146. Editorial Note
On September 10, 1961, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, a columnist for The New York Times who had been in Moscow to interview Khrushchev, sent a letter to President Kennedy with an enclosed message from the Soviet Chairman. Sulzberger apologized for cutting Ambassador Thompson out of the chain, but stated that he had informed him about the message. Sulzberger told the President that Khrushchev had given him the message on September 5 and adjured him that it was off-the-record. The message reads as follows:
“If you are personally in a position to meet President Kennedy, I wish you would tell him that I would not be loath to establishing some sort of informal contact with him to find a means of settling the crisis without damaging the prestige of the United States—but on the basis of a German peace treaty and a free city of West Berlin.
“The President might say what is in his mind concerning ways of solving the problem—if he agrees in principle with the peace treaty and a free city. Otherwise, there is no use in contacts.
“If he does wish some settlement he could, through informal contacts, voice his opinion on various forms and stages and on how to prepare public opinion and not endanger the prestige of the United States or Mr. Kennedy.” (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 77 D 163; also printed in Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants, pages 801-802)
For Sulzberger’s account of the interview with Khrushchev and the transmission of the message to Kennedy, see ibid., pages 788-805.
On September 23 Pierre Salinger met with Mikhail A. Kharlamov, Soviet Foreign Ministry Press Chief, in New York. Kharlamov asked [Page 402] whether Sulzberger had delivered Khrushchev’s message, and when Salinger could not confirm delivery, repeated the message. For Salinger’s account of this meeting and the subsequent discussion of Khrushchev’s correspondence with the President, see With Kennedy, pages 191-194. On September 24 Salinger sent both Kennedy and Secretary of State Rusk a memorandum describing his meeting with Kharlamov. (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 77 D 163)