FIDEL: Tell companero Mikoyan that I understand very well the interest of keeping U Thant on our side, but for us, that is a critical issue. It would have a disastrous effect on our people. The North Americans say that the inspection is inferred from the letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy on the 28 (Fidel is making reference to the letter of Khrushchev on the 27 where he accepts the inspection of the Missiles Bases by officials of the UNO Security Council, but making reference to Cuba and Turkey agreeing to it). [note in original-ed.]

Just because of this phrase of Khrushchev, they cannot take this as a concession of the Soviet Union. Companero Mikoyan says to hell with imperialists if they demand more. But on the 23 we received a letter [from Khrushchev] saying, to hell with the imperialists...(he reads paragraphs from the letter). Besides, on one occasion we heard of the proposal of U Thant about the inspection in Cuba, the United States, Guatemala, etc., we understand, that concessions should be made, but we have already made too many. The [U.S.] airplanes are taking pictures because the Soviet Union asked so. We have to find a way to provide evidence without inspection. WE DO NOT THINK OF ALLOWING THE INSPECTION, BUT WE DO NOT WANT TO ENDANGER WORLD PEACE, NOR THE SOVIET FORCES THAT ARE IN CUBA. WE WOULD RATHER FREE THE SOVIET UNION OF THE COMMITMENTS IT HAS [MADE] WITH US AND RESIST WITH OUR OWN FORCES WHATEVER THE FUTURE BRINGS. WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO ENDANGER THE PEACE OF THE WORLD, BUT WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESIST AGGRESSION. [capi

tals in original-ed.]

DORTICOS: What has been expressed by companero Fidel does not require a later discussion among us, for we all agree on this criteria (the companeros respond affirmatively)

MIKOYAN (Transcribed by Dorticos)

FIDEL: From our conversation yesterday, we had concluded that the Soviet Government understood the reasons we had to reject the inspection. That was a fundamental issue. That should have been the common ground to talk about common actions. If we do not agree on this, it is difficult to talk about future plans. That is the fundamental political issue. The North Americans persist in obtaining a political victory. The issue of the inspection is to affront the Cuban Revolution. They know there are no missiles. The verification on the high seas has the same effect as in the harbors. The only difference is the humiliating imposition that the U.S. Government wants to carry out for political reasons.

MIKOYAN: (transcribed by Dorticos)

[Source: Institute of History, Cuba, obtained and provided by Philip Brenner (American University); translation from Spanish by Carlos Osorio (National Security Archive).]

EDITOR'S NOTES

1 See Vladislav M. Zubok, "Dismayed by the Actions of the Soviet Union': Mikoyan's talks with Fidel Castro and the Cuban leadership, November 1962," CWIHP Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995), 59, 89-92, and "Mikoyan's Mission to Havana: Cuban-Soviet Negotiations, November 1962," ibid., 93-109, 159; for the November 4 conversation, see 94-101, and for the November 5 (afternoon) conversation, see 101-4.

2 Cuban officials took part in several oral history

conferences on the Cuban Missile Crisis which also involved former U.S. and Soviet policymakers, including a conference in Moscow in January 1989 and a gathering in Havana exactly three years later in which Fidel Castro played an active role. The principal organizer of the conferences was James G. Blight, Thomas J. Watson Institute of International Studies, Brown University. For more on Cuban participation in such gatherings, see James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn,

and David A. Welch, Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (New York: Pantheon, 1993), passim. Blight and the Watson Institute, in cooperation with the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute and declassified documents repository based at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., are also involved in organizing oral history conferences on the Bay of Pigs events of 1961, as well as efforts to obtain Cuban sources on such events as the U.S.-Cuban negotiations on normalization of 1975 and Cuban interventions in Africa in the 1970s.

3

The reference to the West German role in revealing the existence of the missiles to the U.S. administration is obscure, as no such link is present in most historical accounts of the American discovery. Soviet officials may have been inferring a West German role from the presence in Washington on October 16-17 of the Federal Republic of Germany's foreign minister, Dr. Gerhard Schroeder, for meetings with senior American officials, though there is no indication that he brought any intelligence data concerning Soviet missiles in Cuba. See, e.g., Dino A. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Random House, rev. ed. [1992?]), 206, 252. 4 A reference to U.S. Marine exercises, codenamed PHIBRIGLEX-62, scheduled to begin on 15 October 1962, practicing amphibious landings of 7,500 Marines on the Caribbean island of Viecques to overthrow a mythical dictator known as "Ortsac"-a fact which was leaked to the press in an obvious psychological warfare tactic. The exercises themselves were also planned to mask preparations for a possible U.S. Navy blockade of Cuba. See citations in James G. Hershberg, "Before The Missiles of October': Did Kennedy Plan a Military Strike Against Cuba?" in James A. Nathan, ed., The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 254-5, 2756 (fns 87, 88).

BOBBY AND THE CRISIS

continued from page 274

shine through clearly, obviously also representing that of his brother. "The President felt himself deceived, and deceived intentionally," Dobrynin quoted Robert Kennedy as saying, noting that he had arrived at the Russian Embassy in "in an obviously excited condition" (although he later "cooled down a bit and spoke in calmer tones"). In general, while Dobrynin resolutely defended Moscow against Robert Kennedy's accusations, the lengthy account of the meeting that he transmitted to the Foreign Ministry must certainly have alerted the Kremlin leadership to just how personally affronted the Kennedy brothers were, and to their apparent determination to confront Soviet ships heading for the blockade line around Cuba.4

Quite aside from the substance of the meeting, in terms of subsequent developments it is worth noting Dobrynin's own astute bureaucratic reflex in promoting his own stature in the negotiations-forging this new direct path to the president via his brother (side-stepping normal State Department

JFK LIBRARY RELEASES REMAINING TAPES FROM CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston announced in October 1996 that it had completed the declassification of, and was releasing, the remaining tapes of the White House "Excomm" (Executive Committee) discussions that took place in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room during the Cuban Missile Crisis between 18 and 29 October 1962. While extracts of ExComm discussions on the first and last days of the crisis (16 and 27 October 1962) had been de

classified and released in the mid-late 1980s, the bulk of the tapes had remained inaccessible until now, although some limited releases of other tape-recorded Excomm materials related to the crisis took place in 1994.

The newly-released tapes total 15 hours and 19 minutes (27 minutes remained classified), making it the larg

channels), the Soviet envoy concluded by recommending that he could meet again with Robert Kennedy to pass "in confidential form N.S. Khrushchev's thoughts on this matter, concerning not only the issues which R. Kennedy had touched on, but a wider circle of issues in light of the events which are going on now." Dobrynin may have sensed an opening in the fact that the previous Soviet Embassy official who had served as Khrushchev's back-channel to Robert Kennedy and thence his brother, Georgi Bolshakov (ostensibly a press attache, presumably an intelligence officer), was evidently in acute disfavor in the White House for having been used to deliver a personal assurance from the Soviet leader that only defensive weapons were being shipped to Cuba. (And, in fact, Dobrynin would report shortly after the crisis that a Joseph Alsop column in the Washington Post exposing Bolshakov's role in dePost exposing Bolshakov's role in deceiving the president must have been instigated by Robert Kennedy, for it contained details known "only" by him: "For this reason it is clearly obvious that the article was prepared with the knowledge of, or even by orders from, Robert Kennedy, who is a close friend, as is

est single release of tape-recorded materials from the Kennedy Administration. In most cases, the Library released only tapes rather than transcripts of the discussions; however, a project is underway at Harvard University to produce transcripts of the tape recordings, after sound enhancement, leading to the publication of a collection (entitled The Kennedy Tapes), to be co-edited by Profs. Ernest R. May and Philip Zelikow.

In addition, the Library simultaneously announced the release of 20,000 declassified pages of Cuba-related documents from the National Se

curity Files of the Kennedy Adminis

tration. For further information of all

the above materials, contact Stephanie Fawcett, Kennedy Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125; (617) 9294500 (tel.); (617) 929-4538 (fax); stfawcet@kennedy.nara.gov (e-mail).

the President, of Alsop."5)

Before stepping more deeply into Bolshakov's shoes with his October 27 meeting with Robert Kennedy, Dobrynin hinted at his view of the president's brother in a cable of October 25 lumping him, along with Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, and "military men" as taking the "most militant line" in discussions at the White House in favor of attacking Cuba, not only destroying the Soviet missile. sites but also invading the island. (Supposedly taking a more moderate line, the envoy reported, were Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Treasury Secretary Douglas C. Dillon.) While Robert Kennedy at the very outset of the crisis had made some belligerent statements (even floating the idea of staging a provocation at Guantanamo to justify U.S. military action6), and would later join those harshly criticizing U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Adlai Stevenson for suggesting the idea of giving up American bases in Turkey and Guantanamo to convince the Soviets to remove their missiles, for most of the crisis he consistently, and at times passionately, argued against precipitous military action: "Robert Kennedy was a dove from the start," wrote Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., citing in particular the notes of the October 18 ExComm meeting, which paraphrase RFK's use of the Pearl Harbor analogy: "...He thought it would be very, very difficult indeed for the President if the decision were to be for an air strike, with all the memory of Pearl Harbor and with all the implications this would have for us in whatever world there would be afterward. For 175 years we had not been that kind of country. A sneak attack was not in our traditions. Thousands of Cubans would be killed without warning, and a lot of Russians too...." Robert Kennedy advocated "action," but also leaving Moscow "some room for maneuver to

pull back from their overextended position in Cuba."7 As of October 25, however, Dobrynin not only grouped Robert Kennedy with the hawks on the ExComm, he judged that the president, "vacillating right now" and "heeding the [militant] group, particularly, his

brother," might "undertake such an adventurist step as an invasion of Cuba."

Dobrynin's rather negative view of Robert Kennedy-even in retrospect, the jaunty Soviet diplomat recalled him as as "far from being a sociable person and lack[ing] a proper senes of humor...[m]oreover, he was impulsive and excitable"8-make all the more remarkable the meeting of minds that managed to take place on the evening of October 27. It is not necessary to dwell on that conversation given the scrutiny it has received (and the publication of Dobrynin's record in a previous Bulletin), other than to note that Kennedy's own contemporaneous draft memorandum of the meeting, printed below, offers additional evidence as to how sensitive the agreement on the Turkish Jupiters was considered. Even in this "top secret" memo to Secretary of State Rusk, Kennedy appears to have penciled out a sentence noting that "per [Rusk's] instructions" he had told Dobrynin that the Turkish missile issue "could be resolved satisfactorily" in "four or five months." Instead, in a blatant falsification of the historical record, the revised memo would leave unmodified the assertion that RFK had affirmed that it was "completely impossible for NATO to take such a step under the present threatening position of the Soviet Union" and "there could be no deal of any kind" regarding the Jupiters.

Robert Kennedy's abhorrence of the idea of leaving a written trace of the under-the-table "understanding" on the Turkish missiles emerges even more clearly from Dobrynin's account, printed in this Bulletin, of his 30 October 1962 meeting at which the Attorney General insisted on handing back to Dobrynin a letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy which had explicitly affirmed the private deal.9 Robert Kennedy, for his part, had no compunctions about confirming, repeatedly, that a private oral "understanding" existed between the Soviet and U.S. leaderships on the dismantling of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey "within the period of time indicated earlier," i.e., 4-5 months. However, he added, such sensitive understanding could not be put down

on paper, even in confidential correspondence between heads of state: "Speaking in all candor, I myself, for example, do not want to risk getting involved in the transmission of this sort of letter, since who knows where and when such letters can surface or be somehow published-not now, but in the future-and any changes in the course of events are possible. The appearance of such a document could cause irreparable harm to my political career in the future. This is why we request that you take this letter back." (Sensing how crucial the matter was to the Americans, Dobrynin accepted the letter back, even without orders from Moscow.)

Dobrynin's cable lends contemporaneous corroboration to the assertion in his 1995 memoirs that Robert Kennedy, even in 1962, had linked his actions in the missile crisis to his own political future in keeping secret the arrangement on the Jupiters.10 (Of course, after the assassination of his brother in 1963, Robert F. Kennedy would indeed run for president, challenging incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson (and then Vice-President Hubert Humphrey) for the Democratic nomination in 1968, but he, too, would fall victim to an assassin, killed that June on the night of his victory in the California primary.)

Several additional Dobrynin reports of conversations with Robert Kennedy after the crisis appear in this Bulletin, mostly dealing with disagreements and details concerning the terms of the final settlement: which Soviet weapons would have to be withdrawn, the timetable for the lifting of the U.S. blockade, disputes over inspection and U.S. overlights, etc. But a few human touches also lighten the diplomatic discourse, and hint at the developing rapport between these two men who probably felt that they had had the fate of the world in their hands.

A meeting at the Russian Embassy on the evening of November 12, for example, began with Dobrynin's handing over a confidential oral message from Khrushchev to President Kennedy that included a congratulatory note on the results of the Congressional elec

tions, with special reference to the defeat of Kennedy's erstwhile presidential rival, former Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, in the California gubernatorial contest.11 "When [Robert Kennedy] got to the place that spoke of Nixon's defeat in the elections," Dobrynin reported, "he immediately grinned, saying: `Your chairman is a real master of colorful expression that expressed the true essence of the issue. Yes, we are quite satisfied with Nixon's defeat, and in general we are not complaining about the results of the election.' It was felt that this portion of the message was received with definite satisfaction."

As Kennedy was leaving the Embassy after a tough hour-and-a-half discussion, mostly consumed by haggling over the U.S. demand that the Soviets take their IL-28 bombers out of Cuba,

he glimpsed a crowd of dancing couples in the embassy's parlor. Realizing that this was a friendly welcome party arranged by the embassy community for the Bolshoi Theater troupe that had just arrived in Washington, he said that he would like to meet with the troupe. Mingling with and greeting almost all the members of the troupe, he delivered a welcome speech in which he said that the President was preparing to attend their premier the following evening. At the end, he kissed Maya Plisetskaya when he found out that he and she had been born in the same year, month, and day, and said they would celebrate their birthdays in a week. None of this needs to be mentioned especially, but all in all the behavior of Robert Kennedy, who is ordinarily quite a reserved and glum man, reflects to some degree the calmer and more normal mood in the White House after the tense days that shook Washington, even though this fact is concealed in various ways by American propaganda. 12

That an appreciation of the new prominence of the president's brother extended to Dobrynin's bosses in the Kremlin became evident in a private conversation between Robert Kennedy and special Soviet envoy Anastas I. Mikoyan, a veteran member of the

CPSU Central Committee, at a dinner party at the home of Interior Secretary Stewart Udall on the evening of November 30-an occasion one American present described as a "strange, seemingly unreal evening" as enemies who had nearly engaged in thermonuclear war only weeks war wiled away the hours in drinking, toasts, and (sometimes forced) convivial conversation. 13 A wily diplomatic trouble-shooter since the Stalin era, Mikoyan was passing through Washington after three weeks of difficult negotiations in Cuba with Fidel Castro over the outcome of the crisis and a day before the Udall affair had met with President Kennedy at the White House.

Before the meal was served (as Mikoyan related in a cable printed in this Bulletin), Robert Kennedy invited Mikoyan into a separate room for a tetea-tete in which he underlined the importance above all ("even more important than the fates of my children and your grandchildren") of restoring personal trust between his brother and Khrushchev. Mikoyan not only agreed and assured Robert Kennedy that Khrushchev felt the same way, but said that the Soviet government applauded the president's "self-possession" and willingness to compromise at "the most dangerous moment, when the world stood at the edge of thermonuclear war."

Moscow, moreover, Mikoyan added, had "noticed the positive role that you, the president's brother, played during the confidential negotiations" between the U.S. and Soviet leaderships during the crisis. Robert Kennedy expressed an interest in visiting the USSR, an idea which Mikoyan warmly endorsed, especially should relations between the two rivals improve after surviving (and resolving) the rough Cuban passage.

Those relations did in fact improve somewhat in the succeeding months, leading to, among other events, John F. Kennedy's conciliatory American University speech in April 1963 and the signing of U.S.-Soviet pacts on a limited nuclear test ban and a hot line between Washington and Moscow. But the post-Cuban Missile Crisis opening for a continued rapprochement between

both Kennedy brothers and Khrushchev a prospect the Americans thought would last through a second Kennedy Administration-ended with the U.S. president's assassination in Dallas in November 1963 and Khrushchev's toppling less than a year later.

*****

Robert F. Kennedy, Memorandum for Dean Rusk on Meeting with Anatoly F. Dobrynin on 27 October 1962

TOP SECRET
Office of the Attorney General
Washington, D.C.
October 30, 1962

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

At the request of Secretary Rusk, I telephoned Ambassador Dobrynin at approximately 7:15 p.m. on Saturday, October 27th. I asked him if he would come to the Justice Department at a quarter of eight.

We met in my office. I told him first that we understood that the work was continuing on the Soviet missile bases in Cuba. Further, I explained to him that in the last two hours we had found that our planes flying over Cuba had been fired upon and that one of our U-2's had been shot down and the pilot killed. I said these men were flying unarmed planes.

I told him that this was an extremely serious turn in events. We would have to make certain decisions within the next 12 or possibly 24 hours. There was a very little time left. If the Cubans were shooting at our planes, then we were going to shoot back. This could not help but bring on further incidents and that he had better understand the full implications of this matter.

He raised the point that the argument the Cubans were making was that we were violating Cuban air space. I replied that if we had not been violating Cuban air space then we would still

be believing what he and Khrushchev had said that there were no long-range missiles in Cuba. In any case I said that this matter was far more serious than the air space over Cuba and involved peoples all over the world.

I said that he had better understand the situation and he had better communicate that understanding to Mr. Khrushchev. Mr. Khrushchev and he had misled us. The Soviet Union had secretly established missile bases in Cuba while at the same time proclaiming, privately and publicly, that this would never be done. I said those missile bases had to go and they had to go right away. We had to have a commitment by at least tomorrow that those bases would be removed. This was not an ultimatum, I said, but just a statement of fact. He should understand that if they did not remove those bases then we would remove them. His country might take retaliatory actions but he should understand that before this was over, while there might be dead Americans there would also be dead Russians.

He then asked me what offer we were making. I said a letter had just been transmitted to the Soviet Embassy which stated in substance that the missile bases should be dismantled and all offensive weapons should be removed from Cuba. In return, if Cuba and Castro and the Communists ended their subversive activities in other Central and Latin-American countries, we would agree to keep peace in the Caribbean and not permit an invasion from American soil.

He then asked me about Khrushchev's other proposal dealing with the removal of the missiles from Turkey. I replied that there could be no quid pro quo no deal of this kind could be made. This was a matter that had to be considered by NATO and that it was up to NATO to make the decision. I said it was completely impossible for NATO to take such a step under the present threatening position of the Soviet Union. If some time elapsed - and per your instructions, I mentioned four or five months I said I was sure that these matters could be resolved satisfactorily. [crossed out by hand-ed.]

Per your instructions I repeated that there could be no deal of any kind and that any steps toward easing tensions in other parts of the world largely depended on the Soviet Union and Mr. Khrushchev taking action in Cuba and taking it immediately.

I repeated to him that this matter could not wait and that he had better contact Mr. Khrushchev and have a commitment from him by the next day to withdraw the missile bases under United Nations supervision for otherwise, I said, there would be drastic consequences.

RFK: amn

[Source: John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, MA; provided to CWIHP by Prof. Peter Roman, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA.]

1 Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Norton, 1969; citations from Mentor/New American Library paperback edition, 1969). Questions about the book's reliability deepened after another former Kennedy aide, speechwriter Theodore Sorensen, acknowledged that, as an uncredited editor of the manuscript, he had taken it upon himself to delete "explicit" references to the arrangement he and Soviet ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin reached on the evening of 27 October 1962 regarding the removal of U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey as part of the settlement of the crisis. Also problematic is the fact that Robert Kennedy's original diary, on which the book is based, has not been opened to researchers. Sorensen made his confession upon being challenged by Dobrynin at a January 1989 oral history conference on the crisis held in Moscow. See Barton J. Bernstein, "Reconsidering the Missile Crisis: Dealing with the Problems of the American Jupiters in Turkey," in James A. Nathan, ed., The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (New York: St. Martin's 1992), 55-129, esp. 56-57, 94-96, 125-126 fn 183.

2 The most detailed account of Robert F. Kennedy's part in the missile crisis, and his life generally, can be found in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978; citations from Futura Publications paperback edition, 1979).

Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995), 75, 77-80.

4

Dobrynin's cabled report (dated 24 October 1962) of the October 23 meeting with RFK can be found in CWIHP Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995), 7173; see also Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days, 65-66, and Schlesinger, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, 553-554, which cites RFK's unpublished memorandum of the meeting. Neither of those accounts note RFK's agitated state, which Dobrynin highlighted. Dobrynin's cable clearly served as a principal source for the account published in Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (New York: Times Books, 1995), 8182. Dobrynin notes that he deliberately did not sugarcoat Robert Kennedy's critical comments about the Kremlin leadership in order to get across the seriousness of the situation.]

5 See Dobrynin cable of 5 November 1962 in this

Bulletin.

6 See transcript of 16 October 1962 ExComm meeting, 6:30-7:55 p.m., John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, MA. The transcript quotes RFK as wondering "...whether there is some other way we can get involved in this through, uh,

indeed, were in your favor. The success does not upset us either-though that is of course your internal affair. You managed to pin your political rival, Mr. Nixon, to the mat. This did not draw tears from our eyes either...." See James A. Nathan, ed., The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisted (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), 290. 12 See Dobrynin cable of 12 November 1962, printed in this Bulletin, and also Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, 567-568. 13 See Mikoyan report on the Udall dinner, 30 November 1962, in this Bulletin; the American account of the party is from George Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs (New York: Norton, 1982), 308-309.

For the Electronic Bulletin

and more on the lat

est findings on Cold War history from the communist archives,

See Dobrynin, In Confidence, pp. 90-91. 11 Nixon had been defeated by his Democratic rival in the California gubernatorial elections, upon which he announced his retirement from politics. The relevant passage in Khrushchev's 12 November 1962 message read: "Now the elections in your country, Mr. President, are over. You made a statement that you were very pleased with the results of these elections. They, the elections,

obtain the declassification of American documents, visit:

http://www.seas.gwu/nsarchive