Telegram from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry to the Brazilian Embassy in Washington

SECRETARY OF STATE TO THE EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN

FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS WASHINGTON.

CONFIDENTIAL

DAS/Dor/DAC/DNU/DEA/600.(24h)

On 25 October 1962

Telegram No. …. To send

Index: Question of Cuba.

About the note of the Soviet government concerning the Cuban situation,  [Brazilian] Ambassador [in Moscow] Vasco Leitão da Cunha has the following commentaries: 1) it seems to me less firm [dura] than expected and certainly less firm than the pronouncement of President Kennedy; 2) he feels that the Soviets fear war more than the North-Americans; 3) at no point [does the Soviet government] specifically refute the North-American affirmation that it is sending an amount of offensive armament with Cuba, limiting itself to reiterating that the Cuban-Soviet accord of 3 September for defensive military help to Cuba continues in force [de pé]; 4) it does not say explicitly what this Government will do when the Soviet boats on route to Cuba are searched, limiting itself to the generic affirmation that such measures can have catastrophic effects for all of humanity; 5) before the extremely hard tone of the North-American note, the Government looked to [associate] itself, with evidently propagandistic proposals, in legal clashes [embates jurícos], such as the illegality of the blockade and the alleged violation of the UN Charter; 6) the presence of warlike offensive material in Cuba has an objective more political than military, to dramatize in the extreme the question of military bases on foreign territory, a question that until the present moment has not been raised with due account for vast segments of world opinion; 7) at no moment does the Soviet note establish a counterpart to the declaration of Kennedy in the sense that the attack of the United States against Cuba will be considered an attack of the United States against the USSR. Ambassador Vasco Leitão da Cunha informs that even if diplomats accredited here manifest apprehension on the measures announced yesterday by this government, it is making difficult a retreat for considerations of international prestige and national pride. Others yes, manifest apprehension before the fact of that about two tens of Soviet ships if find the way to Cuba. The decisive test of intentions of this Government will be given at the time of the review of the ships by the North-American war vessels, in order to put in practice the points announced by Kennedy. I request to give knowledge of this telegram to Ambassador Afonso Arinos.

EXTERIORES

[handwritten approvals indicate it was sent on the evening of 25 October 1962, after 9 p.m.]