Ciphergram No. 16071

Dispatched from Moscow on 31.10.1962 at 12:30

Received on 31.10.1962 at 19:28

Came into the Deciphering Department on 31.10.1962 at 21:50

To: [Foreign Minister Adam] RAPACKI

From: [Ambassador Boleslaw] JASZCZUK¹

From the visit at [US Ambassador Foy D.] Kohler’s (which lasted 50 minutes):

Cuba. The United States will not go into Cuba and it does not intend to topple Castro from outside of Cuba. He thinks that the [Cuban] nation will change its system from within, and that the United States will continue the blockade until they receive the guarantees of the full elimination of [Soviet military] bases. I pressed him on the issue of normalizing US-Cuba relations. He clearly dodged taking any position on the issue. Kohler stated that the United States is really surprised that the USSR thought that America would allow for the creation of the missile bases right under its nose and for the change in the nuclear balance in the world. They continue to ask themselves this question and they don’t seem to find the answer. I took up the issue of the so called “offensive nature” of the missile weapons and I also returned to the issue of unfriendly US policy towards Cuba […]

[1] Boleslaw Jaszczuk, Poland’s ambassador to the Soviet Union from 2 December 1959 to 25 September 1963.