Milnikiel, Eugeniusz

Drozniak discusses the possibility of US military action against Cuba, as well as Cuba's foreign relations with the USSR and the US.

Drozniak forwards a report from US Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs [Edwin M.] Martin. Martin says that the Americans are well-informed of the military situation in Cuba, that Cuba does not possess nuclear weapons (nor will they be likely to because the USSR did not give such weapons to China, so why would they give them to Cuba?), that the level of the Cuban economy is twenty-five percent lower than the period before Fidel Castro came to power and Cuba is much more economically dependent on the USSR, and finally that any military invasion or complete blockade of Cuba would be considered an act of war by the USSR.

Drozniak compiles information he has collected from US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs William R. Tyler and US Ambassador at Large Llewellyn E. Thompson on the rising Cuban situation and US-USSR relations.

Drozniak makes an assessment of the Cuban Missile Crisis situation, based on his conversations with foreign diplomats and respected journalists. Among other topics, he includes his opinion that "The operation of installing the [Soviet] missiles in Cuba was carried out in great hurry, without special adherence to secrecy, and perhaps even with the awareness that the missiles would be discovered relatively quickly. This [fact] has been interpreted [by the Americans] as [a possible] attempt by the USSR to test Kennedy’s “the will and readiness to fight.” [Soviet leader Nikita S.] Khrushchev chose Cuba, because he considered Berlin to be too dangerous."

In a conversation with Charles Bartlett (a journalist who had befriended President Kennedy), Drozniak learns more of the Cuban Crisis situation and of US-USSR relations, including that the steps taken to address the crisis (the quarentine of Cuba) were implemented by Kennedy in the atmosphere of great pressure from the public opinion.