From the Journal of A.I. Alekseyev, 'Record of a Conversation with Raul Castro Ruz, Minister of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Cuba, 25 February 1963'

Top Secret Copy Nº 1

5 April 1963

Outgoing Nº 119

from the journal of

A. I. ALEKSEYEV

RECORD OF A CONVERSATION

with Raul CASTRO RUZ, Minister of the Armed Forces

of the Republic of Cuba

25 February 1963

I had a conversation with Raul Castro during a reception held by the Embassy in honor of the 45^th anniversary of the Soviet Army and Navy.

Castro asked [me] to thank Marshal R. Ya. Malinovsky for the warm letter which he sent him, Raul, in reply to his congratulations on the occasion of the anniversary of the Soviet Army and Navy.

Then Castro addressed a request to speed up the resolution of the question of sending a large group of Cuban servicemen to the Soviet Union for study, and also of allotting them places in one of our passenger steamers leaving Havana in the next few days.

I replied that this question is being decided in the USSR Ministry of Defense, and we expect an answer from Moscow in the near future.

Then Raul, touching on the question of the differences between the CPSU and the CPC expressed himself negatively about the crude articles against the CPSU and the other fraternal Parties in the Chinese press, and assessed the publication of statements against the leaders of the fraternal Parties containing criticism of the CPC policy as some clever maneuver obviously calculated on increasing the attacks on these Parties even more. According to the information they have, continued Castro, the Cuban students studying in the PRC are being subjected to stubborn ideological indoctrination from the Chinese. Consequently, he noted, the Cuban leadership has decided to halt the further sending of their military specialists to China and, if the situation allows, to recall part of the students who are now in Peking.

I told Raul Castro that as PRC Ambassador [Shen Jian] had just turned to me and made a representation against the presence of the ambassador of Yugoslavia at the reception. I informed Raul of my reply to [Shen Jian] that the ambassador of Albania was also invited to the reception who, however, did not appear.

Castro approved of our tactic and promised to tell Fidel of this incident.

USSR AMBASSADOR IN THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA (A. ALEKSEYEV)