s had stopped. Khrushchev also recognized that the missile placed on the island were of offensive nature. Although the Soviet premier declared that a UN agency could verify his promise, such a UN inspection never took place. The US government, following its U-2 flight inspections, lifted the quarantine on November 20
             With this knowledge, President Kennedy decided that he needed to take decisive action. Kennedy declared these actions "an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas, in flagrant and deliberant defiance of the Rio Pact of 1947." He made it a point to not just single out the United States as a target, and to make it seem as if he were doing this for the good of the entire Western Hemisphere. The President went on to say, "neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substa
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