500. Memorandum of telephone conversation among Gilpatric, Ball and U. Alexis Johnson, November 61
Gilpatric: Kuznetsov is coming over here at 4 p.m. Adlai and I will meet with him then. I don’t know if he will have someone with him. This meeting is at our request. We will, I assume start out with the things we want to raise. I have talked to Bob and wanted to be sure our conception of the immediate urgency corresponds with those in the Department.
The first point Bob thought should be raised is a protest against their activating the SAM sites at the start, which caused us to start the U–2 missions.
GWB: Yes, I agree.
GILPATRIC: If our right of aerial inspection at this time is interferred with we will have to take steps to eliminate interference, which would be serious, and we don’t conceive the Soviets did not control the SAM sites.
GWB: They are in position where they are in complete support of Cuba right now, and you ought to point that out. Castro can’t live without them.
GILPATRIC: Right. No matter how they choose to accept it, we should tell them we will have to take steps if they don’t deal with the SAM sites interferring with our surveillance.
2. A reiteration of our position on the IL–28s. Adlai’s talk before the UNSC fortunately is very good on this. There would be no question of bad faith; they knew it.
BALL: The President’s speech is as clear a statement as we could have.
GILPATRIC: Right.
3. At the moment there is some doubt as to whether Kuznetsov has instructions permitting him to act.
BALL: We are moving on that. I think there will be a message out on that today.
[Facsimile Page 2]GILPATRIC: On the outgoing missiles, give our ships opportunity to go alongside, take photographs and account for the 42 missiles. There are 16 unaccounted for as of today. Bob feels that if we actually [Typeset Page 1369] have this verified by photographs that that constitutes at the moment all we can expect in the way of verification.
BALL: The idea would be that our people would point out a missile and ask that the tarp be removed.
GILPATRIC: Right, on each ship. We would have pictures of the deck loading.
BALL: That could be done from a ship or a helicopter?
GILPATRIC: Right. We would reserve the right for either mode.
On warheads, we should ask that they tell us when they are going to be shipped and how they are going to be shipped. We could have some kind of geiger counter verification of what is inside the boxes.
JOHNSON: And if they say they are already on the ships and are gone?
GILPATRIC: In that case, we will have to say how we are going to verify that, where it is going to be done, in what ports, etc. if they have already left. They have made no statements on warheads yet. Bob didn’t think it necessary to go on that today. Adlai, Yost and I have been talking about nuclear bombs for the IL–28s or for the MIGs–21—as to whether our position was clearly offensive. I don’t know whether it is desirable to table that at the moment. I don’t want time to go by without having been specific.
JOHNSON: Have we raised MIGs–21 specifically with him?
GILPATRIC: No, and not the possibility of the MIGs carrying them for aerial delivery (small nuclear bombs). In the proclamation we have had both warheads and bombs. I don’t think we should raise the question as such. In talking about warheads, it might just as well be that in order to avoid charges of bad faith if we didn’t indicate the term “bomb” applies to all kinds of nuclear bombs.
[Facsimile Page 3]JOHNSON: Yes.
GILPATRIC: The question Bob raised was whether this would be the time to go into how we are going to be assured on re-introduction of arms. This leads us into the formulation of our guarantee against invasion, and I would not bring that up today.
JOHNSON: I think you are right. We are not in position to do so yet. I have been working on this question today, so that we can talk about it this afternoon with the President. People’s ideas are not clear enough on this yet.
GILPATRIC: If they press again for formulation of our guarantee against invasion, it seems to me we can say that is counterpart to the undertaking of the introduction of safeguards and we have not seen that yet.
JOHNSON: That is right.
[Typeset Page 1370]GILPATRIC: We will proceed along these lines and report down to you as soon as we are through.
JOHNSON: A debating point possibly—somebody mentioned New York, in reporting on the first conversation with Mikoyan, Stevenson and Menchikov on Nov. 2, Telegram #1604, 3rd paragraph from the end says that the Soviets estimated their time in which to remove was 10–15 days, including the IL–28s. This may have been careless reporting.
GILPATRIC: I am sure it was.
BALL: It was a mistake in reporting. We talked at length with them afterwards and they were clear on the IL–28s.
GILPATRIC: If you have any more thoughts between now and 4 p.m. I will be with Adlai from 2:30 until the time of the meeting.
BALL: The Executive Committee meeting has been put over until 6 p.m. This will give us time to get a report from you before the meeting.
- Preparations for meeting with Kuznetsov: SAM activations; aerial inspection; IL–28s; verification; re-introduction of arms assurance. No classification marking. 3 pp. DOS, Ball Papers: Lot 74 D 272, Telcons—Cuba.↩