“Any unilateral American intervention, in the absence of an external attack upon ourselves or an ally, would have been contrary to our traditions and to our international obligations.”
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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“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“The idea that Britain loses every battle except the last has proved correct so many times in the past that the average Englishman is unwilling to make great personal sacrifices until the danger is overwhelmingly apparent.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.”
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“The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“There is no little enemy.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“As human beings, we are endowed with this freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Disputed“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source