Office of the Historian

81. Message From President Kennedy to Chairman Khrushchev0

Washington, November 21, 1962.

Dear Mr. Chairman: I have been glad to get your letter of November 20,1 which arrived in good time yesterday. As you will have seen, I was able to announce the lifting of our quarantine promptly at my press conference, on the basis of your welcome assurance that the IL-28 bombers will be removed within a month.

I am now instructing our negotiators in New York to move ahead promptly with proposals for a solution of the remaining elements in the Cuban problem. I do not wish to confuse the discussion by trying to state our present position in detail in this message, but I do want you to know that I continue to believe that it is important to settle this matter promptly and on reasonable terms, so that we may move on to other issues. I regret that you have been unable to persuade Mr.Castro to accept a suitable form of inspection or verification in Cuba, and that in consequence we must continue to rely upon our own means of information. But, as I said yesterday,2 there need be no fear of any invasion of Cuba while matters take their present favorable course.3

  1. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 77 D 163. Confidential. Another copy is in the Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, USSR, Khrushchev Correspondence. Also printed in Claflin, The President Wants To Know, p. 222.↩
  2. Document 79.↩
  3. In a statement at his press conference on November 20; for text, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962, pp. 461-463.↩
  4. Printed from an unsigned copy.↩