At 8:45 AM on October 16, 1962, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy alerted President Kennedy that a major international crisis was at hand. Two days earlier, a United States military surveillance aircraft had taken hundreds of aerial photographs of Cuba, which showed conclusive evidence that a Soviet missile base was under construction near San Cristobal, Cuba.
Discussions began on how to respond to the challenge. Two principal courses were offered: an air strike and invasion, or a naval quarantine with the threat of further military action. To avoid arousing public concern, President Kennedy maintained his official schedule, meeting periodically with advisors to discuss the status of events in Cuba and possible strategies.
Letter from Fidel Castro to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 11/06/1940
Item from Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State. (03/05/1923 - 01/1961)
This letter from tweleve year-old Fidel Castro congratulates President Roosevelt on his re-election and asks the president to send him a ten dollar bill. Presidents receive hundreds of thousands of letters every year from children and adults sharing their concerns and well-wishes with him.
Transcription (Courtesy of the US National Archives Facebook page):
Santiago de Cuba, November 6th 1940
Mr. Franklin Roosevelt President of the United States:
My good friend Roosevelt:
I don’t know very English, but I know as much as write to you. I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, because I heard in it, that you will be President for a new (periodo). I am twelve years old. I am a boy but I think very much, but I do not think that I am writing to the President of the United States. If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them.
My address is:
Sr. Fidel Castro Colegio de Dolores Santiago de Cuba Oriente Cuba
I don’t know very English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you don’t know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American but I am not American.
i spent the entirety of this morning doing history, i’m currently on castro’s social policies and boy did this man suck. he shoved everyone he didn’t agree with into labour camps to be treated like war prisoners. honestly horrible
history! i take history sl and i worked on castro’s social policies,and honestly he really did have the right mindset towards society. i mean aiming for free healthcare and education made quite an impact on the cuban population.
i also went ahead in chemistry doing the arrhenius equation and constant, i’m almost done with the hl content and i can revise for the test on thursday
New Arrivals: First Edition of Expedicion y Desembarco del “Granma” [title from cover: “Album Expedicionarios Granma”] (ca.1959).
Memorial souvenir documenting the 81 original insurgents who took part in the voyage from Tuxpan, Mexico, to the east coast of Cuba in November, 1956 – the official launching of the Cuban Revolution. Includes a photographic portrait of each of the participants, including very youthful portraits of Fidel and Raul Castro, Ernesto “Che” Guevarra, Camilo Cienfuegos, and others. Publication date uncertain, but certainly after October, 1959, as Camilo Cienfuegos is listed among the “martyrs” of the revolution. Fidel Castro is credited on title page for “leadership and direction” of the publication.
“We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the triumph of the revolution. Women hold up the other half of the sky”
—
Thomas Sankara (Marxist revolutionary, Pan-Africanist theorist and President of Burkina Faso from 1983-87)
