443. Message From Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy0
[Here follow the first 10 pages of the letter, which deal with topics unrelated to Cuba.]
Recently I had a talk with your Secretary of the Interior Mr. S. Udall. He made a good impression on me. Our conversation was friendly. And I never expected that at the time I talked with him you would take a decision to request from the Congress an authority to call up 150.000 reservists.1 Motivating that step of yours you referred to the red-hot state of international atmosphere and to a necessity for you in that connection to react promptly to the dangers that may arise in any part of “the free world”. Everybody understands that when the President of the U.S. demands an increase in armed forces and explains that demand by an aggravation of the situation, it means that he considers that the situation [Page 1096] is aggravated by the other side, that is by us, the Soviet Union. But we havenʼt done anything that could give a pretext for that. We did not carry out any mobilization, and did not make any threats.
I must tell you straightforwardly, Mr. President, that your statement with threats against Cuba2 is just an inconceivable step. Under present circumstances, when there exist thermonuclear weapons, your request to the Congress for an authority to call up 150.000 reservists is not only a step making the atmosphere red-hot, it is already a dangerous sign that you want to pour oil in the flame, to extinguish that red-hot glow by mobilizing new military contingents. And that, naturally, forces the other side to respond in kind. What could it lead to, all the more that you consider that the U.S. has right to attack Cuba whenever it wishes? But nowadays is not the Middle Ages, though even at the time it was considered brigandage, and measures were taken against such actions. And in our time such actions are absolutely unthinkable. That is what made us to come out with the TASS statement3 and later at the session of the UN General Assembly to qualify your act, to remind of the norms of international law and to say about West Berlin.
If there were not statement by you on Cuba, we, naturally, as Ambassador Thompson and Mr. Udall were told, would not say anything on West Berlin. Your statement forced us to do so.
We regret that this dangerous line is being continued in the United States now. What is going on, for example, in the U.S. Congress. How can one, for example, fail to notice the decision of the House of Representatives to stop giving U.S. aid to any country that trades with Cuba or whose ships are used for trading with Cuba. Isnʼt that an act of an unpermissible arbitrariness against freedom of international trade, an act of crude interference into domestic affairs of other countries?
Very serious consequences may have the resolution adopted by the U.S. Senate on the Cuban question. The contents of that resolution gives ground to draw a conclusion that the U.S. is evidently ready to assume responsibility for unleashing thermonuclear war. We consider that if what is written in that resolution were actually carried out it would mean the beginning of war because no country can agree with such interpretation of rights, with such arbitrariness. Then there would be no UN, everything would collapse and roll into abyss as it happened once when the League of Nations collapsed. Who wrecked it then? Japan and Hitler, who quit the League of Nations to untie their hands and start war. And they did start it. Could it be that the US wants to embark on such road?
[Page 1097]We would greatly regret if it were so. We still do not lose hope that we will be able to normalize our relations. But this can be achieved only when the United States and its allies will strictly adhere to the generally recognized norms of international law and will not interfere into the domestic affairs of other states, will not threaten other countries. This is the main thing. And this is the coexistence of which we spoke more than once. You spoke of it too. But what kind of coexistence is this if the United States would attack countries whose government or socio-political system are not to its liking? In our time the world has split into two camps—capitalist and socialist: you have neighbours whom, as you say, you do not like while we have neighbours whom we do not like, but they are your friends and allies. How can one, especially under these circumstances, consider it to be oneʼs right to attack another country merely because its government and internal order are not to your liking? If we conduct such a policy, where this will lead to—to world war.
[Here follow the concluding 4 pages of the 17-page letter. There was one other brief reference to Cuba in the concluding section of the letter. It reads as follows: “It has just become known that the Puerto-Rican but actually American authorities detained a British ship and arrested the Soviet cargo aboard that ship—sugar that we have bought in Cuba. If such arbitrariness is not stopped, you yourself realize what it can lead to.”]
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, USSR, Subjects, Khrushchev Correspondence, Vol. III-B, 9/15/62-10/24/62. No classification marking. The letter was delivered through the Soviet Embassy in Washington. The full text of this letter is printed in Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. VI, pp. 152–161.↩
- See footnote 1, Document 422.↩
- An apparent reference to the statement made by President Kennedy on September 13; see Document 429.↩
- See Document 422.↩