A high-ranking official of the United Nations said last night that "in 10 years or so we may see 1965 as the point where real progress began to be made toward disarmament."

C.V. Narasimhan, Under Secretary for General Assembly affairs, said that next year, after elections in the United States and Great Britain, "there is bound to be progress in this field."

"In the talks at Geneva there has been progress toward a solution and then nations have begun to back off," he explained. "The reasons for this shying off, I think, have been political reasons, not reasons of security. But there has been a realization that the piling up of arms does not lead to greater safety."

Narasimhan, a top assistant to U.N. Secretary General U Thant, devoted most of the annual Dag Hammerskjold Lecture to a review of the U.N.'s efforts to promote "peaceful change" in the world.

He said the U.N. had been partly responsible for "an abatement of the Cold War in recent years. The emergence of nonaligned nations has helped servo as a bridge. The presence of a group uncommitted to a belief in the superiority of either economic system has served to soften debate."

No Debt Solution

He reviewed U.N. actions in the Congo, Cyprus, and in West Irian, where he personally directed the organization's activities. And he commented on problems facing the U.N. from the questions of collecting overdue debts ("I can see no solution as of now"), of population control, of racial discrimination, and of internal changes.

During the question period Narasimhan was asked whether there were indications that the larger nations resented the influx of small countries into the U.N.

He said that there was one definite sign of concern: an increase in the use of the Security Council. "If you look it up, the number of meetings of the council has increased every year. It seems that large countries have decided that the council is the most useful medium for settling their problems."