the eye of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in forces, both nuclear and conventional, until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force. And it starts that process now, today, even as the talks begin.

In short, general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan, used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan and a testa test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act.

Such a plan would not bring a world free from conflict or greed, but it would bring a world free from the terrors of mass destruction. It would not usher in the era of the super state, but it would usher in an era in which no state could annihilate or be annihilated by another. In 1946, this nation proposed the Baruch plan to internationalize the atom 32 before other nations even possessed the bomb or demilitarized their troops. We proposed with our allies the disarmament plan of 1951 33 while still at war in Korea. And we make our proposals today, while building up our defenses over Berlin, not because we are inconsistent or insincere or intimidated but because we know the rights of free men will prevail-because, while we are compelled against our will to rearm, we look confidently beyond Berlin to the kind of disarmed world we all prefer.

I therefore propose, on the basis of this plan, that disarmament negotiations resume promptly and continue without interruption until an entire program for general and complete disarmament has not only been agreed but has been actually achieved.

34

The logical place to begin is a treaty assuring the end of nuclear tests of all kinds, in every environment, under workable controls. The United States and the United Kingdom have proposed such a treaty that is both reasonable, effective, and ready for signature. We are still prepared to sign that treaty today.

We also proposed a mutual ban on atmospheric testing,35 without

See A Decade of American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1941-1949, pp. 1079-1087.

See Documents on Disarmament, 1945-1959 (Department of State publication 7008), vol. I, pp. 274-281.

"See the unnumbered title, post, p. 1128.

See post, doc. 584.