UN General Assembly
1954

When, in the afternoon of 30 September 1954 [484th meeting], the representative of the Soviet Union, Mr. Vyshinsky, appeared before the General Assembly, he must have noticed that almost all representatives from the sixty member States of the United Nations were in attendance. The advance notice that he was to speak that day had bestirred the Assembly into unusual activity. What, may I ask, must have been the cause of this unusual interest and anxiety over what he had to say? A war weary world, still bleeding from the wounds of the last global conflict and fearful of the fast-gathering clouds that hang over the surface of the earth, focused its rapt attention on the Soviet representative, hoping against hope that, against the background of so much political cynicism in the past, some words might drop from his lips which might blaze the way to the peace of mankind.