Disarmament requires trust.

Every success in limiting armaments is a sign that the will to achieve mutual understanding exists and every such success thus supports the fight for international law and order.

The relationship of the two problems is rather the reverse. To a great extent disarmament is dependent on guarantees of peace. Security comes first and disarmament second.

In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power unrestricted and unregulated armaments international anarchy and preparation for war.

I came here as a practical man to talk not simply on the question of peace and war but to treat another question which is of hardly less importance - the enormous and burdensome standing armaments which it is the practice of modern Governments to sustain in time of peace.

The popular and one may say naive idea is that peace can be secured by disarmament and that disarmament must therefore precede the attainment of absolute security and lasting peace.

I know of no more important subject to the peace of Europe and the world than the reasonable reduction of armaments especially in Europe and of naval armaments throughout the world.

I know that military alliances and armament have been the reliance for peace for centuries but they do not produce peace and when war comes as it inevitably does under such conditions these armaments and alliances but intensify and broaden the conflict.

Competition in armament both land and naval is not only a terrible burden upon the people but I believe it to be one of the greatest menaces to the peace of the world.

I've also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament - it was about 1982 - they called it Peace Sunday.

The Disarmament Conference has become the focal point of a great struggle between anarchy and world order... between those who think in terms of inevitable armed conflict and those who seek to build a universal and durable peace.

It has become impossible to give up the enterprise of disarmament without abandoning the whole great adventure of building up a collective peace system.

Let me remind you that nuclear disarmament is not just an ardent desire of the people as expressed in many resolutions of the United Nations. It is a legal commitment by the five official nuclear states entered into when they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Certain it is that a great responsibility rests upon the statesmen of all nations not only to fulfill the promises for reduction in armaments but to maintain the confidence of the people of the world in the hope of an enduring peace.

If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything it is that peace does not follow disarmament - disarmament follows peace.

The question of armaments whether on land or sea is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.

That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves.

As a first step there must be an offer to achieve equality of rights in disarmament by abolishing the weapons forbidden to the Central Powers by the Peace Treaties.