Monday, 17 October 2022 — The National Security Archive

Documents Chart Critical Contribution of U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Missile Crisis Management and Resolution

Stevenson’s Diplomatic Admonition: “Blackmail and Intimidation Never; Negotiation and Sanity Always”

Washington D.C., October 17, 2022 – In a secret “eyes only” memorandum for John F. Kennedy, written 60 years ago today at the outset of the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson admonished the president to abandon his initial plan to attack Cuba and to consider, instead, the diplomatic option of dismantling U.S. missile bases in Europe in return for the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Air strikes against Cuba would “have such incalculable consequences,” he argued, “that I feel you should have made it clear [to your advisors] that the existence of nuclear missile bases anywhere is negotiable before we start anything.”

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