Word: castros
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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True, we have known about Castro's offensive missiles for several months, and most Republicans have been clamoring for action. But I refuse to believe that political considerations had any bearing on the fact that President Kennedy waited until two weeks before the national election...
...calling for a limited blockade, the President is in no manner harming the Castro regime or effectively eliminating its offensive capabilities. Yet once again, he is handing the Russians a huge advantage-the opportunity to take the initiative, to choose the time, place and form of a new crisis...
...attitude which reflects the way it has handled this nation's relations with Cuba for the past few years. The press failed to make the public aware of what the Russians were doing in Cuba until the President's speech. It has never carried full reports of Castro's policies on his island...
...months prior to the blockade, very few newspapers discussed anything that was going on inside Cuba, either good or bad. No one, for example, has even a rough idea of how many schools Castro has built in the last year; or alternatively of the extent of his secret police apparatus. There is nowhere one can go to find out. This lack of information about Cuba has constantly made United States policies toward that country difficult to judge; and during the past week, combined with the suddenness of information about the Soviet military build-up, it rendered public opinion utterly irrelevant...
...informed public opinion is one of the essential things that a democracy must continue to strive for. By withholding information about the Soviet build-up, about the United States reaction, and about the scope of Castro's internal policy, the press displayed a lack of confidence in its readers, and made of government policy something sacrosanct. When the press and the public failed to ask whether the Administration could have adopted different tactics toward the imposing of the blockade--or whether it might have displayed a different attitude towards the Castro regime in general--the President became, for a week...