UN General Assembly
1960

3. This session of the Assembly is gathered at a time when the international atmosphere appears heavily clouded, the dissensions of the cold war carried anew to a degree of bitterness and intensity which leave us with the discouraging conviction that the world today, more than ever, is travelling on a path of precarious and uneasy peace. Despite the constant anxiety for harmony and peace — an anxiety which springs forth in one single voice from the hearts of all peoples — the dangerous political turmoil which has been the constant companion of the nations of the world during the last few years became still more inflamed lately by new and stormy winds. The general outlook is now quite different from the rays of hope which had emerged on the international horizon during the last session of the Assembly, Then, even the less optimistic minds found a degree of encouragement, and that encouragement had shaped a constructive expectation. Notwithstanding the great difficulties of the task, it then appeared possible to build a foundation and intermediate points of support leading to the solution of the grave problems at the root of the tension besieging humanity. But such rays of hope were soon to vanish in a smoke of discord, precisely at a time when the peoples of the world had grown more tired than ever of expressions of hatred and mistrust, fear and bitterness, poisoning the international scene.