For Additional Information on This Speech and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Please See the Following Book: the Papers of Adlai E
For additional information on this speech and the Cuban Missile Crisis, please see the following book: The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Ambassador to the United National, 1961- 1965, Volume 8; Walter Johnson, Carol Evans, and C. Eric Sears, editors. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1979). Adlai Stevenson II (representing the United States of America to the United Nations) addressed the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, October 25, 1962. In his address, he refute statements made by Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Ambassador Valerian Zorin, and the ambassador from Cuba, that charged that it was the United States that was threatening the peace between Cuba, the U.S., and the Soviet Union. In his speech, Stevenson presented his case with irrefutable evidence: Ambassador Stevenson: I want to say to you, Mr. Zorin, that I do not have your talent for obfuscation, for distortion, for confusing language and for double-talk—and I must confess to you that I am glad I do not. But, if I understood what you said, you said that my position had changed: that today I was defensive because we do not have the evidence to prove our assertions that your Government had installed long-range missiles in Cuba. Well, let me say something to you, Mr. Ambassador: We do have the evidence. We have it, and it is clear and incontrovertible. And let me say something else: Those weapons must be taken out of Cuba. Next, let me say to you that, if I understood you, you said—with a trespass on credulity that excels your best—that our position had changed since I spoke here the other day because of the pressures of world opinion and a majority of the United Nations.
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