UN General Assembly
1948

The work done by the United Nations in connexion with disarmament and atomic energy revealed a regrettable contradiction. While all Member States, including the five permanent members of the Security Council, had undertaken to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, to reduce and regulate armaments and armed forces and to establish systems of international control to prevent violations, the deliberations of the bodies responsible for implementing those decisions of the Assembly had achieved no positive results and, owing to the disagreement of the great Powers, had reached a stage which gave rise to grave fears for international security. International distrust continued to prevent the discovery of a formula calculated to solve those serious problems. Once again there was discussion as to whether security should precede disarmament or whether the latter was a prior condition of the former.