Adlai Ewing Stevenson

Adlai Ewing Stevenson

1900–1965 ○ Heart attack

The two-time presidential nominee who confronted Khrushchev's missiles at the UN Security Council

"Don't wait for the translation, yes or no? … I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over."

Adlai Stevenson was the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956, losing both times to Dwight Eisenhower, yet he endured as the intellectual conscience of Cold War American liberalism. As governor of Illinois he vetoed a McCarthy-era loyalty oath bill, and as Kennedy's UN ambassador he absorbed the diplomatic fallout of the Bay of Pigs. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, he confronted Soviet ambassador Valerian Zorin at the Security Council, uttering 'I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over,' and presented aerial photographs proving the missiles were there; inside EXCOMM he proposed trading the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey, a swap the hawks savaged but which became the hidden terms of the settlement. He served as UN ambassador until his death, holding to his conviction that the Cold War must be managed through negotiation, not ultimatums.