549. Memorandum for the record, November 211
SUBJECT
- Daily White House Staff Meeting, 21 November 1962
1. Mr. Bundy presided throughout. DEFCONS no change.
2. The following matters arose:
a. It appears that Ralph Dungan may be the one who planted the story in the New York Times this morning concerning the potential availability and excellent qualifications of former Ambassador Bunker for the AID job.
b. There followed a considerable discussion on Cuba. Chuck Johnson, who usually does not command a very respectful hearing within this group since he is definitely non-New Frontier, said that he thought our present status on Cuba vis-à-vis the public was bad because it was a complex “middle” kind of status that is very hard for the great unwashed American public to understand. Somewhat surprisingly, Ralph Dungan supported him on this, which immediately increased Bundy’s interest in the opinion. Dungan felt that the Secretary of State, or some equally appropriate candidate, should make a speech or issue a statement summing up the Cuban status in a considerably more detailed and explanatory manner than the President did on TV last [Typeset Page 1484] evening. Bundy told Arthur Schlesinger that Ambassadors Stevenson and McCloy were eager to try to wrap this thing up somehow or other during the next few days, whereas Bundy felt that it was going to continue to require a lot of delicate orchestration for at least several more weeks. Bundy in effect admitted that we were unlikely to attain absolute fulfillment of the formal terms incorporated in the President’s 27 October message to Khrushchev. He feels that we have got to sweat out the Soviet angles (missiles, technicians, etc.) over the next several weeks, and then, and only then, be prepared to address ourselves to Castro.
c. In continuation of the same discussion, Dungan said that he thought the Latin Americans were more confused than anyone at this point as to just what United States policy is supposed to be. Schlesinger [Facsimile Page 2] added that the trouble was that half of the Latin Americans wanted us to throw Castro out bodily, whereas the other half wanted us to keep calm and seek a modus vivendi with Castro. Dungan said that, while Schlesinger’s observation was probably correct, he still thought it important that we clarify our present position to the Latin Americans. Bundy said that we are simply not going to “get Castro out”, at least not in the immediate future; he feels that the best we can do meanwhile is to hold the OAS to the letter and spirit of their resolutions supporting our late October action in Cuba. Clifton wound up this portion of the discussion with what I thought were a few sound observations of the likely course of the press during the next few days. (As I have mentioned before, he is almost always very good on this subject.) He says that so far the press has only had the opportunity to report the President’s TV speech as hard news, especially since there was no advanced text available for some of the press pundits to think over. He predicts that the “think boys” will have just about enough time between now and Saturday to prepare analytical articles which are likely to be not too favorable.
- Daily White House staff meeting: Public opinion on Cuba; Latin Americans position re Cuba. Secret. 2 pp. NDU, Taylor Papers, Chairman’s Group, Oct–Nov 1962.↩