Vyshinsky And Peace

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 September 1949, Page 6

Vyshinsky And Peace

' NEW YORK, Sept, 24.—The Soviet Union’s Foreign Minister (Mr A, G. Vyshinsky), in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, proposed that the Assembly should ban atomic weapons and at the same time call on the Big Five to sign “a pact (or the strengthening of peace.” A Reuter correspondent says that the Soviet’s peace move in the United Nations was received with a good deal of cautious cynicism by most delegates, who felt that there Was a wide gap between Russia’s proclaimed desire for peace and the rest of Mr Vyshinsky’s speech. This, they said, showed signs of abolishing some of the main obstacles to international harmony. These included Greece and the Balkin situation, Korea, and international control of atomic energy. Piece Of Propaganda

The British Foreign Secretary (Mr Earnest Bevin) declined to comment, but a British spokesman said that the peace offer was obviously a clever piece of propaganda. This was also the view of most of the leading delegates from key countries. Mr Vyshinsky preceded his proposal with an attack on Britain and the United States for “preparing for a new war.” He suggested a threepoint programme for peace. This was:

(1) The Assembly should condemn “the preparations for a new'' war which are being conducted in a number of countries, particularly the United States and Britain.”

(2) The Assembly should ban atomic weapons and other means of mass destruction as ••incompatible with the conscience and honour of nations and with membership of the United Nations.

(3) The Assembly should unanimously express a wish that the United States. Britain, China, France and the Soviet Union should “join their efforts to ward off the threat of a new war and conclude between themselves a pact for the strengthening of peace.” No Reference To Explosion

At no time during his speech did he refer to the atomic explosion in Russia reported earlier by President Truman, and he said nothing about Russia, possessing the atomic bomb. Mr Vyshinsky, referring to the first proposal, said that preparations for war found expression in Govern-ment-encouraged war propaganda, in an armaments race, in inflated war budgets which put heavy burdens on populations, in the establishment of numerous military and naval air bases on other countries’ territories, in the formation of military blocs of States pursuing aggressive aims against peace-loving, democratic ■ countries, and in the execution of other measures aimed at aggression. He argued in support of the second proposal that the United Nations should act against atomic weapons in the same way as civilised nations condemned the military use of poison gas and bacteriological weapons as the heaviest crime against mankind. The Assembly, he added, should consider as inadmissible further delay in the adoption of practical measures for the unconditional prohibition of atomic weapons and the establishment of rigid international control. Big Five’s Responsibility Explaining the third proposal, Mr Vyshinsky said that the Assembly should call on all nations to settle their disputes and differences peacefully, without force or threats of force. The Big Five, as permanent' members of the Security Council,' bore primary responsibilitv for the maintenance of international peace and. security. ' Mr Vyshinsky said that the Atlan-. tic Pact, was nothing but an under- I mining of the United Nations. ’Explanations that the pact had been I formed in conformity with the United, Nations Charter were merely an at- j tempt to veil the actual political sig- i nificance of the pact and to deceive' public opinion throughout the world. Mr Vyshinsky said that “the Brit-1 ish and American policy of weaken-

ing the United Nations” was the principal reason for the unsatisfactory state of affairs in the .Security Council, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Conventional Armaments Commission, the Military Staff Committee, and the Economic and Social Council.

The United States and Britain, he said, had continuously tried to impose on the Atomic Energy Commission their plan 1 for international control, to which no independent sovereign State would agree. Improvement was possible only if all the United Nations members observed the Charter and its principles. Chilean Critic Of Russia Continuing the debate today, Mr Hernan Santa Cruz, the chief Chilean delegate to the Assembly, denounced Russia’s “Red Crusade” against Jugoslavia. He said that Jugoslavia was now “an object of economic, political, and ideological aggression by a great Power and its satellites solely for not complying with orders contrary to its destiny.” He added: “While the Charter of San Francisco promises a world of I peaceful intercourse the Soviet Union 'promotes a Red crusade to submit to its will the domestic and foreign conr duct of Jugoslavia. “Our concepts of democracy are different from those contained in the ideologies of both these States, which we do not believe can be pointed to as examples to be followed in other countries. But what should really alarm cm- organisation is the will to settle by violence that ideological schism, as well as the hatefully imperialist character of that attitude, comparable with the record of Nazism. In other words, it amounts to a flagrant threat to peace. The offer made yesterday by Mr Vyshinsky therefore was profoundly ironical.”

The Assembly adjourned until Monday.