“The President of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours, owe a common obligation to the people: an obligation to present the facts, to present them with candor, and to present them in perspective.”
John F. Kennedy
Address Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors (Primary source)
This speech was delivered in the immediate aftermath of the failed CIA-backed invasion of Cuba by a force of Cuban exiles. Rather than acknowledging U.S. responsibility, Kennedy framed the operation publicly as a struggle by Cuban patriots against Fidel Castro’s communist regime, stressing that American armed forces had not intervened.
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