Video: 'President John F. Kennedy's 45th News Conference - November 20, 1962'

(Tuesday, November 20, 1962, 6:00 EST; during the Cuban missile crisis, part of the Cold War) — U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced tonight that he had instructed the Defense Department to lift the naval quarantine around the island of Cuba because he had been informed during the day by Premier Nikita Khrushchev that all Soviet Il-28 bombers in Cuba would be withdrawn within 30 days.

Within minutes of Kennedy’s announcement, the Defense Department said that Secretary Robert S. McNamara had issued orders to the Navy to end the quarantine “forthwith,” which officially went into effect at 6:45 p.m. EST.

The quarantine, which began Oct. 24, 1962, was designed to cut off a further Soviet build-up in what the United States had termed the offensive military potential of Cuban Premier Fidel Castro’s regime.

The Soviet promise to withdraw 30 or so obsolescent IL-28 jet bombers from Cuba came to President Kennedy in the form of a message from Khrushchev this afternoon.