JFK Library Foundation
banner
jfklibraryfdn.bsky.social
JFK Library Foundation
@jfklibraryfdn.bsky.social
Dedicated to the legacy of our nation's 35th president. We are the non-profit partner and creative collaborator of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.
Award-winning author Alex George delivers the keynote address.

This program is co-presented with The International Hemingway Foundation and Society.

Due to the government shutdown, this event will take place at the Campus Center at UMass Boston.

More on this event: jfklibrary.org/2025PENHemingway
49th Annual PEN/Hemingway Award Celebration
Seán Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s grandson, honors 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel finalists and winner Michael Deagler, author of Early Sobrieties, at this celebration. Award-winning author...
jfklibrary.org
October 29, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara later said of the night of the 27th: “I remember leaving the White House at the end of that Saturday. It was a beautiful fall day. And thinking that might well be the last sunset I saw.”
October 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
JFK and ExComm replied to Khruschev that night, and RFK met with the Soviet ambassador to the US to backchannel about Kennedy’s new proposal - the US would remove the Turkish missiles but it had to be kept secret.
October 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Fidel Castro wrote to Nikita Khrushchev to bomb the United States before the US could bomb Cuba.
October 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
(The US also didn’t know these submarines had nuclear weapons on board until 2002.)
October 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
US ships in the Atlantic dropped depth charges to get Soviet submarines to surface. The submarines were armed with nuclear torpedoes, and a captain on board wanted to launch the torpedoes.
October 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
(Strategic nuclear weapons could be launched to destroy an entire city, and tactical nuclear weapons could be used at closer range.)
October 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Kennedy and his advisors didn’t know it at the time, but the Soviets had not only strategic nuclear weapons in Cuba, but tactical nuclear weapons as well.
October 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM