629. Telegram From the Embassy in Cuba to the Department of State1
2651. Revolutionary press this morning carries identical banner headlines “Yankee Invasion Imminent”, with sub-head that Foreign Office Minister Roa had departed during night to New York to denounce attack.2 Press stories state that information received by government from creditable sources indicates that plan is being hatched to provoke invasion by US Marines. Pentagon and CIA are accused of developing plan with approval of President Eisenhower who is charged with deciding to use last few days his administration to intervene in Cuba and turn over fait accompli to new administration. Danger of invasion said to extend from today until January 18. As [Page 1191] evidence of invasion press cites following: (1) Announcement by Peru that it had broken diplomatic relations with Cuba; (2) statement by Uruguayan President Nardone that his government studying possibility of expelling Cuban diplomatic mission and following footsteps of Peru; (3) AP despatch from Caracas reporting that President Betancourt had decided not to recognize new Cuban Chargé d’Affaires; (4) Prensa Latina story that American Embassy in Habana had called all Americans (residents and tourists) to meeting in Embassy at 10 a.m. December 31 to give them a “very important piece of news”. Articles state that certainty of danger led Revolutionary Government to dispatch Roa to New York immediately to denounce the plot before UN and mobilize world public opinion against imminent invasion.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611. 37/12–3160. Official Use Only; Niact. Repeated to USUN.↩
- For extracts from Roa’s December 31 letter to the President of the U. N. Security Council, in which he requested an immediate meeting of the Security Council to discuss ways to prevent “armed units of the United States” from violating Cuban sovereignty, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, pp. 250–251.↩