Telegram from the Brazilian Embassy in Havana (Bastian Pinto), 11:30 a.m., Friday

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS

TELEGRAM

RECEIVED

13.369

FROM THE EMBASSY IN HAVANA

ON/9/9/XI/62

CONFIDENTIAL

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

Question of Cuba.

374 – FRIDAY – 1130hrs – The conversations with [Anastas] Mikoyan proceed in total secrecy. The day before yesterday, in the Soviet Embassy, I conversed with Mikoyan and Fidel Castro, both expansive but we did not speak on this matter; Mikoyan made long and elegiac references to the independent policy of Brazil and of President [João] Goulart. The [Cuban] Minister of External Relations [Raul Roa] told me that the secrecy was indispensable to not prejudice the result of these conversations and the negotiations in New York. On the other hand, from a fairly sure source, we obtained information that the declarations of Governor Brizola profoundly impressed the Cuban leaders and Fidel Castro, that they are utilizing them to explain to Mikoyan the necessity of the Cuban Government maintaining a minimum of its own demands as a signal of its independence in relation to the Soviet Union; it is the same to suppose that the reaction of independent Latin American leaders has contributed to the crystallizing of the position of Fidel Castro in terms of his program of five points. In these conditions, while the Soviets pay more attention to his politics of the maintenance of peace, Fidel Castro was [estava] conscious that in Latin America public opinion is much more concerned with the sovereignty and the independence, not having in this continent important pacifist movements. According to the same source, Mikoyan is demanding to demonstrate the necessity of Cuba permitting the Soviet solution to the benefit of the unity of the socialist camp; the divergence in position perhaps can be resolved by a systematic compromise [sistematizando compromisso] by which the Soviet Union would accept to support the Cuban intentions [pretensôes] in the UN on future occasions, while Cuba would accept the Soviet formula for a solution to the immediate crisis. However, I do not have the ability to confirm this information, I transmit it with due reservations.

LUIZ LEIVAS BASTIAN PINTO