Message to the Congress Transmitting the Tenth Annual Report on United States Participation in the United Nations.

To the Congress of the United States:

I transmit herewith, pursuant to the United Nations Participation Act, the tenth annual report, covering the year 1955, on United States participation in the United Nations.

The prime purpose of the United Nations--"to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war"--remains unchanged. This goal as well as those of human rights, justice, and social progress are ardently desired by the American people. I, therefore, found special satisfaction in addressing the United Nations Commemorative Conference in San Francisco in June 1955, which was convened to mark the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Charter.

The record for 1955 shows that the United Nations, now in its second decade, is increasingly vital and effective. I draw your attention to a few of the year's developments which especially command the interest of the United States.

1. First in significance for peace and progress, in the long range view, are the United Nations contributions to the peaceful applications of atomic energy. Having proposed before the General Assembly in 1953 that an international atomic energy agency be created, I have carefully followed developments in this field. The progress made in the past two years is impressive.

Although the Soviet Union's response to the initial proposal for an international agency was negative and disappointing, we and other interested nations pressed on with new proposals.

Important strides in this momentous field were thus made in 1955. In August, pursuant to a United States proposal, scientists from seventy-three states met under United Nations auspices for two weeks in Geneva in an International Technical Conference to explore the promise of the atom. The Conference provided valuable opportunities for the exchange of scientific knowledge for the benefit of mankind between scientists without regard for ideologies.

There was also progress in the creation of the international agency itself. The determination of free nations to advance this program, together with the great prestige of the United Nations, resulted in unanimous approval by the Tenth General Assembly of the prospective creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Statute of the Agency is now ready for adoption. The Agency itself should be established during the coming year.

This progress in converting the atom to peaceful use illustrates the ability of the United Nations to get results in the face of what might seem insurmountable obstacles.

At the time I originally proposed the development of peaceful uses of atomic energy I had this in mind: That if the world could cooperate and move ahead significantly in this field, this might make it easier to move ahead in the far more difficult field of disarmament. I am still convinced that this is so. When this Agency comes into being the confidence, the cooperation, and the trust which it will engender among nations can bring us significantly closer to the day when honest disarmament can be realized.

Disarmament, and by this I mean the controlled reduction of military forces and of conventional and nuclear weapons, remains one of the most vital unsolved problems facing the world. The Soviet Union and the United States are the two great nuclear powers. Both possess an enormous potential for either the welfare or the destruction of mankind. The responsibility, therefore, lies particularly upon us and the Soviet Union to produce a workable plan for safeguarded disarmament. Other nations look with justified anxiety for signs that this is being done.

Our Government, the first to master atomic energy, was likewise the first to offer to put it under the control of the United Nations. Ten years have elapsed since that time, but our repeated efforts to reach agreement through the United Nations have been unavailing. The basic reason for this is the mutual distrust existing between the Soviet Union and other nations.

2. The dispelling of this paralyzing distrust was my main purpose in proposing at Geneva last July the plan for aerial inspection by the United States and the Soviet Union of each other's military installations. Such a system should make it impossible for either side to make a massive surprise attack on the other. Last December the General Assembly by the overwhelming vote of 56 to 7 asked that this be one of the proposals to receive priority consideration as a confidence-building first step on the road to arms reduction. The Soviet Union has nevertheless refused, thus far, to accept this offer. But we and our associates should continue, with patient resolve, to seek common ground with the Soviet Union on this or some equally effective program that could lead to safeguarded disarmament, looking for the day when the Soviets will change their view on this topic, as they have done on others in the past.

We shall continue to obey the mandate of the United Nations in this field. We shall continue our search until we have found the answer to this awesome problem. We shall be guided by the knowledge that no nation can live in the true spirit of peace or devote its energies to the pursuit of happiness until the trend toward increasingly destructive armaments is reversed.

3. In 1955 the United Nations made its contribution to the continuance of a world fortunately free from open war. In the strife between the Arab States and Israel, which reflects intense political, economic and cultural tensions, the United Nations succeeded for another year in maintaining the uneasy armistice. Measured against the tragic alternative, this ranks as a substantial accomplishment.

The stabilizing influence that the United Nations has been able to exert upon the Near Eastern situation is one of the best proofs of the sheer necessity of the United Nations. We are in an era of resurgent nationalism, which has very little tolerance for the methods of pacification and arbitration imposed from without that have worked in other eras. In the Near East the United Nations has provided perhaps the only force--essentially a moral force--that can maintain the armistice and work toward a permanent solution. Secretary-General Hammarskjold's mission undertaken this spring as a result of United States initiative in the Security Council made a substantial contribution to improving a serious and dangerous situation there. It illustrates the ability of the United Nations to develop over a period of time, through patient testing, workable methods that, when world opinion is mobilized, can deal successfully with such serious problems.

4. One more United Nations achievement of 1955 is especially precious for Americans because it concerns our own flesh and blood. In May and August, the Chinese Communist authorities released from unjust and illegal imprisonment fifteen American fliers, fighting men of the Korean war. They had detained these men in violation of the Korean Armistice. Most of them had been victims of fabricated propaganda charges. Their return to their homes followed Secretary-General Hammarskjold's trip to Peiping armed with a mandate from the General Assembly. It proved with dramatic force the power of the United Nations to influence events through its impact on world opinion.

5. The end of year 1955 found the United Nations larger by sixteen members, giving it a total membership of seventy-six. For years the Soviet veto had kept many fully qualified states from taking their place in the United Nations. Finally the pressure of world opinion made possible a generally acceptable solution.

As additional countries become qualified for membership, they should be admitted without delay. I am glad to note that the Sudan, which achieved independence late in 1955, has already been recommended for admission by the Security Council. Certainly, the grossly unjust exclusion of Japan by repeated Soviet vetoes should be promptly rectified. The Republic of Korea and Viet-Nam are likewise fully eligible for membership.

The United Nations in its first decade has not seen a single member withdraw from membership. To the contrary, most of those outside the Organization seek to join it. Nothing could more clearly prove its vitality and influence.

I commend to the Congress this report of United States participation in the tenth year of the United Nations. It is a record of substantial evolution in man's efforts to live at peace. It is up to us and the other member states to see that the United Nations serves with increasing effectiveness, within the Charter, its central purpose of maintaining the peace and fostering the well-being of all peoples. To this end the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies associated with it deserve, and should continue to receive, our honest, intelligent and wholehearted support.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER