Telegram from Polish Embassy in Washington, 31 October 1962

Ciphergram No. 16075

Dispatched from Washington, D.C., on 10.31.1962 at 12:00 and received on 01.11.1962 at 0:30

Came to the Decoding Department on 01.11.1962 at 0:40

To: [Foreign Ministry Director Eugeniusz] MILNIKIEL,¹ EYES ONLY

From: [Ambassador Edward] DROŻNIAK²

/From A.[rthur] Schlesinger, [President John F.] Kennedy’s adviser./

S., to a large degree, confirms the content of [our previous] cable 825.³ In his opinion, the assessment of the [Soviet] installation of the missiles in Cuba as the attempt to strengthen the [world] position of the USSR before a possible confrontation over Berlin, ended up prevailing within the [US] administration. [Schlesinger said that] despite the criticisms made by the Republicans, claiming that [President] Kennedy should have exploited the opportunity [of the crisis] to topple [the regime of Fidel] Castro and that he should have called for a policy based on a position of strength, among other places in Berlin, President Kennedy is determined to seek peaceful solutions and those based on compromise. [The President] is most interested in concluding a treaty to ban nuclear tests. He is sympathetic to the idea of the projects of [creating] non-nuclear zones in Africa, and possibly in Latin America. [The President] characterized [Nikita S.] Khrushchev’s unpublished letter as very personal and one that expressed [the Soviet leader’s] concern over the possibility of a nuclear war to a much larger degree than in his published text. There was no mention in that letter of the [US military] bases in Turkey. [US Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs W. Averell] Harriman was the first one to see that Khrushchev’s intentions and behavior [exhibited during] the crisis aspired to [bring about] peaceful solutions. They [the Americans] think that right now the disassembling and transport of the missiles back to the USSR will take place very quickly. This is because, [they think,] the Soviet Union will not want to create a precedent [according to which] the international commissions control the “disarmament process.” It [the Soviet Union] will make the effort for [such an international] commission to merely state facts.

[1] Eugeniusz Milnikiel (1905 -1969), former Polish ambassador to Great Britain (1953 -1956).

[2] Edward Drożniak (1902 – 1966), Poland’s ambassador to the United States (1961-1966).

[3] The reference here is to Cable No. 16028 (printed above) from the Polish embassy in Washington, D.C., to Warsaw, dated 30 October 1962 based on a conversation with “an important American interlocutor.”