Fidel Castro had just become the President of Cuba, and openly embraced Communism as a form of government, something which the United States was completely opposed to. Castro and the Cuban government had become the first Communist country in the Western Hemisphere by December 1960 (Finkelstein 26). ... Premier Nikita Khrushchev had previously told the United States government that the Soviet Union had no intention of placing missile sites in Cuba. ... Kennedy started his speech out with these few lines: This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet mi...

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• Approx Pages: 11
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