Telegram from Brazilian Embassy in Washington (Campos), 7 p.m., Thursday

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS

13087

TELEGRAM

RECEIVED

FROM THE EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON

ON/1/3/XI/62

SECRET – URGENT

DAM/DAS/DAC/DEA/DNU/Dor/600.(24h)

Question of Cuba.

815 – THURSDAY – 1900hrs – [Anastas] Mikoyan requested a private meeting with the American negotiators and today dined in New York in the house of [John J.] McCloy, with Undersecretaries [of State and Defense] George Ball and [Roswell] Gilpatric, [and] apparently confirmed a conciliatory disposition toward the United States of America. White House sources, which cannot yet be identified, have expressed suspicion [suspicácia] in relation to the mission of General Albino Silva, which is interpreted as helping facilitate the survival of Castro, all the more since Brazil and Italy have been in the Western world the least cooperative countries in the present crisis. This reaction appears hardly comprehensible [pouco comprsensíval], since, according to information from the Secretary of State [Dean Rusk], Ambassador [Lincoln] Gordon was fully informed of the results of this action, with which he expressed agreement. Before receiving the day before yesterday the High Military School [National War College?] [Escola Superior de Guerra], President Kennedy and I conversed privately for some minutes, but he was limited to requesting to be transmitted to President Goulart his disappointment that he must postpone his voyage [to Brazil], impossible now due to the international situation, and that whatever manner will be more useful in the coming year, when the institutional problem will be resolved by plebiscite and our economic planning will be more advanced. He referred in passing to the mission of General Albino, asking about the ideological inclinations of the official in question. I responded that his affiliation is to the anticommunist nationalist line and that he gave support to the mission of U Thant for maintaining the system of international inspection. I added that, according to the telegram of Your Excellency, Ambassador Gordon was fully informed of the objectives of the mission and certainly the State Department was kept current on the result of the Brazilian gestures with Cuba. In view, however, of the rumors referred to above, it would be appropriate, beyond the work of explaining that was carried out here privately, that Ambassador Gordon was informed of the misunderstanding that appears to be emerging here. With reference to the meeting next Monday [5 November] of the Organ of Inter-American Consultation, already communicated to Your Excellency through the mission at the OEA [OAS], permit me to call attention to my telegram no 810.

ROBERTO DE OLIVEIRA CAMPOS