Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962

55. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy⁰

Washington, March 10, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Cuba

I very much hope that your Saturday¹ meeting will consider the problem of launching a comprehensive campaign to acquaint the hemisphere with the facts of the Castro situation. Such a campaign would seem an indispensable preliminary to any hard decisions on Cuba.

The recent willingness of liberal leaders, like Betancourt of Venezue-la and Haya de la Torre of Peru, to condemn the Castro regime suggests that the time is ripe for a propaganda counter-offensive. A number of Latin Americans urged on me the importance of getting people to understand what has really happened in Cuba.

The campaign should consider the possibility of utilizing a variety of media through the hemisphere to make some sober points about the Castro regime—its Communist character, its provision of facilities to the USSR, its refusal to cooperate with the OAS, its intervention in the internal affairs of other republics, etc.

You might want to put together a group to look into this. I would suggest Berle, Murrow, Mann, Goodwin and myself.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

0. Source: Kennedy Library, Presidentʼs Office Files, Countries Series, Cuba, Security, 1961. Confidential.
1. March 11. See Document 59.