“I remember President Kennedy once stated… that the United States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union had enough atomic weapons to wipe out the United States only once… When journalists asked me to comment… I said jokingly, "Yes, I know what Kennedy claims, and he's quite right. But I'm not complaining… We're satisfied to be able to finish off the United States first time round. Once is quite enough. What good does it do to annihilate a country twice? We're not a bloodthirsty people."”

—  Nikita Khrushchev

As quoted in Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (1974)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Nikita Khrushchev 22
First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1894–1971

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