Cecil Stoughton, White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In October of 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech to the American public announcing that the Soviet Union was placing missiles in Cuba that could be fired at the U.S. and that he would send a naval blockade to the island nation in response. Kennedy details the situation and the seven steps he initiated to respond to it. The response was sweeping and severe, as on top of the blockade the U.S. would also be calling a meeting of the UN and the Organization of American states to strategize and halt the Soviet aggression. Kennedy ended his address with a direct request to Chairman Khrushchev of the USSR asking him to end the aggression and stabilize relations.
This speech marks point of the peak of conflict between the U.S. and Russia as well as the U.S. and Cuba. Kennedy’s speech chastises Cuba and Russia, claiming that the U.S. has been patient and peaceful thus far. But this crisis comes after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and only months after the U.S. approved a second phase of Operation Mongoose. With this important context, Kennedy’s speech that paints the U.S. as the victim of unwarranted aggression is not entirely accurate and ignores the complexity of the situation.
“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 one thousand 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 the Americas. . . .
Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere.”
Kennedy, John F. “Offensive Missiles on That Imprisoned Island.” In The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Aviva Chomsky, Barry Carr, Alfredo Prieto, and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff, 480–82. Duke University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smxrz.103.