80. Memorandum From ABC Correspondent John Scali to the Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Hilsman)0
Alexander S. Fomin, Sov Emby Counselor, at lunch which he sought urgently, asks if State would be interested in settlement of Cuban crisis along these lines:
Bases would be dismantled under United Nations supervision and Castro would pledge not to accept offensive weapons of any kind, ever, in return for US pledge not to invade Cuba.
I said I didn’t know but that perhaps this is something that could be talked about. He said if Stevenson pursued this line, Zorin would be interested. Asked that I check with State and let him know. He gave me his home telephone number so I could call him tonight, if necessary.
Fomin claimed that Cuban delegate to UN during Security Council debate asked for such no-invasion assurances in return for dismantling but that he got no reply. I told him I’d followed the UN debate very carefully but could not recall any such remarks on Cuban’s part.
Fomin also said Russia had been forced “to make some concessions” to Communist China in order to convince them to stop the fighting against India. He declined to say what under my questioning. But he recalled they hadn’t helped the ChiComs with nuclear weapons or conventional weapons in the past, even tanks, and hinted it might be aid in the conventional field.
- Source: Department of State, S/S Files: Lot 65 D 438, Elite-Psalm Documents. Confidential; Eyes Only. Copies were sent to U. Alexis Johnson, Ball, and Thompson. The source text bears the handwritten notation “Secretary has in hand.” For Hilsman’s account of drafting of this memorandum and his subsequent discussion with Rusk see To Move a Nation, pp. 217-218. Printed in part in Pierre Salinger, With Kennnedy, p. 274.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩