Telegram from Soviet Ambassador to the USA A. Dobrynin to USSR Foreign Ministry (2)

[first page of two-page document is missing from copy obtained by CWIHP--ed.]

[...Dobrynin] expressed the hope, in accordance with the letter sent by N.S. Khrushchev, that the USA would renounce the quarantine without waiting for the introduction of a supplementary procedure for inspecting ships, and so on.
Robert Kennedy has said that this issue does not represent any difficulties. The important thing for us now (he implied that he was talking about public opinion, rather than the thoughts of the President himself), is to have some confirmation, from the UN for example, that the Soviet bases are being dismantled, and that the corresponding missile weaponry is being removed.

We and the USA government have essentially two possible courses of actions in this matter: first, to carry out reconnaissance flights over Cuba. But this entails the danger that the Cubans (he emphasized the Cubans, and not the Russians) may shoot down an American plane, and thus a possible new and highly undesirable chain reaction of events in the Cuban affair would be unleashed.

The second course of action is to get from the UN some information on the dismantling of the bases. The government of the USA could then be satisfied with this as a prerequisite for lifting the quarantine. Robert Kennedy emphasized that he was not yet prepared to talk about the details of this whole affair, since the President did not yet have any information on the results of U Thant's trip. Within an hour, said Robert Kennedy, a government meeting would take place in which this issue would be examined. He promised in the event of an emergency to get in touch with me directly, or, if this occurs during my trip to New York to meet with [CPSU CC Politburo member] A.I. Mikoyan, through Stevenson and Kuznetsov.

Robert Kennedy emphasized that the point was not that they do not trust our information on this account, but rather the question of how to present this whole affair to the public opinion of the USA in connection with the earlier statements offered by the President. It was felt that he had been somewhat worried by how Fidel Castro might hinder the carrying out of the agreement that had been reached.

1.XI.62 A. DOBRYNIN

[Source: AVP RF; copy obtained by NHK, provided to CWIHP, and on file at National Security Archive, Washington, D.C.; translation by John Henriksen, Harvard University.]