184. Notes on the 479th Meeting of the National Security Council0
NOTES ON CUBAN CRISIS
[Here follow 6 pages of Bowlesʼ notes; see Documents 158 and 166.]
The climate is getting considerably better, and the emotional attitudes are falling back into line. If anyone had not attended the previous meetings, he would have thought the NSC meeting this morning had its share of fire and fury. However, it was in far lower key.
Ted Sorensen called me aside to say that he was glad I had said what I did, and Dick Goodwin called me to say I had shown great courage in the last few meetings and he was grateful for it.
At this stage plans continue for all kinds of harassment to punish Castro for the humiliation he has brought to our door. However, the general feeling is that all this should be handled carefully, that there should not be too much publicity, that attitudes of others should be taken into account.
There was a reference of making up a black list of those nations which had voted against us, such as Mexico and Brazil and of finding some means to punish them. I did not take this too seriously.
It was interesting to see a cablegram1 prepared as a result of the meeting, which misrepresented the entire mood of the meeting. The cablegram was prepared for our ambassadors in Latin America and would have dragged reluctant Latin American governments into a show of power and force against Castro, cutting off diplomatic relations, shutting off trade, and so forth.
I was rather startled when I saw the cable, particularly since it had already been initialed by Dean Rusk. However, I called Dean at home at 8:00 and told him I thought the cable totally misrepresented the meeting. He agreed that this was so, and I proceeded to have a first and last page written which showed the view of the President, asking the ambassadors to show great discretion, not to get any publicity, and that no government should be pushed or pulled into positions it was not prepared to take, and that the ambassadors should use their own judgments, avoiding reckless statements which would create the impression of the United States being a wobbly, uncertain, and vindictive power.
- Source: Yale University, Bowles Papers, Box 392, Folder 154. Personal. Prepared by Bowles who mistakenly dated this NSC meeting as having taken place on April 24.↩
- Bowles may have confused the results of the April 22 and the April 27 NSC meetings at this point. The “cablegram” under reference could be Document 171.↩