State Historical Society of Iowa
Courtesy of AP Archives, "JFK on the Cuban Missile Crisis," October 22, 1962
The source is an audio recording of President John F. Kennedy's radio and television address to the nation regarding the former Soviet Union's military presence in Cuba. In his speech President Kennedy reported on the establishment of offensive missile sites in Cuba, presumably intended to launch a nuclear offensive against Western nations. A year prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis the United States had placed missiles in Turkey capable of reaching a number of strategic locations in the Soviet Union. Following the Cuban missile crisis these missiles were removed. The President characterized the transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base as an explicit threat to American security, and explains seven components to his proposed course of action: quarantine all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba, increase the degree of surveillance, regard a possible attack launched from Cuba as a Soviet attack, reinforce the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, call for a meeting of the Organ of Consultation, call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, and demand that Premier Nikita Khrushchev cease his current course of action. In his speech the President famously states, "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.
Transcript coming soon.Kennedy, John F. "JFK on the Cuban Missile Crisis," October 22, 1962. Courtesy of AP Archives Courtesy of Library of Congress
