Office of the Historian

446. Memorandum of conversation between Rusk and Alphand, October 281

October 28, 1962
[Facsimile Page 1]

SUBJECT

  • Cuba

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Secretary
  • Hervé Alphand, Ambassador of France
  • William R. Tyler, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs

The Secretary gave Ambassador Alphand a rundown of the developments up to and including the latest message from Khrushchev. He stressed that no commitments whatsoever had been made by the United States Government to Khrushchev beyond those related to the situation in Cuba. Ambassador Alphand asked whether the Secretary could explain the discrepancy between Khrushchev’s letter of Friday, October [Typeset Page 1269] 26, and the message of Saturday the 27th, in which the Soviet Government had attempted to link the Turkish IRBMs to Cuba. The Secretary said he thought that Khrushchev had written the October 26th letter personally, but that he had perhaps not coordinated his reply with his colleagues. The latter had perhaps upbraided him for not having tried to obtain concessions from the United States in exchange for a deal on Cuba, and the result was the second letter of October 27th. The Secretary said that it was much too early to consider ourselves to be out of danger. We must be cautious and we must not relax our preparations until and unless we are assured beyond all possible doubt that work has been stopped on the bases, that the weapons have been dismantled, and that they are leaving Cuba.

Ambassador Alphand speculated at some length on the significance of what had been going on in the Kremlin. He said that Khrushchev’s letter of October 26 (which he was given to read) showed symptoms [Facsimile Page 2] of hysteria and mental disequilibrium. He said he thought that the situation was still very dangerous, as one could not tell what would happen within the counsels of the Soviet Government. The Ambassador added that if things continued to go in the present direction, this was a tremendous achievement on the part of the United States, with very great implications for the posture of the Free World in relation to the Communist Bloc. He said that the United States enjoyed the full support of its Allies in what it was trying to do.

  1. Latest developments in Cuba including Khrushchev’s recent letter. Secret. 2 pp. DOS, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330.↩