U Thant Warns of Cold War Intensification

An unidentified speaker introduces this luncheon by saying a few words about the United Nations Correspondent Association and the Hammarskjold Memorial Scholarship fund. A tribute to the late Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the UN, the scholarship provides funding for journalists to work in the United States and, ideally, to bridge the gap between nations and foster trust in the UN. He introduces four new fellows from Afghanistan, Algeria, Ceylon and Ghana as well as the next speaker Secretary General U Thant.

In his speech, Thant outlines policy concerns in international conflicts such as the bisection of Berlin, the Vietnam War, a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Nigerian Civil War. He worries that the cold war is becoming intensified, but believes that peace can be achieved through diplomacy. The precarious balance of power between the United States of America and the USSR proves the need for a third party to act as a "voice of the conscience of mankind."

"We have made tremendous strides in the field of technology, the conquest of space and the race to the moon. However, the human race has failed, so far, to establish effective rules for the conduct of nations. The basic cause of this failure is that, in my view, human beings are still unable to think beyond their national interests and in some cases even beyond their tribal and parochial interests. The only thing that can save the world is the vision of the human race as one family and inhabiting a world that is an indivisible entity."

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 151672
Municipal archives id: T5330