US Presidency
1961

The legitimate trappings of self determination are employed. But once in power, all talk of discontent is repressed, all self determination disappears, and the promise of a revolution of hope is betrayed, as in Cuba, into a reign of terror. Those who on instruction staged automatic riots in the streets of free nations over the efforts of a small group of young Cubans to regain their freedom should recall the long roll call of refugees who can not now go back to Hungary, to North Korea, to North Viet-Nam, to East Germany, or to Poland, or to any of the other lands from which a steady stream of refugees pours forth, in eloquent testimony to the cruel oppression now holding sway in their homeland. We dare not fail to see the insidious nature of this new and deeper struggle. We dare not fail to grasp the new concepts, the new tools, the new sense of urgency we will need to combat it -whether in Cuba or South Viet-Nam.