163. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Rostow) to President Kennedy0
SUBJECT
- The Problem We Face
1. Right now the greatest problem we face is not to have the whole of our foreign policy thrown off balance by what we feel and what we do about Cuba itself. We have suffered a serious setback; but that setback [Page 311] will be trivial compared to the consequences of not very soon regaining momentum along the lines which we have begun in the past three months.
[Here follows Rostowʼs assessment of the existing lines of U.S. foreign policy and his recommendations concerning reestablishing initiative and momentum.]
9. As for Cuba itself, I have little background and little wisdom. There are, evidently, three quite different threats which Cuba poses, which are now mixed up in our minds and in our policy. There is the military question of Communist arms and of a potential Soviet offensive base in Cuba. If we are not immediately to invade Cuba ourselves, we must decide whether we shall permit Castro, so long as he remains in power, to acquire defensive arms; and we must decide what the touchstones are between defensive arms and the creation of a Communist military base threatening to the U.S. itself. I assume that evidence of the latter we would take virtually as a cause of war, although we should bear in mind what the placing of missiles in Turkey looks like in the USSR. Second, there is the question of Cuba as a base for active infiltration and subversion in the rest of Latin America. Here, evidently, we must try to do more than we are now doing, and we should seek active hemispheric collaboration—wherever we can find it—in gathering and exchanging information on the networks involved and on counter-measures. This is, however, essentially a covert, professional operation. The more we talk about it—the more we overtly seek to pressure Latin American nations to join with us—the less likely we shall be able to get their cooperation in doing anything useful. Third, there is the simple ideological problem. Cuba is a Communist state, repressing every value we treasure. But on that ground alone we are prevented by our treaty obligations from acting directly and overtly. On the other hand, we are overtly also committed beyond sympathy to the support of those Cubans fighting for freedom. Here, how we proceed—what is to be done overtly and covertly—is a most searching question. I have no advice to give except this: Let there first be a first-class and careful intelligence evaluation of the situation inside Cuba, of Castroʼs control methods; of the nature and degree of dissidence of various groups; of recent trends and their pace; and an assessment of vulnerabilities.
10. As I said to the Attorney General the other day, when you are in a fight and knocked off your feet, the most dangerous thing to do is to come out swinging wildly. Clearly we must cope with Castro in the next several years—perhaps sooner, if he overplays his hand and gives us an acceptable legal and international basis. But short of that, we must think again clearly and cooly in the light of the facts as they are and are likely to be. We may emerge with a quite different approach to the Castro problem [Page 312] after such an exercise, or we may proceed with more of the same. But let us do some fresh homework.
11. In the meanwhile, what we must do is to build the foundation and the concepts, in Latin America, the North Atlantic Alliance, and the UN, which would permit us, next time round, to deal with the Cuban problem in ways which would not so grievously disrupt the rest of our total strategy.
[Here follows Rostowʼs recommendation that the President make a speech outlining “urgent action items” at home and abroad.]
- Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 65 A 3464, China-Cuba, 1961. Top Secret. A note on the source text reads: “For: Secretary McNamara and Mr. Gilpatric Only.”↩