207. Editorial Note

On October 16, while on Cape Cod, President Kennedy wrote a long and personal letter to Soviet Chairman Nikita S. Khrushchev. This letter was part of an ongoing informal correspondence between the two leaders. At Khrushchev’s suggestion, the correspondence was kept wholly private and not to be disclosed in public statements or to the press. Kennedy assured the Chairman that the contents and even the existence of these letters would be known only to his Secretary of State and a few of his other closest associates in the government. The purpose of the correspondence was to exchange views on an informal and personal basis. Most of Kennedy’s letter of October 16 concerned Berlin, but he concluded with a short segment on Laos which reads as follows:

“At the same time, however, our attention is urgently needed on those current problems which keep the world poised on the brink of war. The situation in Laos is one example. Indeed I do not see how we can expect to reach a settlement on so bitter and complex an issue as Berlin, where both of us have vital interests at stake, if we cannot come to a final agreement on Laos, which we have previously agreed should be neutral and independent after the fashion of Burma and Cambodia. I do not say that the situation in Laos and the neighboring area must be settled before negotiations begin over Germany and Berlin; but certainly it would greatly improve the atmosphere.

“It is now clear that Prince Souvanna Phouma will become the new Prime Minister if an agreement can be reached. But the composition of his government is far from settled, and without assuming either the knowledge or the power to select individual men for individual posts, you and I do have an obligation if we are to reach our goal to continue, in your words, ‘using our influence on the corresponding quarters in Laos’ to make certain that Souvanna Phouma is assisted by the kind of men we believe necessary to meet the standard of neutrality. That standard is not met if the eight posts assigned to Souvanna are filled in a manner which heavily weights the scales in favor of one side or the other.

“As you note, the withdrawal of foreign troops from the territory of Laos is an essential condition to preserving that nation’s independence and neutrality. There are other, similar conditions, and we must be certain that the ICC has the power and the flexibility to verify the existence of these conditions to the satisfaction of everyone concerned.

“In addition to so instructing your spokesmen at Geneva, I hope you will increasingly exercise your influence in this direction on all of your ‘corresponding quarters’ in this area; for the acceleration of attacks on South Viet-Nam, many of them from within Laotian territory, are a very grave threat to peace in that area and to the entire kind of world-wide [Page 474] accommodation you and I recognize to be necessary. If a new round of measures and counter-measures, force and counter-force, occurs in that corner of the globe, there is no foretelling how widely it may spread. So I must close, as I opened, by expressing my concern over where current events are taking us.” (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 77 D 163)

Kennedy was responding to a September 29 letter from Khrushchev to him, in which Khrushchev accused the United States of trying to dictate the personnel of the Souvanna government. Khrushchev wrote, “let the three princes decide the question.” Khrushchev also suggested that if the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on the principle of non-interference in the affairs of Laos, Souvanna could quickly form a government. Finally, Khrushchev expressed satisfaction that he and Kennedy were “of the same opinion as to the need for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the territory of Laos.” Khrushchev informed the President that he had given instructions to the Soviet Delegates “in the spirit of the ideas described above,” and hoped Kennedy would do likewise. (Ibid.)

The texts of all the Kennedy-Khrushchev messages are printed in volume VI.