NUCLEAR WAR IS AVERTED WITH SOVIET ANNOUNCEMENT
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On Sunday, October 28, 1962, Radio Moscow transmitted a message from Nikita Khrushchev announcing the decision to dismantle Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and return them to the USSR.
The following statement was read at 9 a.m. Washington time...
"This is Moscow speaking. In order to eliminate...the conflict which endangers the cause of peace...the Soviet government...has given a new order to dismantle the weapons (in Cuba)...and to crate and return them to the Soviet Union."
Premier Khrushchev said, later in the message, that he was assured by President John F. Kennedy's letter of Oct. 27, that the United States would not invade Cuba.
The message concluded with Mr. Khrushchev saying...
"We are confident that reason will triumph, that war will not be unleashed and peace and the security of the peoples will be insured."
President Kennedy called Khrushchev's decision to remove the missiles from Cuba "statesmanlike." JFK had learned of Khrushchev's decision as he was dressing for church. He said to Dave Powers...
"I feel like a new man now. Do you realize we had an air strike all arranged? Thank God, it's all over."
SOURCES
"Cuban Missile Crisis Paperweight," John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, www.jfklibrary.org/
"One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev & Castro On the Brink of Nuclear War," by Michael Dobbs, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2008.
Cuban Missile Crisis Calendar
Gift from JFK to JBK
www.jfklibrary.org/
