Shining City Audio, a John Meacham and C-13 original studio.

February 7, 1962, the full Cuban trade embargo is announced.

I'm John Meacham and this is Reflections of History.

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The question of Cuba had been a persistent feature of American life almost from the beginning.

An object of ambition for the slave power in the 19th century, a theater for American imperialistic designs at the turn of the 20th.

Cuba was now in the depths of the Cold War, a flashpoint.

The 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro had become ever more associated with the Communist bloc.

And now, in early 1962, the Kennedy administration moved to bloc virtually all trade with the island nation.

But not before President Kennedy famously secured a supply of upland cigars for his own use.

Dispatching his press secretary of fellow Smoker, Pierre Salinger, to buy up as many as possible from Washington Stores,

before Kennedy signed the embargo.

In announcing what the Cubans refer to still as the blockade, Kennedy said,

in light of the subversive offensive of Sino-Soviet communism with which the government of Cuba is publicly aligned.

The Congress has authorized the President to establish and maintain an embargo upon all trade between the United States and Cuba.

And the United States and accordance with its international obligations is prepared to take all necessary actions to promote national and hemispheric security by isolating the present government of Cuba and thereby reducing the threat posed by its alignment with the communist powers.

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