230. Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Senator Richard Russell1
President: Dick?
Russell: Yes sir.
President: These folks, I met with them this morning, after theyʼd had the night to think it over, and they havenʼt got any ideas, or any plans, or any program or anything, except Bobby Kennedy says turn the seamen loose and hold the boats. They want to put out a little statement that weʼd give them 24 hours to turn the water on, and if we didnʼt, weʼd supply our own water. I told them to hell with that, that was too innocuous to say that we would. I wanted to give them a list of alternatives, and for them to work on them during the day, and talk to the Joint Chiefs, which they had had a meeting, but they were fuzzy, they didnʼt know what to do. They thought we ought to move some [Page 572] Marines from the west coast, and I told them to get back in that meeting. Then I told McNamara to call you this afternoon before our next meeting which will be at 4:30, about 3:00 to call you and go over with you the alternatives because I valued your judgment, and then your feel of the public pulse too, and the sentiment of the Congress and all of it wrapped up in one. And to exchange viewpoints with you, give you his viewpoint and get yours before he comes to the meeting. So heʼs got a little guts, heʼs the only one in the meeting that does, he and Tom Mann have a little.
Russell: I ainʼt as bent on bloodshed and warfare right now down there as some of the people probably are, Mr. President. Of course, I donʼt think we can afford just to take a cringing position.
President: No, what, we, best thing that I could suggest to them after they had met from 9 to 10 before I joined them. I suggested to them that they conceive every act that we could take and that we come back this afternoon and we say we had a contract with this company which has been nationalized by Castro that Castro has violated and in effect, cancelled, and therefore, weʼre going to make our base independent of Cuba. Weʼre not, we canʼt rely on him for water, and we canʼt rely on him for anything else. We know that heʼs got 3,000 employees there and weʼre going to staff the thing ourselves, weʼre going to furnish our own water ourselves. And weʼre going to make this a base thatʼs independent, and we not only intend to operate independently, but we intend to operate it period. And maybe anything else that they can think of that we could do. We go to searching ships, why thatʼs an act of war, although weʼre trying to get Venezuela to ask us to come into their waters and inspect some of these shipments. Weʼre trying to get the OAS to ask us to go in and do it, but that takes time and we canʼt do it today. And theyʼre going to expect their government to react today. And my guess is the best reaction we can have today is to say that weʼre going to operate this base independent of him, weʼre going to furnish our own water. Weʼre going to furnish our own people. Weʼre going to cut him off about 7 or 8 million dollars a year in cash, that weʼre financing him. I told them to get ahold of Khrushchev and tell him that this manʼs playing a mighty dangerous game with his marbles. I told him to tell the British and tell the French that this is a serious matter with us and that they just want to keep siccing them on and egging them on, theyʼre going to get our people in such shape that weʼre going to have a pretty difficult time operating with them. I told them letʼs not say in one hand weʼre going to cut down on our shipments to Castro and then ship him $7 million a year ourselves in cash for his people, even though some of these people are good people. Letʼs just let them go on back to Cuba and find jobs over there. Let him feed them out of Russian money. Letʼs donʼt feed them ourselves and let them be taking this cash back every night. And I think those two steps—
[Page 573]Russell: The most important one of all is the manner in which that message will be relayed to Khrushchev. It should be made perfectly clear to him that this man is irrational and that there will be limits to our patience, and if he keeps on that weʼll have no alternative but to take some very affirmative steps there. And that it would be very tragic if he were to support a man who would be doing things to us that he would not tolerate himself. Under the same conditions. So I hope they make that perfectly clear to him. Remind him of Hungary a little bit while theyʼre talking to him.
President: Can you think of anything else that can be done? Does that appear to be enough to show them that we are firm and decisive, that we are going to supply our own water, that we are going to supply our own people, and weʼre getting rid of them?
Russell: I suppose so. Thereʼll be some criticism of course.
President: Oh hell, The New York Times—
Russell: Oh, The New York Times will support you on that.
President: No, The New York Times donʼt want us to take a dime away from them. They think we ought to be feeding Cuba. So will The Washington Post.
Russell: No, I donʼt think theyʼll go that far.
President: Damn near it. Theyʼll say youʼre being punitive, and youʼre penalizing these poor people. Now I donʼt think we ought to do it for that reason. I think the public reason ought to be that weʼve got to have our people and we got to be secure, and we got to be independent. And their people are not dependable if their waterʼs not dependable.
Russell: There are about 2 or 3,000 of those people that live on our base there.
President: 500. And thereʼre 3,000 that work.
Russell: Well, Iʼd make it perfectly clear, that those 500 if they wanted to sever their Cuban nationality, and not go back, that Iʼd keep them there, and theyʼd spend their money on the base.
President: Now can you think of anything else?
Russell: Not right now, no sir.
President: Does that appear to you to be enough?
Russell: Well—
President: Weʼve got to be firm.
Russell: Not much more we can do. Itʼs more in the way you say it and word it than anything else. It could be worded one way where it wouldnʼt sound like itʼd be enough. It could be worded in another way and sound like itʼs a very firm statement. And Iʼm sure that your boys down there can do that.
[Page 574]President: What do you think we ought to tell them while weʼre waiting for these other things?
Russell: Tell them weʼre analyzing any steps that might be taken to fully protect American rights in the Guantanamo base.
President: Now you know they got them in that little 10 foot square cell down there and no bunks and all that kind of stuff. I told them I thought they ought to try to treat them decently and humanitarianly, because I donʼt think that does us any good to have them locked up in a ten foot cell and giving them no food or no place to sleep. Stuff like that.
Russell: You mean with the ones that donʼt go back?
President: No, these 28 fishermen that Floridaʼs got. I think itʼs a damn fool thing to pick them up. What they ought to have done, Coast Guard ought to tell them to get the hell out of here, and let them out instead of turning them over to Florida. They been fishing there up till the last few years, constantly, nobody bothered them.
Russell: Itʼs too late now. You canʼt afford to turn them loose right now, look like youʼre surrendering to Castroʼs demands.
President: Yes, I think thatʼs right. The only thing we got is we seize the ship and fine them $500. I donʼt think itʼs good to try to starve them to death.
Russell: Oh no. No, I wouldnʼt do that. Iʼd treat them just like they treat their own prisoners.
President: Well, I guess they treat their own prisoners in Florida, I guess that way. They got no bunk in this county jail down there in this place in Florida, Key West. Theyʼve got no bunks in the cell.
Russell: Is that right?
President: Yeah. Hell, yes. They treat them like we treated drunks in Texas.
Russell: [laughter] Well I expect to hear from McNamara then this afternoon, Mr. President.
President: All right. Bye. Thank you.
- Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of telephone conversation between President Johnson and Senator Richard Russell, Tape F64.11, Side B, PNO 2. No classification marking. President Johnson placed the call. This transcript was prepared in the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume.↩