Address to American Society of Newspaper Editors, 20 April 1961

This file contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors held at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. In his speech President Kenne...

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The President of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours, owe a common obligation to the people: an obligation to present the facts, to present them with candor, and to present them in perspective. It is with that obligation in mind that I have decided in the last 4 hours to discuss briefly at this time the recent events in Cuba. On that unhappy island, as in so many other arenas of the contest for freedom, the news has grown worse instead of better. I have emphasized before that this was a struggle of Cuban patriots against a Cuban dictator. While we could not be expected to hide our