Cable from Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko to USSR Ambassador to Cuba A.I. Alekseev (2)

You should visit F. Castro and, after reference to these instructions, tell him the following.

Currently there is a lessening in military tension created around Cuba. But on the diplomatic field we have to accomplish a crucial stage in order to consolidate the achieved success and to bind the Americans by commitments ensuing from the exchange of messages between N.S. Khrushchev and Kennedy and F. Castro's statement of 28 October.

We consider that under current conditions we and you should display self-restraint in our official declarations and statements and also in the press, in order to not to give the aggressors a pretext to blame our side for irreconcilability and intractability. We must hold to a firm, but constructive stand. We would like it to be taken into account in your statements, too. It would be good if you in your appearances underline Cuba's readiness to normalize diplomatic and economic relations with the USA and countries of Latin America. It should also be repeated what you have declared more than once about Cuba's devotion to the cause of peace, to the UN principles, among them non-interference of states into the internal affairs of each other.

All of this is needed, of course, not for the aggressors' ears, but for international public opinion.
Telegraph the implementation of these instructions.

31.X.62 A. GROMYKO

[Source: Archive of Foreign Policy, Russian Federation (AVP RF), Moscow; copy obtained by NHK (Japanese Television), provided to CWIHP, and on file at National Security Archive, Washington, D.C.; translation by Vladimir Zaemsky.]