On October 23rd 1962 Fidel Castro spoke on Cuban radio and television. He responded to John F. Kennedy’s public address the previous day, in which the United States president announced a “quarantine” or naval blockade of Cuba:
“As you know, the United States has established a naval blockade of the Cuban archipelago, using as a pretext the arms acquired by Cuba for the exclusive purpose of assuring its defence against US aggressions. Cuba has replied to this aggressive action by issuing the order of battle alert which places our people in arms on a war footing in a few hours.
Today the Soviet Union replied to Kennedy’s speech with a measured and firm statement firmly rejecting the assertions of the President of the United States and denouncing the danger of war created by US aggression.
All these events are the culmination of a policy pursued by the United States… the imperialists, the warmongers, and the most reactionary circles of the United States, against our country, ever since the victory of the revolution. All these measures do not surprise us. Measures of this type, and others which we have had to endure, are things which were logically to be expected from a type of government which is as reactionary and as lacking in respect of other peoples and other nations as the US Government…
The people were informed of the declaration of Mr. Kennedy made yesterday. During the day we had been receiving a series of reports about peculiar meetings, about peculiar things which were going on in Washington in connection with meetings with an officer from the Pentagon, meetings with political leaders of both parties, and meetings of the Security Council, plane movements, ship movements. And from all these reports we realised that it had something to do with us. We knew because of everything they had been doing before, of the policy pursued since the revolution, the warmongering campaign, hysteria, the joint resolution [of Congress] and all those things…
[Referring to Kennedy’s October 22nd address] After trying to justify it in a preamble in which the reasons he invoked are all reasons that have absolutely no foundation, he says that the armaments received by Cuba constitute a threat to the peace and the security of all of the Americas in a flagrant and reproachful defiance of the 1947 Rio de Janeiro Pact – an act that might have validity for those who continue in the fold of imperialism, but not for us…
He speaks of the UN Charter. Precisely at the moment they are about to violate the UN Charter, they invoke the UN Charter against us. We have not violated in the least any of the UN Charter articles – not in the least. There is nothing that can be charged against us, nor can anyone say that we have violated any of its articles.
He says: “My own public warnings to thMroviet on September 4th and 13th” – what do we care about Mr. Kennedy’s own personal warnings? They can matter only to him and his own people, but they do not concern us in the least…
Anyone reading this speech gets a strange idea that this man is not informed, or these people have lost their last shred of shame, or in reality there is only one thing: this is for consumption, for the consumption of a public to whom they have told all those things; a public intoxicated by lies, calumny, and all those campaigns. Of course, to our people all these things really seem very ridiculous, and what Mr. Kennedy is really doing is being ridiculous…
This is in synthesis the statement of Mr. Kennedy. To me and to our people, this is not the statement of a statesman but of a pirate. There is the following fact: That the measure he takes as a result of all that is a completely inconcealable violation of international law. No state can do that. No state can stop the ships of another state on the high sea. No state can blockade any other state… That is against every international law, and it is also against the ethics of international relations, against the most basic right of the peoples…
Up until now none of our weapons has been of the offensive type. Why? Because we have never harboured any aggressive intentions against anyone. Never have we pursued an offensive policy against the rights of any nation or of any country. We shall never change this policy. We shall never be aggressors. We shall never be the aggressors. That is why our weapons will never be of the offensive type.
We can clearly state that all countries can rest assured, every country in Latin America, every country of America – the United States – because we shall never be the aggressors. Never shall we start the offensive.”