UN General Assembly
1995

which affect our lives — disarmament and human rights. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mahatma Gandhi said that the use of the atom bomb for the wholesale destruction of men, women and children was the most diabolical use of science. We were therefore appalled that, instead of stepping back from the road to nuclear ruin, the nuclear- weapon States sped faster and faster down it. As they accelerated, India tried unsuccessfully to put on the brakes. In 1954 we called for an end to nuclear testing. In 1965 we proposed principles for a non-proliferation treaty. In 1982 we called for a convention to ban the use of nuclear weapons and for an end to the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. In 1988 we proposed to the United Nations a comprehensive action plan for a world free of nuclear weapons. Our goal — shared, I believe by most of us here — is a world from which nuclear weapons have been eliminated. The nuclear-weapon States claim to share this goal, but their present objective is to retain nuclear