Cuban Missile Crisis colonies and European affairs but holding that the Western Hemisphere was in the US sphere of influence. The Kennedy administration had been publicly embarrassed by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in May 1961, which had been launched under President John F. Kennedy by CIA-trained forces of Cuban exiles. Afterward, former President Dwight Eisenhower told Kennedy that "the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do." The half-hearted invasion left Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his advisers with the impression that Kennedy was indecisive and, as one Soviet adviser
Cuban Missile Crisis from Italy and Turkey, in exchange for the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba. Turkish officials replied that they would "deeply resent" any trade involving the US missile presence in their country. Two days later, on the morning of October 25, American journalist Walter Lippmann proposed the same thing in his syndicated column. Castro reaffirmed Cuba's right to self-defense and said that all of its weapons were defensive and Cuba would not allow an inspection. Three days after Kennedy's speech, the Chinese "People's Daily" announced that "650,000,000 Chinese men and women were standing by the Cuban people." In West Germany, newspapers supported