The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 213
197 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN personal care which only a mother or a women in loco maternis can supply. R R R R R INTERVIEW - SEPTEMBER 22, 1962 Question : When you returned to the United Nations, Sir, in the summer of 1961, what were the problems then that you were concerned with? Perhaps if you can categorize them to some extent, colonial issues for example. Would you say that this is one of the leading issues in the United Nations at the present time, the problem of bringing former colonial powers into the United Nations ? Khan : My term on the International Court of Justice finished on the 5th of February, 1961. I had been on the Court six years and four months, which was the unexpired term of Sir B. N. Rau, whose place I had taken on the Court. My name was up for re-election before the United Nations during the 1960 session of the Assembly, along with those of my four colleagues whose term was also due to expire in 1961, but none of us was re-elected. So I had thought to myself that now, at long last, I could retire. I had taken up my residence temporarily at Cambridge, England. I was fairly content with my life there as it was beginning to develop, and I might perhaps have chosen Cambridge to settle down in for the greater part of the year for it was difficult for me to face the summer back home in Pakistan. I had suffered from diabetes for more than twenty years. Of course, I would have gone home for the winter every year. In the beginning of July, our President, when he was on his way to the United States on his State visit, suggested to me in London that I should come to the United Nations as Permanent Representative of Pakistan. I have been keenly interested in the United Nations - all through 1947 to 1954, I had led the Pakistan delegation to the General Assembly as Foreign Minister. I agreed and took up my duties at the United Nations on the 12th of August, 1961. The first thing that struck me immediately was the tremendous increase in the membership of the United Nations that had taken place