Thursday, August 14, 1958

August 14, 1958

JFK delivered a speech in the United States Senate warning the United States (inaccurately) about a growing and dangerous missile gap with the Soviet Union.

“Their missile power will be the shield from behind which they will slowly but surely advance–through Sputnik diplomacy, limited ‘brushfire’ wars, indirect, nonovert aggression, intimidation, and subversion … and the vicious blackmail of our allies.”

Soviet-era intercontinental ballistic missile (photo courtesy wikimedia commons)

Kennedy finished his speech with a somewhat overly dramatic call to action,

“Come then–let us to the task, to the battle and to the toil–each to our own part, each to our own station.”

[1, 235]