Rooms
Documents
Letters
|
The Situation Room
 After the public phase of the Missile Crisis began, the two world leaders handled negotiations via letter. Telecommunications were still in their infancy in 1962, so a large time delay existed between the time one world leader wrote a letter and the time the other received it. Generally, the letters were cabled between Washington and Moscow via Western Union or the Embassies. On October 27 and 28, when communications became urgent, Khrushchev and Kennedy bypassed the standard channels of communication and broadcast their letters over the radio.
On October 22, at 7:00 p.m. (EST) President Kennedy addressed the nation to inform the public of the crisis in Cuba. For the next seventeen minutes citizens around the world sat glued to their TV sets listening to Kennedy expose the Soviet missile bases and demanding that they be removed. Go here to find a full transcript of the speech plus video and audio clips of the President.
On Thursday, October 18 the Executive Committee met and continued to discuss what action should be taken against Cuba. Go here to read the transcript of that meeting and listen to RealAudio files dubbed from the actual EX-COMM tapes.
Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin wrote a cable to Khrushchev on Saturday, October 27 describing his meeting with Attorney General Robert Kennedy. This meeting and cable was one of the turning points of the crisis. The idea of quietly removing American missiles from Turkey was solidified in these two events.
The charter describes the function, purpose, and members of the OAS which unilaterally supported the American blockade and denounced the placement of missiles in Cuba.
|
