Office of the Historian

292. Memorandum From Gordon Chase of the National Security Council Staff to the Presidentʼs Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1

Washington, December 15, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • Che Guevara and Lisa Howard
1.
I have talked to John Crimmins about the Che Guevara approach. He and Tom Mann are very interested to hear what Guevara wants to say to us if, in fact, he does want to say something to us. (I told State that I thought that this could be a Lisa-generated2 operation but that the odds are probably 7–5 that Guevara, in fact, would like to talk to us; whether he would say anything to us that we donʼt already know is another matter.)
2.
The mechanics of talking to Guevara is the tough part. He is a real center of attention in New York (e.g. police, crowds) and it would be extremely awkward to try to get together with him privately. In addition, my own very strong view is that we should keep Lisa Howard out of it as a middleman; among many other considerations, Lisa is so subjectively wound up in rapprochement that one would never know what Guevara is saying and what Lisa is interpreting.
3.
JOHN and I agreed tentatively on the following outline.
(a)
If Lisa Howard calls me back, I will simply tell her that I have nothing to tell her and will let her know if and when I do.
(b)
JOHN will explore with selected people in State the possibility and desirability of having a USUN type (maybe Yost) “fall in front of” Tabio, who is the Cuban ambassador to the UN, and say (1) that we understand from a newspaper source that Che wants to say something to us, and (2) is this true? If the answer is affirmative, we can then decide what to do. The main problem is to ascertain the truth—e.g. [Page 699] whether Che really has something to say to us or whether this is Lisa Howard building bridges. Somewhere along the line, our man would also indicate that, if it is true that the Cubans want to talk to us, we prefer not to talk through unofficial third parties.
GC
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Cuba, Contacts with Cuban Leaders, 5/63–4/65. Top Secret; Eyes Only.↩
  2. Lisa Howard of the American Broadcasting Company had a 10-hour interview with Fidel Castro on April 22, 1963, and wrote an article in the September 1963 issue of War/Peace Report, entitled “Castroʼs Overture,” stressing Castroʼs expressed desire for reaching an accommodation with the United States and his willingness to make substantial concessions to this end. She subsequently made numerous calls to Cuban and NSC officials, attempting to facilitate a rapprochement; see Document 240.↩