Oct. 27, 1962 - Pickets and counter-pickets paraded before the White House today urging President Kennedy to get tougher with Cuba and, conversely, to keep the peace at any price. Both sides seemed agreed at midday that an exchange of U.S. bases in Turkey for Soviet bases in Cuba, as Premier Khrushchev had proposed, probably was as good a solution as any they could think of. The President’s reply in mid-afternoon, rejecting the plan until the Soviet Union halts the building of the bases in Cuba, restored the partisan battle lines. The demonstration was called initially by the Student Peace Union, a pacifist organization. A counterdemonstration was then organized by the Young Americans for Freedom, a right-wing group. Next, a group of Cuban students and refugees, aligned for the moment with the Young Americans for Freedom, set up a picket line of their own. Finally, five khaki-clad young marchers with swastika armbands indicating their membership in the American Nazi Party took over the remaining picketing space on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.
