a great good by declaring firmly that the time has ronit
to commence the general reduction of armaments.
In the second place, the General Assembly must express
itself on the question of prohibition of atomic weapons,
inasmuch as we all know that the menace of atomic weap-
ons is causing grave alarm among -the peoples.
In the third place, the General Assembly should recog-
nize the necessity of establishing reliable international
control over the fulfilment of the decision on the general
reduction of armaments aind on the prohibition of atomic
weapons, an international control which would have at its
disposal an inspection system to keep check on the situa-
tion in every country.
The adoption of these three decisions by the General
Assembly would be an important forward stride towards
the general reduction of armaments. After such a decision
the Security Council would 1)6 obliged to set to work on
the preparation of concrete measures. That is the sub-
stance of the Soviet Government's proposal.
If we all are agreed on the necessity of this, the General
Assembly will be able to adopt a decision on the reduction
of armaments that will go down in history.
II
THE AMERICAN DRAFT AND OUR AMENDMENTS
Since the submission of the Soviet draft, we have also
studied a number of other drafts on the question of the
reduction of armaments. Of these we should mention, first
and foremost, the proposals of the Australian and Cana-
dian delegations. Finally, within the last few days, we have
been offered the draft of the United States of America,
concerning which Senator Connally made his statement "on
December 2.