JFK AUTHORIZES NAVAL BLOCKADE
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) At 7 p.m. (EDT) on October 23, 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Proclamation 3504 at his desk in the Oval Office authorizing a naval quarantine of Cuba to take effect at 10 a.m. (EDT) October 24, 1962.The blockade was announced by the President the night before to more than 100 million Americans watching on national television.
JFK waited to sign the proclamation until the OAS* (Organization of American States) approved a resolution to "individually or collectively impose the quarantine of Cuba." The resolution was passed earlier in the day by a vote of 19-0.
Meanwhile, at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson made the case for a naval blockade. Stevenson called Cuba "an accomplice in the communist enterprise of world domination."
Later, the White House received a letter from Nikita Khrushchev in which he did not admit the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba or offer any concessions to the United States.
*Organization of American States, headquartered in Washington, D.C., was founded in 1948 for the purpose of regional solidarity and co-operation among the 35 independent nations of the Western Hemisphere.
SOURCE
"TWE Remembers: The OAS Endorses a Quarantine of Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day 8)," by James M. Lindsay, www.blogs.cfr.org/
JFK Signs Quarantine Proclamation
October 23, 1962
Photo by Abbie Rowe
JFK Library Image
