Dec. 5, 1962 - President Kennedy publicly expressed today his “fullest confidence” in Adlai E. Stevenson, U.S. representative at the U.N. In a letter to Mr. Stevenson, Mr. Kennedy voice deep regret over the “unfortunate stir” caused by an article in The Saturday Evening Post which intimated that Mr. Stevenson had taken a softer line than other officials on the Soviet missile threat in Cuba and had “dissented” from the decision to impose a naval blockade on Cuba. The article stated that Mr. Stevenson had advocated “political negotiation” rather than “military action.” The President said nothing in his letter about any inaccuracies in the article, about which Mr. Stevenson bitterly complained last Monday and again today, when he appeared in New York on the NBC program “Today.” Pierre Salinger, White House press secretary, said the letter was sent to Mr. Stevenson last night. It was made public by the White House after word of it had circulated at the U.N. The authors of the controversial article were Stewart Alsop, Washington editor of The Saturday Evening Post, and Charles Bartlett of The Chattanooga Times, an old and close friend of the President.
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