The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 230
214 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN United Nations, and consequently, your availability as a well-known member of the international community. And then, you might want speak to the point of previous experiences as an officer or as a sub- officer in international organization. And then we can go off into the nomination and the electoral process. Zafrulla : When I came back to the United Nations in August, 1961 as Pakistan's Permanent Representative, I had already been quite familiar with the United Nations as, from 1947 through 1954, I had led the Pakistan delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. In 1947, when I led the delegation, I was not yet Foreign Minister, but I was called upon to take up the portfolio as soon as I returned from the Session. Through the later years of that period, I led the delegation as Foreign Minister, and I used to stay on during the whole of the Session. So, to the then-membership, at least, I was well known. But the membership of the United Nations increased very rapidly after 1954, so that when I came back in 1961 I had to establish contacts with the new members. It was not difficult or time-consuming. What helped was that, somewhere deep in my nature, there must be a fund of affection just for people as people. Meeting people from any part of the world is not difficult for me, and I found it easy with the African members, who are very responsive to anybody who takes an interest in and has some affection for them. I now feel that I am much more intimate with some of them than I am with some of the others. So, within a few weeks, I began to feel at home in the United Nations once more. In the beginning, I had felt somewhat at sea. When I came back, the scene appeared somewhat unfamiliar, or perhaps both familiar and unfamiliar. By February or March of 1962, people were beginning to talk of the Presidency. When I was asked what my views were, I expressed myself very strongly in favour of the rotation of the Presidency among various groups, and from that point of view I did not think that it was desirable that a President from Africa, as Mr. Mongi Slim, the President of the 16th Session was, should be followed immediately by one from Asia. When I gave expression to this view, I found it met with a certain amount of approval among the Arab and some of the African delegations. The idea was acceptable to them, provided the Afro-Asians