28. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union0
1537. Following is unofficial translation of message sent by Khrushchev and Brezhnev via commercial cable December 29 to President Kennedy:
“Dear Mr. President:
In these few last hours of the expiring 1961 we are sending to the people of the United States the sincerest wishes for peace and happiness in the new year and likewise our best wishes of personal happiness to you and to your entire family. Right now on the doorstep of the new year the nations live with new hope that the coming year will be such a threshold in the development of events when there will be undertaken efficient steps in the cause of liquidation of centers of military danger. There is no doubt that on the state of affairs in Soviet-American relations depends very much whether humanity will go towards peace or war. At the meeting in Vienna the President of the United States and Chairman of Ministers of the USSR agreed that history imposed a great responsibility on our peoples for the destinies of the world. The Soviet people regard the future optimistically. They express hope that in the coming new year our countries will be able to find ways towards closer cooperation, will be able to find a basis for concerted actions and efforts for the good of all humanity. On the part of the Soviet Union, as before, there will be no lack of resolution to do everything in its power in order to ensure durable and lasting peace on our planet.
N. Khrushchev
L. Brezhnev”
- Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204. Official Use Only; Priority. Another copy is in the Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series,USSR, Khrushchev Correspondence. Also printed in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States:John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 819. The transliterated Russian text is in Department of State, Central Files, 711.11-KE/12-2961.↩