UN General Assembly
1975

200. The full potential of detente cannot be realized until there is a transfer of real resources from military expenditure to areas that are of vital concern for the general well-being of mankind. The very first resolution adopted by the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations concerned disarmament. That was only natural, as the question of disarmament was an important preoccupation of the League of Nations and it was inevitable that its successor, the United Nations, established in the wake of the last world war, should as a matter of first priority concern itself with disarmament. In the 30 years since the creation of this Organization and despite the regular annual appeals for disarmament, especially nuclear disarmament, there has been virtually no progress. Instead, we have been witness to an incredible arms race involving the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction on a scale that brings into question the sanity of such measures.