UN General Assembly
1961

much like a pretext that it is an insult to the United Nations. 13. Thus it may be said that the Berlin crisis is reaching its acutest phase amid the roar of explosions. The attitudes of the adversaries are hardening from day to day. Until recently those attitudes were still sufficiently fluid and flexible to give diplomacy the necessary elbow room and free play so that nothing irreparable would happen. But today such diplomatic action is becoming almost impossible as the threats and declarations proffered by the two opponents prevent them from giving way. 14. To avoid disaster I would, on behalf of my Government, urge the great Powers concerned to enter without delay into negotiations on the problem of Berlin, so that a solution acceptable to all the parties concerned can be found. Before anything else, the wishes of the Berlin inhabitants and their right, too seldom mentioned, to determine their own fate, must be taken into account.