Telegram from Polish Embassy in Havana (Jeleń), 9 November 1962

Secret

Of Special Significance

Making copies is prohibited

Ciphergram No. 16482

Dispatched from Havana on 11.09.1962 and it was received at 11.09 at 13:15

Came to the Decoding Department at 11.09 at 13:20

TO: Krajewski

From: Ambassador JELEN

Politburo

Czesak¹

[??]

Siedlecki

Here are some elements of the overall propaganda with regards to the current crisis:

The public opinion is being mobilized around Fidel’s 5 points; they have a world opinion behind them and the actions in Latin America, especially the sabotage in Venezuela.

Those foreign statements, which approve of Soviet actions during the crisis, are being omitted in the press, but at the same time they are also avoiding to print those statements which would put the Soviet Union in negative light. They only printed a succinct summary of Kosygin’s statement, emphasizing only the sentence of Soviet support and aid to Cuba; as far as [Soviet defense minister Rodion] Malinovski’s statement, they only printed the part which condemns the aggressive moves of the US; both statements are wholly lacking in the assessment of the whole crisis. They have printed a large report according to AP and UPI of Khrushchev’s statement at the Kremlin and the full text of a letter to Mikoyan. There is no mention of comrade Gomulka’s article. As far as comrade [Polish Premier Josef] Cyrankiewicz’s speech, they only briefly mentioned the part on the collapse of the colonial system. There is no mention of [Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos] Peter’s interview for the MTI. As far as the information given by the Xinhua agency, they published only those parts of statements and declarations supporting the elements of [Castro’s] 5 points.

The celebration of 7 November [October Revolution] was much more extensive than in previous years and evidently exposed the aid of the USSR [to Cuba]. The speech of C.R. Rodriguez at the central academy did not broach the details of the crisis, but it contained a series of allusions to the divergences between the USSR and Cuba, including issues like principles in politics, condemning the weakness, the equality between both big and small countries, [and] peace attained under conditions of maintaining dignity.

[1] Józef Czesak, the head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party.