International Activities (continued)

Neil McRae, Henry Phillpot and I presented papers at the Pacific Science Congress in Honolulu in August 1961. Neil had also attended overseas meetings of the WMO Working Group on Observing Networks.

The International Geophysical Year also involved me in attending a number of overseas meetings as one of the Australian representatives, including the meetings of various committees of the IGY (International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), Comite Special de l'Annee Geophysique Internationale (CSAGI) and CSAGI's Special Committee for Antarctic Meteorology (SCAR)) in Moscow, Wellington and Washington. These international commitments coincided with a busy period of Bureau involvement in the many IGY meetings convened by the Australian Academy of Science.

One highly significant international event which occurred during the Dwyer years was an address to the United Nations General Assembly by US President J. F. Kennedy on 21 September 1961. On the occasion of expressing his deep regret at the tragic death of the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold in an aircraft accident, Kennedy remarked that the Organization was faced not only with the task of finding a new Secretary General but also of ensuring the Organization itself should be an effective peace-keeping body. He spoke of disarmament and said "I therefore propose on the basis of this plan that disarmament negotiations resume promptly, and continue without interruption until an entire program for general and complete disarmament not only has been agreed upon, but has been actually achieved". He then made the statement, which was to lead to a new era in meteorology, "as we extend the rule of law on Earth so we must extend it to man's new domain—outer space. To this end we shall urge proposals extending the United Nations charter to the limits of man's exploration of the universe, resulting in outer space for peaceful purposes, prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in space or on celestial bodies, and opening the mysteries and benefits of space to every nation".

Bureau of Meteorology