Telegram from the Brazilian Embassy in Washington (Campos), 5 p.m., Wednesday

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL RELATIONS

TELEGRAM

RECEIVED

12.698

FROM THE EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON

ON/24/24/X/62

CONFIDENTIAL—EXTREMELY URGENT

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

Question of Cuba.

781 – WEDNESDAY – 1700hs – Disconnected rumors continue about the possible Russian reaction. As for the negative aspects aggravating the tension, one can cite the refusal of Fidel Castro to accept inspection and the declaration of [Soviet Ambassador Valerian] Zorin in the Security Council that not one nation that is respected would tolerate interference with its ships. The journalistic speculation is divided into three courses: (A) that the Russian navies have received orders to continue on route, creating naval incidents with the Americans; (B) that the navies have been held on the high sea, awaiting the protection of the Soviet fleet; (C) that they are making preparations for an invasion of Cuba. There is not, however, any authorized indication of the Soviet reaction to the quarantine that is initiated today, at the 10 hours, except the suggestion of Khrushchev, in his letter to Bertrand Russell, that the Soviet Union will not take hurried measures and would favor a summit meeting. There is an urgent necessity for creative formulas that, avoiding humiliation for both sides, reduces the tension. I return, for this reason, to suggest the possibility that the Latin Americans and the Africans present immediately in the UN, where Venezuela, Chile, the UAR [Egypt] and Ghana are seated on the Security Council, a proposal for the denuclearization of Latin America and Africa under UN inspection. In case the question by virtue of a veto in the [S]ecurity Council, it can pass to the General Assembly, where Brazil itself could lead [capitanear] the pro-denuclearization movement, certainly all of Latin America and the neutral world would combine, with perhaps the exception of the UAR, given the nuclear program of Nasser. In this hypothesis, the naval inspection would pass from American hands to an international force and maybe, still later [it may be] possible to persuade Fidel Castro to accept the inspection on Cuban territory. A subsidiary hypothesis would be the denuclearization as well of the Middle East, that taking in Israel and … the abandonment of NATO’s nuclear installations in Turkey, today already considered obsolete. These measurements represent a smaller price to pay for world peace than concessions in Berlin, where the allied position is irreducible, and in Formosa, where it can become more difficult, [in view of--dada] the Chinese aggressiveness in relation to India.

ROBERTO DE OLIVEIRA CAMPOS