r UNCLASSIFIED ------- _ DEPARTMENT OF STATE Memorandum of Conversation SECRET DATE November 2 1962 Meeting with Prime Minister Diefenbaker a ti VH e Aaeai eelie• -t p J v _ Munhant Dslrveted co Hhn s Copy of President Kennedy's Letter of October 22 Q1aaMR ng he Cuban Situation SUBJECT PARTICIPANTS Copies to - Prime Minister Diefenbaker Howard Green Secretary of State for External Affairs Dougla _ 2 ss Defense Minister · Ambassador_ Merchant 1 _ • _c • • • · ' · ' _ __ •• Ivan White Charge d 'affaires -r 0 • • Rolfe Kingsley Attache 1 _ __ i -v -2 _ _ · Mr Tidwe 11 Cl A TIUAAio ieR a _ t 1 t ✓- - - ' •·· EUR S S BNA 2 G IO ARA INR 2 sov _ · a_ ___1' _ o _ _ _ _ - i -__ ' • t I L f l c - The meeting was held at 5 00 p m on October 22 in the Cabinet Room adjoining the Prime Minister's office in the East Block It lasted about an hour and a half The Prime Minister had invited the Secretary of State for External Affairs Howard Green and Defense Minister Douglas Harkness to attend him Mr Robert Brice Secretary of the Cabinet Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Norman Robertson Chief of the Joint Staff Committee Air Marshal Frank Miller and Mr Mccardle Coordinator for Intelligence Matters in the Department of External Affairs waited in an anteroom througho t the meeting but at no time were brought into the room Ambassador Merchant was accompanied by Mr Ivan White Charge d'affaires Mr Rolfe Kingsley Attache of the U S Embassy Mr Tidwell and another technician from CIA At the outset the Prime Minister appeared harassed and worried Ambassador Merchant opened the conversation by saying that he had been personally dispatched by President Kennedy to inform the Prime Minister of certain extremely grave developments with respect to Cuba The evidence was now conclusive that Cuba was in the process of being transformed into an offensive base under the Soviets After a week of the ·· most serious and secret deliberations the President had decided upon a course of action which he would reveal in his televised speech at 7 00 p m to the American people The Ambassador went on to say that in light of the need for absolute secrecy normal channels of communication could not be used and that because of his desire that the Prime Minister be informed at the earliest possible moment it had been decided to send SECRET UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED c u - r c s ' c __P-- --- SECRET - 2 - send a personal emissary· Former Secretary of State Acheson had sunilarly been dispatched to Paris to inform General DeGaulle and the North Atlantic Council Prime Minister Macmillan and two or three other heads of government among our Allies were being similarly and concurrently informed The Ambassador concluded by saying that he had with him a draft of President Kennedy's speech which of course was still open to editorial changes and a personal letter from the President to the Prime Minister He said that he had with him certain photographs which would reveal some of the evidence on which the President has reached his decision and he emphasized that the Soviet action had grave implications for the entire Western Hemisphere including Canada and the entire free world since i t represented the clandestine intrusion of strategic nuclear weapons into the Western Hemisphere Moreover Mr Gromyko's denial personally to the President the previous Thursday and Mr Khrushchev's similar denial to Ambassador Kohler in Moscow a few days earlier that the Soviets were doing what it was now clear they were doing was subject to an ominous interpretation The Ambassador then handed the Prime Minister the President's message which he read hastily and passed to his two cabinet colleagues The Prime Minister then asked somewhat brusquely what were the main points of the President's speech The Ambassador said that he thought the visual evidence might usefully be presented at this ti me but the Prime Minister insisted After briefly summarizing the main points of the speech the Ambassador read the text of the speech aloud In various interruptions the Prime Minister inquired whether the quarantine would include airplanes He was told this was under continuing consideration and not excluded but that it was not applicable under the terms of the President's speech He then asked how the United-States Government could invoke a quarantine before presenting the matter to the United Nations The Ambassador replied that time was of the essence as the photographic evidence would show and that the United States in its own interest and that of the entire free world could not t-rook delay once the situation had been assessed by the President and a course of action decided The Prime SECRET UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED SECRET - 3The Prime Minister inquired what the attitude of the United Kingdom would be to the quarantine or blockade and the accompanying search of ships on the high seas in view of its traditional policy of freedom of the seas Mr Merchant answered that on the grounds of principle one could not expect the British to particularly like this form of action but that he was satisfied more important considerations would be controlling in the British response to this threat Whi le 1 rnbassador Merchant was reading the draft of the President's message the Prime Minister expressed a strong reaction to the sentence in the speech which referred to the President's conversation wi th Gromyko the previous Thursday and in draft form read 11 That statement also was dishonest and dishonorable Mr Diefenbaker said this language was U1mecess2 ry an i provocative and was tantamount to the severance of diplomatic relations Defense Minister Harkness said that he took it that the implementation of the quarantine would involve the boarding of vessels He inquired what about submarines 11 • Mr Harkness suggested that warheads could be brought in by this means Mr Merchant replied that he had no specific knowledge as to the intended action against submarines bt1t that he confidently assumed that the U S Navy was competent to deal effectively with any possible transport of nuclear warheads by sea Mr Ti dwell pointed out that the approaches to all Cuban harbors capable of receiving such cargo was so shallow as to make it a reasonable assumption that submarines could be intercepted on the surface External Affairs Minister Green referred to the President's statements of September 4 ax1d 13 and observed that we were now jumping from one position to another He inquired why the change was so rapid Mr Green also inquired as to how we knew that there were so many strategic missiles in Cuba Ambassador Merchant said that the President's speech i n relation to his earlier statements in September reflected a momentous change in the position and that Mr Green's quest on3 would SECRET UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED SECRET - 4 - would be answered when he studied the photographs At this point a background intelligence briefing was given including visual presentation The Prime Minister wanted to know when the earliest ground reportu of strategic missiles in Cuba had been received The nature timing etc of various refugee and agents' reports was explained to him The Prime Minister scrutinized all of the photographs with special reference to the dates when they had been taken and inquired whether we had any photographs before October 15 of the missile bases Mr Green raised the question and was answered as to which bases had 1000 nautical mile range missiles and which ones had 2000 mile missiles The Prime Minister asked if the Unit d States planned to stop the suspected missile ship Poltava He was given an affirmative answer Mr Harkness inquired whether the vessels would be boarded forcibly He was told the quarantine would be effective whether or not it encountered resistance At this point the Prime Minister reverted to the language in the draft characterizing Gromyko's statement and said that it was a provocation to war after 24 hours The Prime Minister then said Canada was prohibiting overflights of Soviet planes but there was a legal question in connection with Czech and Polish planes because of the fact that they were members of the ICAO Convention Mr Green confirmed this The Prime Minister then commented that with the speech there would be panic and inquired what is the reaction to the speech going to be The Ambassador replied that there was not the slightest doubt in his mind that the reaction of the American people to the President's speech would be calm and resolute rrhe Prime Minister then added he didn't like the words dishonest and dishonorable Gromyko was in much the same position as the two Japanese before Pearl Harbor The Prime M inister went on to inquire why the President had not confronted Gromyko with the evidence of the missile bases on the occasion of the Thursday meeting Green commented that Gromyko may not have known Ambassador SECRET UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED SECRET - 5- Ambassador Merchant said that naturally he could not say exactly what was in the President 1s mind in not facing Gromyko with the evidence but that it should be borne in mind that the evidence was accumulating photographically from day to day and that it was his impression that the evidence was not ccnsi dered incontrovertible until the following day or even two days after Gromyko's call He also poiI1ted out that the President had been in communication with Khruschev and that a further message had been sent to Khruschev this very day Mr Diefenbaker after inquiring as to when the Presi dent 1s message was delivered to Khrushchev and after commenting that he was himself a politician said let us face facts an election h on in the United States that he could understand that the President might find bis speech to be politically helpful but that the quarantine was dangerous and a threat to Allies of the United States The United States was not only informing the Soviet Union of what it lmew it was challenging the Soviet Union The Ambassador said that it was unthinkable and inconceivable that the President was influenced in any way by domestic political considerations Mr Diefenbaker whose attitude during the discussion and following the photographs had been gradually changing at this point seemed to have swung around from his original skepticism bordering on antagonism to a more considered friendly and cooperative manner Reflective of this the Prime Minister then said that the President's speech on the whole was temperate except for the statement characterizing Gromyko which he considered provocative These words were ill-timed and they shocked him Mr Merchant said that he would urgently communicate to the White House the Prime Minister's reaction to this phrase as soon as he returned to the Embassy Mr Green inquired why the United States did not go to the Security Council first he understood that the American people had to be Wormed but why not the Security Council before taking action on a blockade The Ambassador SECRET 'i UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIEDc u rr SECRET - 6 - The Ambassador said that in light of the seriousness of _the development and its suddenness the President owed his first duty to the American people Mr Harkness inquired as to the reaction of the American people to the speech would they not demand an invasion The Ambassador said that he had not the slightest doubt that the American people would wholeheartedly support and follow the President and he said he foresaw no possibility of the President being placed under or succumb to public pressures to go beyond what he felt was right The Prime Minister observed that we were moving into a highly emotional period and said it wasn 1t clear to him li ow the blockade would remove the threat of the missiles already in Cuba that you would live in constant fear if those already there remained Green thought it would be no problem to get inspectors for at-site inspection Harkness inquired 11 when 11 • Mr Harkness thought that a general war would be less likely with an invasion of Cuba than with a blockade stopping iviet ships In general discussion replies were given at length to these and certain other questions which were raised The Prime Minister commented that the speech would arouse the American people He asked Ambassador Merchant to communicate one thing to the President for him 11 the two words dishonest and dishonorable were most challenging and provocative They should come out 11 This was the only thing in the President 1s address to which he objected Mr Green added that without these words the onus would be on Gromyko The meeting then began to break up and at its conclusion Ambassador Merchant was under the impression that Mr Green had been less shocked and less vocal than wo1ll d be expected that Mr Harkness was cheered by the decisiveness of the President's course of action and fully supported it 'ld that the Prime Minister was sobered and upset but that his earlier doubts had been dissipated and in the end he would give strong support to the United States It was interesting however that at no SECRET UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED SE CR ET - 7 - at no point des pit e pointe d que stio ns did he ma ke a com mi tm ent thi s reg ard j n Th e Pr im e Mi nis ter Me rch ant 1s specic l tri p andexp res sed his app rec iat ion for Am bas sad or cla rit y of his int ell ige nce als o com pli me nte d Mr Tidwell on the ing in the ant ero om would bri efi ng It wa s arr ang ed tha t tho se wa itPr im e Mi nister wa s als o be given an int ell ige nce bri efi ng The mi ssi on wa s sec ret up unttold tha t wh ere as Am bas sad or Me rch ant 's the re wa s no nee d the rea il the tim e when the Pre sid en t spoke wa s at lib ert y to pub lic izefte r to hide it and tha t the Pri me Mi nis ter rev eal thi s me tho d of com it if he thought it would be helpful to munication LT M jm r SE CR ET UNCLASSIFIED