You [President Kennedy] have made some pretty strong statements about their being defensive and that we would take action against offensive weapons. I think that a blockade and political talk would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this [the Cuban missile crisis]. And I'm sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way too. In other words, you're in a pretty bad fix at the present time.
The Republican critique here is that Russia is in a weak situation, but has been emboldened by a weak response from the United States, that in Ukraine, that in other places, the United States has not stepped forward.
America has always accomplished far more acting as courageous frontiersmen than weak reactionaries.
We aren't leveraging this great economic engine, the strongest economy in the world. And yet we have this totally weak response. We import $500 billion a year more in products than we export.
Our fumbling government's response since Beirut - during both Republican and Democratic administrations - has been to cut and run, or to flat ignore this growing threat, apparently hoping it would go away.
I have also been saddened, though hardly surprised, by the weakness of the EU's reaction to the criminal attack on the Danish embassy in Syria, which seems to have been permitted, if not actively encouraged, by the Syrian regime.
Up to now we have faced external problems in an isolated fashion. One of these problems is precisely the drug trade and what has been the result? A very weak and fragile position.
