For we far prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war, in the age of mass extermination. Whatever advantages such a plan may hold out to my own country, as one of the great powers, we reject it. 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.īut to give this organization three drivers-to permit each great power to decide its own case, would entrench the Cold War in the headquarters of peace. Until all the powerful are just, the weak will be secure only in the strength of this Assembly.Įffective and independent executive action is not the same question as balanced representation. Diminish his authority and you diminish the authority of the only body where all nations, regardless of power, are equal and sovereign. The Secretary General, in a very real sense, is the servant of the General Assembly. To install a triumvirate, or any panel, or any rotating authority, in the United Nations administrative offices would replace order with anarchy, action with paralysis, confidence with confusion. They had only one-and so must the United Nations executive. Even the three horses of the Troika did not have three drivers, all going in different directions. Hammarskjold's place, it can better be filled by one man rather than by three. The late Secretary General nurtured and sharpened the United Nations' obligation to act. It must be strengthened first of all by the selection of an outstanding civil servant to carry forward the responsibilities of the Secretary General-a man endowed with both the wisdom and the power to make meaningful the moral force of the world community. Today of all days our dedication to the Charter must be maintained. The other, seeking a far different world, would undermine this organization in the process. One is composed of those who are trying to build the kind of world described in Articles I and II of the Charter. In this Hall, there are not three forces, but two. Already it has provided-in the Middle East, in Asia, in Africa this year in the Congo-a means of holding man's violence within bounds.īut 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 defied-pledges to secure peace, progress, human rights and world law. Already the United Nations has become both the measure and the vehicle of man's most generous impulses. For disarmament without checks is but a shadow-and a community without law is but a shell. This will require new strength and new roles for the United Nations. And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war. So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Mankind must put an end to war-or war will put an end to mankind. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. It can no longer concern the great powers alone. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. Were we to let it die, to enfeeble its vigor, to cripple its powers, we would condemn our future.įor in the development of this organization rests the only true alternative to war-and war appeals no longer as a rational alternative. It will either grow to meet the challenges of our age, or it will be gone with the wind, without influence, without force, without respect. The problem is not the death of one man-the problem is the life of this organization. His tragedy is deep in our hearts, but the task for which he died is at the top of our agenda. We meet in an hour of grief and challenge. President, honored delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Western Hemisphere (Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada).Near East (northern Africa, Middle East).Counterterrorism & Countering Violent Extremism.Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment.Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.Arms Control and International Security.Alphabetical List of Bureaus and Offices.
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