Krishna Menon Says World Peace Has Gained by Recent Conferences

The first ten years since the conception of the U.N. charter was marked by mutual fear and hatred, V. K. Krishna Menon, chief delegate from India to the United Nations, said in a lecture last night, but with the conferences of the last few months we have moved a long way toward a peaceful world, be declared.

Peace can be gained only by mediation, as international problems can never be solved by building up strength for a balance of power, Krishna Menon argued, "Conferences are not the romantic successes or the tragic failures pictures by most people," he continued. "They go from one slow development to another."

Motivated by fear, both camps of international power have asked the same question, Krishna Menon said: "Can we trust the other fellow?" The mutual distrust tends to make the major powers unable to find a solution for every difficulty, but to find a difficulty for every solution, he stated.

Most nations, however, have already come to realize that a way must be found for people to live together, the Indian statesman said, since a today's peak of armament development, peace has become "not an alternative, but an imperative."

A building up of power can only produce fear, Ambassador Krishna Menon commented. "The bigger the nation becomes, the more afraid it gets," he said. The policy of all nations today is conditioned by a "war psychosis" because they are afraid of being outclassed by their opponents.

Asked if a revision of the U.N. charter could be beneficial to lessening international tension, Krishna Menon answered that "It is not the charter which is wrong, but people and nations."

India's position is not one of neutrality but of independence in world affairs, he explained. But it would be a mistake, he continued, for anyone to think that India has the "prescription" for the rest of the world to fellow.