UN General Assembly
1972

It will not be easy. Where social and economic systems are so different and where the gulf is so wide between the Soviet interpretation of the free life and that which is practiced in the West, it is best to try for limited objectives. But we must, if life is to be tolerable, replace the negative conception of coexistence with a fabric of trust. We willingly put our hand to that task in Western Europe and look forward to this first meeting an event in itself on a common platform of countries that are members of the Warsaw Pact Organization and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to be joined by the European neutrals. Mutual and balanced force reductions present a daunting problem because there are so many facets, military and geographical, which go to make up what is known as the balance of power in Europe, and indeed the balance of power in the world.