CONTROL OF ARMAMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27572, 14 December 1950, Page 7

CONTROL OF ARMAMENTS

Proposal To Combine Two Commissions

A SINGLE PROBLEM

N ZP A—Copyright Rec. 9.20 p.m. NEW YORK, Dec. 12.

Sir Keith Officer (Australia) told the United Nations General Assembly today that agreement on the control of only one type of weapon might give an advantage to an aggressor whose strength lay in the possession of other weapons.

Sir Keith introduced an eight-Power resolution seeking to combine the United Nations Commissions on Atomic Energy and Conventional Armaments. He said disarmament was a single problem and should be treated as such. Both commissions had reached a deadlock in their work, and there was no point in reopening the discussions where they left off, but it might be useful if a new start were made by continuing the two bodies in a single commission. The eight countries sponsoring the resolution are Australia, Britain, Canada, the United States, Ecuador, the Netherlands. France and Turkey. ' Mr Andrei Vyshinsky, the Soviet Foi-eign Minister, opposed the resolution. He said it was “ merely another attempt to pigeonhole any efforts to reach an agreement on the issue.” Mr Yyshinsky accused the United States and the other supporters of the proposal of wanting to continue atomic bomb production. He alleged that the United States was not interested in promotion of the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Mr Vyshinsky accused President Truman of threatening the world with the atomic bomb and of intending to continue those threats until the control of atomic energy was entirely in the hands of “American monopolists.” Mr Vyshinsky introduced a resolution repeating the four-year-old Soviet plan for the preparation of simultaneous conventions outlawing atomic weapons and establishing an international control system. He said his plan provided for a thorough periodic inspection to assure that atomic energy utilisation was for peaceful purposes only. There would be a periodic inspection of any country whenever the proposed international control body so decided, regardless of the wishes of the Government concerned.

The Assembly adjourned until tomorrow without taking any action on the resolution.