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Kennedy's radio and television
address
President John F. Kennedy
October 22, 1962
Good Evening, My Fellow Citizens:
This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance
of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past
week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of
offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.
The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear
strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.
Upon receiving the first preliminary hard information of this nature last Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., I directed that our surveillance be stepped up. And having now confirmed and completed our evaluation of the evidence and our decision on a course of action, this government feels obliged to report this new crisis to you in fullest detail.
The characteristics of these new missile sites indicate two distinct
types of installations. Several of them include medium range ballistic
missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead for a distance of more
than 1,000 nautical miles. Each of these missiles, in short, is capable
of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral,
Mexico City, or any other city in the southeastern part of the United
States, in Central America or in the Caribbean area.
Additional sites not yet completed appear to be designed for intermediate
range ballistic missiles -- capable of traveling more than twice as far
-- and thus capable of striking most of the major cities in the Western
Hemisphere, ranging as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far
south as Lima, Peru. In addition, jet bombers capable of carrying nuclear
weapons are now being uncrated and assembled in Cuba while the necessary
air bases are being prepared.
This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base
-- by the presence of these large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons
of sudden mass destruction -- constitutes an explicit threat to the peace
and security of all Americas, in flagrant and deliberate defiance of the
Rio Pact of 1947, the traditions of this nation and hemisphere, the
joint resolution of the 87th Congress, the Charter of the United Nations,
and my own public warnings to the Soviets on September 4 and 13. This
action also contradicts the repeated assurances of Soviet spokesmen, both
publicly and privately delivered, that the arms buildup in Cuba would
retain its original defensive character, and that the Soviet Union had
no need or desire to station strategic missiles on the territory of any
other nation. ...
But this secret, swift and extraordinary buildup of communist missiles
-- in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship
to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere, in violation
of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy
-- the sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for first
time outside of Soviet soil -- is a deliberately provocative and unjustified
change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if
our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either
friend or foe. ...
Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire
Western Hemisphere, and under the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution
as endorsed by the resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the
following initial steps be taken immediately:
First: To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive
military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships
of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation and port will, if found
to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine
will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We
are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the
Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.
Second: I have directed the continued and increased close surveillance
of Cuba and its military buildup. The foreign ministers of the OAS,
in their communique of October 6, rejected secrecy on such matters in
this hemisphere. Should these offensive military preparations continue,
thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified.
I have directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and
I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians
at the sites, the hazards to all concerned of continuing the threat will
be recognized.
Third: It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an
attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon
the Soviet Union.
Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base
at Guantanamo, evacuated today the dependents of our personnel there,
and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alert status.
Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ
of Consultation under the Organization of American States, to consider
this threat to hemispheric security and to invoke articles 6 and 8 of
the Rio Treaty in support of all necessary action. The United Nations
Charter allows for regional security arrangements -- and the nations of
this hemisphere decided long ago against the military presence of outside
powers. Our other allies around the world have also been alerted.
Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight
that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked without
delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace.
Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of
all offensive weapons in Cuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers,
before the quarantine can be lifted.
Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate
this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and
to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to
abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort
to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He
has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction
-- by returning to his government's own words that it had no need to station
missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from
Cuba -- by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present
crisis -- and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent
solutions. ...
My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months in which both our patience and our will will be tested -- months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing. ...
Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right --
not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here
in this hemisphere, and we hope, around the world. God willing, that
goal will be achieved.
Thank you and good night.