November 5, 1962
Telegram from USSR Foreign Minister Gromyko to Mikoyan and Alekseev in Havana
In response to the telegram from Comrade Alekseev. In the event that it is necessary, you should explain to Fidel Castro that the readiness to dismantle the installations of the so-called "offensive weaponry" was first mentioned only in N.S. Khrushchev's message to Kennedy of 27 October.
It is obvious that some misunderstanding could arise from the fact that Kennedy's message to N.S. Khrushchev of 27 October spoke (with reference to N.S. Khrushchev's message of 26 October) of the "removal" of the weaponry from Cuba; but that was his, Kennedy's, interpretation of the issue. As N.S. Khrushchev's message of 26 October makes clearly evident, it made absolutely no reference to an agreement about the "removal" of our weaponry from Cuba.
Since N.S. Khrushchev and Kennedy did not exchange any other messages or statements in those days, besides the ones familiar to our Cuban friends, Fidel Castro's doubts about whether we might have given our consent to the dismantling of the weaponry and its removal from Cuba before 27 October should disappear completely.
A. G.
Response to Alekseev’s telegram regarding Fidel Castro’s doubts as to the Khrushchev-Kennedy exchange of letters.
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