489. NSC Executive Committee record of action, November 31
1. Director McCone read a summary of the latest intelligence on Cuba. The President authorized Mr. McCone to prepare a sanitized version for Mr. McCloy to use in his conversation with Soviet Representative Kuznetsov.
2. The President read aloud and later approved an instruction to all concerned with present negotiations in Cuba which contained a restatement of our basic policy and purpose. (A copy of the instruction was sent electrically to each Committee member, to our UN Mission, and to our major embassies abroad.)
3. Ambassador Stevenson summarized the negotiations under way in New York with respect to the verification of the removal of Soviet offensive weapons. There followed a discussion of our next steps, including our insistence on on-site on-the-ground inspection of missile sites and missile-related equipment.
4. The President reaffirmed his view that the basis of all negotiations should be his letter to Khrushchev and that our posture, both public and private, should be one of firm insistence on the carrying out of the specific terms of this letter.
5. The President revised and approved an announcement to be made tomorrow at the conclusion of our current nuclear test series.
- Presidential instruction on present negotiations on Cuba; progress on inspection negotiations. Top Secret. 1 p. Kennedy Library, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Executive Committee, Meetings, Vol. II, Meetings 17–24.↩