UN General Assembly
1963

34. Those were anxious days for mankind —and some men wondered aloud whether this Organization could survive. But the sixteenth and seventeenth sessions of the General Assembly achieved not only survival but progress. Rising to its responsibility, the United Nations helped to reduce the tensions and helped to hold back the darkness. 35. Today the clouds have lifted a little so that new rays of hope can break through. The pressures on West Berlin appear to be temporarily eased. Political unity in the Congo has been largely restored. A neutral coalition in Laos, while still in difficulty, is at least in being. The integrity of the United Nations Secretariat has been reaffirmed. A United Nations Decade of Development is under way, and, for the first time in seventeen years of effort, a specific step has been taken to limit the nuclear arms race.