JFK ASKS SECRETARY RIBICOFF TO DIRECT CUBAN REFUGEE ACTIVITY
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On January 27, 1961, President John F. Kennedy wrote a letter to Abraham Ribicoff*, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, asking him to...
"effective February 1, (direct) the Cuban refugee** activities now being conducted by the Executive Branch...and to make an on-the-scene investigation of the problem within the next week as my personal representative."
The President wrote that he wanted the Secretary...
"to make concrete my concern and sympathy for those who have been forced from their homes in Cuba, and to assure them that we shall seek to expedite their voluntary return as soon as conditions there facilitate that."
*Abraham Alexander Ribicoff (1910-1998) was born in New Britain, Connecticut to Jewish immigrants from Poland. AAR graduated from the University of Chicago Law School (1933) & served as a member of U.S. Congress (1949-1953), Governor of Connecticut (1955-1961), Secretary of H.E.W. (1961-1962), U.S. Senate (1963-1981).
**Cuban refugees (a.k.a. exiles) included 200,000 people who fled Fidel Castro's revolution of 1959. President Eisenhower set up the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center to offer public services to the exiles. Today, more than a third of the population of Miami/Dade County, Florida is Cuban.
SOURCE
"Letter to Secretary Ribicoff Requesting Him To Undertake Direction of Cuban Refugee Activities," January 27, 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, January 20 to December 31, 1961, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1962.
Abraham Ribicoff
United States Congress
