UN General Assembly
1962

55. I ask you, so that you may answer in all sincerity to your own consciences: what would have happened if we had not strengthened our military defences when a division armed and trained by the United States Government invaded our country at Playa Girón? Our revolution would not, of course have been defeated nor the tide of our history turnedbaok; but no doubt the struggle would have been long and bloody, and many more lives and more, wealth than our country actually lost would have been destroyed. We wiped out this invasion, this unjustified act of aggression and arrogance towards our country, in seventy-two hours, because we had exercised in time the right to strengthen our defensive military capability in order to safeguard our sovereignty, our independence and our revolution.