The Foreign Service Journal, February 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 2013 31 D uring the late afternoon of Oct. 22, 1962, diplomats at United Nations headquarters in Manhattan were busy with the usual fall business of the General Assembly. As a For- eign Service officer assigned temporarily to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, I had been focusing on the stalled nuclear test ban negotiations in Geneva. Like other members of U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson’s del- egation, I had been asked to join him in his office that evening to hear President John F. Kennedy’s speech to the nation. None of us knew what the president was going to say. And as we listened, the room grew quiet except for the sound of Kennedy’s voice from the television—and not just out of respect for the president. What he announced was shocking. The Soviet government had deployed missiles and bombers in Cuba capable of carrying nuclear warheads to targets in the United States and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. The president declared: “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retalia- tory response upon the Soviet Union.” After the speech, Stevenson spoke in sobering terms about the dire situation and invited questions. I asked himwhether the Sovi- ets already had nuclear warheads in Cuba. The ambassador said he did not know the answer to that question. In fact, no American ADLAI STEVENSON: DREAMER OF THINGS THAT NEVERWERE The New START Treaty was an encouraging step, but we still need to implement the nuclear test ban first proposed half a century ago. BY JAMES E . GOODBY