UN General Assembly
1965

45. Since I spoke in the General Assembly last year [1301st meeting], our Organization has passed through a period of much travail and uncertainty, as well as a sharp controversy which could have shaken it to its very foundations. I say this because the controversy which immobilized this great Assembly had financial, constitutional and political aspects. The very fact that the protagonists on the two sides of this debate refused to allow the struggle to be fought to the bitter end and rather permitted a consensus to grow, and that finally both sides bowed to that consensus, showed that they were determined to preserve the Organization. It would be idle to pretend that that period of forced inactivity of the Assembly, and the underlying difference of opinion between the two super-Powers, has not affected us all. But equally we must recognize that it has had the effect of focussing the attention of the peoples of the world on the weakness as well as the strength of this house which we have all built, brick by brick.