Feb. 15, 1963 - Congressman Gerald R. Ford (pictured third from right), chairman of the House GOP caucus, said today the U.S. should re-impose its quarantine of Cuba and resume low-level aerial surveillance of the island. Unless Russia stops using Cuba as a base for subversion, the Michigan congressman declared, the “probability” is the U.S. will have to invade the Red-controlled nation. He said the Soviets, with 17,000 “crack” military personnel in Cuba, “have the same hardware they would use if they were going to overrun Europe.” Ford accused the Kennedy administration of having “lulled the American people into a sense of complacency” prior to the quarantine imposed last October. He said it was Republican criticism that “maximized” our surveillance of Cuba at that time.
