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__**//Cuban Missile Crisis//**__ Speech By John. F. Kennedy, President of the United States as of 1962.
 * //Excerpt from "Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba, October 22, 1962"//**
 * Originally published in //Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962,// published in 1963**

//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...//

//... 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 the Americas.…// //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.…// //Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic ** missiles ** are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their **deployment** may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace...// //... 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 or 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.… 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**.…// //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 by the Soviet Union 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 basis.// //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.…// //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 super-vision 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 ** out-side 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.…// //We have no wish to war with the Soviet Union—for we are a peaceful people who desire to live in peace with all other peoples.// //But it is difficult to settle or even discuss these problems in an atmosphere of **intimidation.** That is why this latest Soviet threat—or any other threat which is made either independently or in response to our actions this week—must and will be met with determination. Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the// //safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed—including in particular the brave people of West Berlin—will be met by whatever action is needed.…//

//... The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are—but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high—but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or **submission...**//