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FOREWORD

THESE PAGES contain the texts of my speeches, messages, press conferences and major statements of the year 1962. This accumulation of documents suggests the immense variety of problems with which a President of the United States in the 20th century must deal. It also tells the story of a year rich in challenge-and a year in which, I believe, the people of the United States can take legitimate pride.

Future historians, looking back at 1962, may well mark this year as the time when the tide of international politics began at last to flow strongly toward the world of diversity and freedom. Following the launching of Sputnik in 1957, the Soviet Union began to intensify its pressures against the non-communist world-especially in Southeast Asia, in Central Africa, in Latin America and around Berlin. The notable Soviet successes in space were taken as evidence that communism held the key to the scientific and technological future. People in many countries began to accept the notion that communism was mankind's inevitable destiny.

1962 stopped this process-and nothing was more important in deflating the notion of communist invincibility than the American response to Soviet provocations in Cuba. The combination of firmness and restraint in face of the gravest challenge to world peace since 1939 did much to reassure the rest of the world both about the strength of our national will and the prudence of our national judgment. Menacing problems remained at the end of the year: if West Berlin seemed temporarily secure and Congo on the road to national unification, conditions in Laos and Vietnam were still precarious, and the Cuban crisis was not resolved. Yet it was increasingly obvious that the momentum of the post-Sputnik offensive had been halted. At the same time, American scientists, engineers and astronauts helped recapture for the United States the lead in important aspects of the space effort. And, within the communist empire itself, the forces of diversity and pluralism were

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PUBLIC PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS

OF THE UNITED STATES

John F. Kennedy

Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and
Statements of the President

JANUARY I TO DECEMBER 31, 1962

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For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

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