Editing Adlai Stevenson II (section)

===Cuban Missile Crisis===

During the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] in October 1962, Stevenson gave a presentation at an emergency session of the [[United Nations Security Council|Security Council]].<ref>(McKeever, pp. 526–528)</ref> In his presentation, which attracted national television coverage, he forcefully asked Soviet UN representative [[Valerian Zorin]] if his country was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, and when Zorin appeared reluctant to reply, Stevenson punctuated with the demand "Don't wait for the translation, [answer] 'yes' or 'no'!"<ref name="McKeever, p. 527">(McKeever, p. 527)</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Cuban Missile Crisis |website = [[YouTube]]| date=April 10, 2009 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSV9_J8Csts | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211103/MSV9_J8Csts| archive-date=2021-11-03 | url-status=live|access-date=November 2, 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref> When Zorin replied that "I am not in an American court of law, and therefore do not answer a question put to me in the manner of a prosecuting counsel...you will have your answer in due course", Stevenson retorted, "I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over."<ref name="McKeever, p. 527"/> Stevenson then showed photographs taken by a [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] spy plane which proved the existence of nuclear missiles in Cuba, just after Zorin had implied they did not exist.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 527–528)</ref>

Stevenson also attended several meetings of the [[EXCOMM]] at the White House during the Missile Crisis, where he boldly proposed to make an exchange with the Soviets: if they would remove their missiles from Cuba, the United States would agree to remove its obsolete Jupiter missiles from [[Turkey]]. However, he faced strong opposition from some other EXCOMM members, who regarded such an exchange as a sign of weakness. According to Kennedy adviser and Stevenson friend [[George W. Ball]], who was present, these members "intemperately upbraided Stevenson...[and were] outraged and shrill".<ref>(McKeever, p. 520)</ref> However, President Kennedy remarked "You have to admire Adlai, he sticks to his position even when everyone is jumping on him", and Robert Kennedy wrote that "Stevenson has since been criticized for the position he took at the meeting...although I disagreed strongly with his recommendations, I thought he was courageous to make them, and I might add that they made as much sense as some others considered during that period of time."<ref>(McKeever, p. 521)</ref> Stevenson remarked "I know that most of those fellows will consider me a coward for the rest of my life for what I said today, but perhaps we need a coward in the room when we are talking about nuclear war."<ref>(Baker, p. 420)</ref> In fact, the Kennedy Administration did remove the Jupiter-class MRBMs from Italy and Turkey some six months after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended, and there is evidence that President Kennedy privately agreed that, if the Soviets would remove their missiles from Cuba, he would remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey and Italy at a later date.<ref>(Johnson, Dominic D. P. Failing to Win p. 105)</ref> The deal was kept a secret for many years, however, and Stevenson was thus given no credit for his original suggestion.<ref>(McKeever, p. 535)</ref>

In December 1962 journalists [[Stewart Alsop]] and [[Charles L. Bartlett (journalist)|Charles Bartlett]] published an article about the Missile Crisis in the ''[[Saturday Evening Post]].'' The article quoted a "non-admiring official" who claimed that Stevenson "Wanted a [[Munich Agreement|Munich]]. He wanted to trade U.S. bases for Cuban bases" and generally portrayed Stevenson's behavior and actions during the Missile Crisis as weak and inept.<ref name="Aldous, p. 300">(Aldous, p. 300)</ref> Stevenson was deeply angered by the article, especially as it was widely believed that the "non-admiring" official who criticized Stevenson was President Kennedy himself – "Kennedy had fed the Stevenson story to Alsop and Bartlett, partly because it enabled him to look strong" in comparison to Stevenson.<ref name="Aldous, p. 300"/> However, a number of Stevenson's friends and supporters, such as historian and White House aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr., came to Stevenson's defense. Schlesinger told Kennedy "The suggestion in the Alsop-Bartlett story that Stevenson favored a Caribbean Munich is grossly unfair and shows the number of people who still have their knives out for him."<ref>(Aldous, p. 301)</ref> Stevenson, knowing that Bartlett was a close friend of President Kennedy, assumed that the article had been written with Kennedy's permission and let the president know through friends that if Kennedy had wanted him to resign, "he did not have to go about it in such a roundabout fashion."<ref>(McKeever, p. 532)</ref> Kennedy told Stevenson that he did not want him to resign and had his Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, release a letter to the press praising Stevenson's performance during the Missile Crisis.<ref>(McKeever, p. 534)</ref> Although the letter did "cause the public furor to die down... for months Washington continued to buzz over what everyone saw as an effort to force Adlai's resignation", and Stevenson friend George Ball later said that the "injury inflicted by the magazine article lingered on and on... After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Adlai was only going through the motions. From then on, he knew he was not going to have an impact on foreign policy."<ref>(McKeever, p. 536)</ref>