40 GERALD P. FOGARTY
ment may be reached more quickly. If you also select your people
and give them the corresponding instructions, then this question
can be quickly resolved.
Why would I like to do this? Because the whole world is now
apprehensive and expects sensible actions of us. The greatest joy for
all peoples would be the announcement of our agreement and of the
eradication of the controversy that has arisen. I attach great impor-
tance to this agreement insofar as it could serve as a good begin-
ning and could in particular make it easier to reach agreement on
banning nuclear weapons tests. The question of the tests could be
solved in parallel fashion, without connecting one with the other,
because these are different issues. However, it is important that
agreement be reached on both these issues so as to present human-
ity with a fine gift, and also to gladden it with the news that agree-
ment has been reached on the cessation of nuclear tests and that
consequently the atmosphere will no longer be poisoned. Our posi-
tion and yours on this issue are very close together. 28The White House was now thrown into confusion between Khru-
shchev’s two letters.
On October 27, after prolonged discussion, Kennedy opted to
respond only to the first letter and ignore the one containing the
demand that the Jupiter missiles be removed from Turkey. The lat-
ter was a move that Kennedy himself had actually proposed sever-
al months earlier, since the weapons were in fact already obsolete
and could be replaced by Polaris submarines. Once the missiles
were removed from Cuba, the president wrote, the United States
would lift the quarantine and give its assurances against any inva-
sion of Cuba.29
On October 28, Khrushchev accepted Kennedy’s terms, but not
without providing a long list of grievances that Cuba had against
- Chang and Kornbluh, eds., Cuban Missile Crisis, 197–99. For providing me
with the interpretation that the plea for negotiations was a deviation from Soviet
policy, I am grateful to William Burgess, who also provided the translations from
Pravda. - Kennedy to Khrushchev, October 27, 1962, in ibid., 223–25.