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Another prerequisite of disarmament had been laid down by the United States and the United Kingdom—namely, the conclusion of peace treaties with Germany and Japan. No such condition was to be found in the Assembly resolutions of January and December, 1946, but even if it were accepted it was well known that Mr Molotov had in November, 1947, called on the Council of Foreign Ministers to proceed as a matter of urgency with the elaboration of a peace treaty with Germany, and that his proposal was rejected by the United States and the United Kingdom. In reply, the delegate of the United States drew attention to the statement in the Belgian resolution that armaments reduction depended on an improvement in the international atmosphere. The present tension resulted from the resurrection by the leaders of the Soviet Union of the Communist theory that conflict with the so-called capitalist States was inevitable. The Soviet Union was once again publicly expressing the aim of world revolution. It had contributed to international tension in other ways. It had imposed a curtain of secrecy over everything within its borders and its people were kept in ignorance of happenings in the outside world. It had forcibly annexed territory. It had destroyed the hopes for representative government in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. The summary rejection of the plans submitted by neutral States for the settlement of the Berlin question was a recent example of the manner in which the Soviet Union had created an atmosphere of fear in the world. That fear was increased when the Soviet Union reiterated assertions which the rest of the world knew to be untrue. It was pure nonsense to say that the United States desired to attack the Soviet Union. Any one familiar with history knew that the people of the United States would not permit a war of aggression. It was only when, three years after the war had ended, they had realized that other States remained heavily armed and were even rearming that they had reluctantly begun to divert some of their productive resources to defence. The United Kingdom delegate, in answer to Mr Vyshinsky's claim that the Geneva Convention prohibiting the use of toxic gases was a success, pointed out that during World War II various belligerents had manufactured toxic gases, and were in a position to use them. Such gases had not been used because of fear of reprisals, not because of any legal scruples. It had been repeated ad nauseam that it was very easy to switch over from peacetime to military use of nuclear fuel, and that it was therefore essential to establish a complete system of control. The Syrian and Australian delegates saw an implied contradiction in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Belgian draft resolution. Paragraph 6 appeared to envisage the uninterrupted continuance of the work of the Commission for Conventional Armaments ; paragraph 5, on the other hand, implied that the Committee would suspend operations until an improvement in the international situation permitted their resumption.