PM Transcripts

P. M. No. 35/ 195' 9
FOR PRESS: STATEM~' ENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER
SVET UNION'SDISARMAMENT.-PROPOSAL
Since in the free world we all wish to see the end of
war, Mr. Krushchev's speech was beyond question brilliantly clever.
But what we have to consider is its concrete significance.
The existence of armaments in the world is not the cause
of international tension; international tension is the cause of
armaments. Had it not been for the Soviet Union's post-war activities
in respect of Poland, East Germany, Hungary and other Middle
European countries, it is very doubtful whether the weight of armaments
in the United States or in British countries would have been
more than a fraction of what it is.
There is something rather ironical in the Russion dictator
offering disarmament now that he has achieved so much conquest and
made so many millions of people his slaves. Another odd feature
of this latest pronouncement is that it comes after a long series
of discussions in the Disarmament Commission of the United Nations
in which the Soviet Union has steadily refused an adequate system
of international inspection to see to the observation of any programme
of reduced armaments. What system of inspection is now offered?
Here again we come to a matter urhich should prevent us from
being too naive about this offer. For in Democracies, the existence
of armed forces and of weapons is and must be a matter of public
knowledge. In a vast country which has no democracy, in which
the press is muzzled, in which people arc allowed to listen only to
the views of the Government and in which communications with the
outside world operate completely according to orders, inspection behind
a disarmament programme is not easy.
The world will want to know a lot more of the practical
aspects of Mr. Krushchev's offor aind will need to have some very
large guarantees of good faith before it will , i ye three hearty
cheers on this occasion. For example, what is Mr. Krushchev proposing
to do about Berlin or East Germany? So long as such matters
of acute difforence remain, Hr. Krushchev is dealing merely with the
symptoms and not with the disease. ADELAIDE, 20th Sept. 1959