Protocol 59 further details the focus of the Soviet Union just before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev was so confident that his plan with Cuba would go unhindered that he spent his efforts on resolving the Sino-Indian border conflict, thinking the matter with missiles was done.
October 11, 1962
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Presidium Protocol 58
This document was made possible with support from Leon Levy Foundation
Present: Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Kozlov, Kosygin, Malinovsky, Kuznetsov
On relations between the PRC and India.
Join in, and for both of them prepare a nuanced document.
The Min of For Aff is to prepare it.
Search for reconciliation.
The McMahon Line.[1]
It is hard for China to agree to this.
The PRC proposal for troop withdrawals is reasonable.
[1] Translator’s Note: The McMahon Line covering the eastern sector of the Indo-Tibetan border was a demarcation line drawn by the British government for the Treaty of Simla in 1914. In later decades the Chinese government claimed that it had never formally accepted the line. During most of the 1950s, the McMahon Line served as the de facto border between India and eastern Tibet, but official Chinese maps purported to show that some 65,000 sq. km. of territory south of the McMahon Line (i.e. in India) were still part of China. Those regions remain in dispute to this day.
Protocol 58 provides insight into what was occupying the mind of Khrushchev at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The theme of the meeting was centered around the Sino-Indian conflict, questions surrounding the McMahon line, and the future of Tibet. With the focus on China and India, it is reasonable to assume that the crisis caught Khrushchev by surprise.
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RGANI, F. 3, Op. 16, D. 947, Ll. 33-34. Translated and edited by Mark Kramer, with assistance from Timothy Naftali.
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2012-08-28
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