General Assembly

The eleventh session of the General Assembly reconvened on September 10, 1957, to consider further for nine meetings the question of Hungary in the light of the report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary. Prior to the general debate Mr. Shann (Australia), rapporteur of the special committee, pointed out that the members of the committee, as instructed by the Assembly, had directed their attention to the situation created by the intervention of armed forces of the Soviet Union in Hungary on October 24, 1956. Stressing the judicial and fair-minded attitude of the committee, Mr. Shann commented on the converging nature of the evidence it had procured in the testimony of witnesses, documentation provided by Hungarian newspapers and radio reports issued during the uprising, statements of the present Hungarian government, and information provided by governments with diplomatic representatives in Budapest at the time of the occurrence. Speaking on a point of order, the representative of Hungary, subsequently endorsed by the Soviet delegate, asserted that the issue under discussion concerned measures taken by the Hungarian government to crush a counter-revolutionary attack, a domestic issue beyond the competence of an international organization to investigate. He concluded that the establishment of the special committee had been illegal and, therefore, requested the General Assembly to remove the item from the agenda. In accordance with a ruling of the President of the Assembly, however, it was decided to proceed with the debate.