204. Editorial Note
On October 3 at the beginning of the 882d plenary meeting at 10:30 p.m., Chairman Khrushchev spoke in right of reply. He began as follows:
“In reply to the statements of certain speakers, I should like once again to make clear the attitude of the Soviet delegation towards one of the important questions placed before the United Nations General Assembly, at its present session, for consideration. I refer to the role and position of the executive organ of the United Nations which we propose should replace the post of Secretary-General.”
He noted that besides the “great and powerful phalanx of socialist countries”, new nations were appearing which were following a neutral policy. “More than a third of the world’s population is, so to speak, discriminated against in the organs of the United Nations—in [Page 381] the Security Council, for instance, and particularly in the Secretariat.” Regarding Secretary-General Hammarskjöld, Khrushchev noted: “The post of Secretary-General is occupied by a representative of the Western Powers; not once in all these fifteen years has a representative of the socialist countries been allowed to act as President of the General Assembly.”
Khrushchev admitted that the Western powers would have no faith in a Secretary-General from the socialist countries, and the “neutral countries, too, wish to play their part in the United Nations; they want their interests to be protected; and these legitimate demands of theirs must be taken into account.” He proposed that the “only correct way, therefore, of solving this problem would be to create an executive organ consisting of three persons, representing the three groups of States, whose duty it would be to implement the decisions of the Security Council and the General Asssembly.”
He anticipated that some would accuse the Soviet Union of trying to destroy the United Nations, but defended his proposal: “this is a fair request. If not today, then tomorrow, all peoples in the world will realize that the United Nations must take into account the interests of all States. The alternative is the dominance of one or other group of States; and that means not the solution of problems but the aggravation of international tension, which might even lead to military conflict.”
For full text of Khrushchev’s address, see U.N. doc. A/PV.882.