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October 28, 1962

Telegram from Brazilian Embassy in Washington (Campos), 2 p.m., Sunday

This document was made possible with support from Leon Levy Foundation

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS

 

TELEGRAM

RECEIVED

12 894

FROM THE EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON

ON/28/28/C[sic—X]/62

 

CONFIDENTIAL

DAS/DAC/DOr/DNU/DEA/600.(24h)

Question of Cuba.

 

800 – SUNDAY – 1400hs – Supplementary to my telegram no 799. The White House still declares that it has not received officially the third proposal of Khrushchev, which he has already fully divulged on the radio. It implies a Russian retreat to accept: 1) immediate dismantling of the bases; 2) international inspection; 3) abandonment of the demand for reciprocity in Turkey. The first note of Khrushchev, responded to by Kennedy on Friday night, had been encouraging, for not having mentioned the Turkish quid pro quo. The second note, to which Kennedy has referred only indirectly, in the response to the first, opened the problem of reciprocity and specifically that a North American commitment of non-invasion did refer only to the North American forces, but to expeditions mounted in North American territory, or originating from other Latin American countries. The note of Kennedy accepted curtly [secamente] a commitment of non-invasion on the part of the United States, indicating that the Latin-American countries, probably, would agree with similar guarantees, without promising explicitly, however, to impede the operation of guerrilla war or infiltration on the part of the Cuban exiles. It is possible that the United States maintains the point-of-view that which, given the nature of Cuban ideological infiltration, it’s not under absolute prohibition of counter-infiltration. The immediate demand of a quid pro quo in Turkey abandoned, the United States agreed to reexamine the matter of European bases in the general quadrant of disarmament and preferably through collective negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It is rumored here that Castro is feeling betrayed by the Soviets, indications being in: a) that Havana radio until yesterday night did not give notice to the proposal of Khrushchev to bargain over Turkey; b) that Castro has limited the invitation to U Thant to go to Havana, demanding to avoid a purely bilateral discussion between Washington and Moscow over Cuba’s fate, without mentioning international inspection; that Castro has made different conditions than the Soviets, since he also demanded the return of Guantánamo and the cessation of the economic blockade, not consistent with the note of Khrushchev. In Washington it is considered that the incident: 1) demonstrates the truth of the North American accusation of the existence of nuclear arms; 2) the judgment of the Pentagon to be correct that in at this moment the Russians recognize the North American nuclear superiority; 3) that after an extreme cost of efforts in the last four months, with expenses estimated at a million dollars per day, the Soviets have returned to the point of departure, extracting from the United States only a guarantee of non-invasion, a declaration that Washington had already made unilaterally…time [sí tempoa], since Cuba was maintaining a defensive posture it is recognized, however, that the moral posture of the United States suffered strain and that, in spite of having originated the crisis, Khrushchev appears in the eyes of neutralist world opinion as a peace-maker. It is admitted, also, the obsolescence of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey and in Italy and equally of the Thors in England, becoming thereby negotiable, in that: 1) in the general sphere of disarmament, preferably in collective negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact; 2) since the Soviets abandoned their intransigent opposition to international inspection, considering that it encouraged procedure created in Cuba. Convened by [Secretary of State Dean] Rusk, I will attend today at five hours [5 p.m.] [a meeting] at the Department of State with many Latin American Ambassadors.

 

ROBERTO DE OLIVEIRA CAMPOS

Campos discusses agreements that are being made between Kennedy and Khrushchev regarding the immediate dismantling of the missile bases in Cuba, international inspections of Cuba, and an abandonment of the demand for reciprocity in Turkey.



Document Information

Source

Ministry of External Relations Archives, Brasilia, Brazil (copy courtesy of Roberto Baptista Junior, University of Brasilia0. Translated from Portuguese by James G. Hershberg.

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Original Uploaded Date

2012-09-19

Type

Telegram

Language

Record ID

115314

Original Classification

Confidential

Donors

Leon Levy Foundation