UN General Assembly
1984

109. The United Nations is now almost 40 years old. The European Community is younger than that by 10 years. Both organizations were born out of the same experience—the agony and destruction of the Second World War—and both have one essential aim in common—to prevent the recurrence of war. Surveying the international situation over the past 40 years we can take satisfaction from the fact that the continent of Europe has escaped another large-scale war and that the world has avoided global conflict, which in a nuclear age would have disastrous consequences for the future of mankind. But our satisfaction must be tempered by the realization that, even though global war has been averted, millions have perished in regional conflicts and civil strife, millions more continue to suffer under tyrannical and repressive regimes and, in a wealthy, scientifically advanced and resourceful world, millions of our fellow men are subjected to poverty, malnutrition and disease. Beyond these conflicts are the growth in nuclear and conventional armaments, the lack of success in arms control, and the state of the political relations between the super-Powers. None the less, there are hopeful signs, notably the forthcoming meeting between the President of the United States and the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union. In this connection also the Ten were encouraged by the tone and the content of the address to the Assembly yesterday by President Reagan.