SOVIET EFFORTS TO EVADE UN VERIFICATION OF REMOVAL OF MISSILES FROM CUBA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R001800020046-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: November 6, 1962
• Content Type: IM

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
6 November 1962
NGA Review
completed.
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CURRENT INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Soviet Efforts to Evade UN Verification of
Removal of Missiles from Cuba
1. Soviet statements and actions during the
past several days strongly suggest that the USSR is
making a major effort to load the missiles aboard
Soviet ships and remove them from Cuba as quickly as
possible before any UN verification and inspection
machinery can be organized and put into effect.
The Soviets clearly hope, in any event, to hold the
UN operation to the absolute minimum. Moscow, in
effect, is again attempting to confront the US with
a fait accompli.
2. Soviet UN delegate Morozov told UN Secretariat
officials on 5 November that dismantling of the missile
sites will be completed and that all offensive weapons
will have been shipped out of Cuba by 12 November. He
said some Soviet ships are already in Cuban ports and
that the others required to complete the removal will
arrive this week. He argued that, in view of this
schedule, there is no reason for continuing the Red
Cross inspection system (which still has not been
organized) beyond 15 November.
3. About half of the missile transporters and
launching equipment previously identified at the MRBM
sites now have appeared in Cuban ports.
11 MRBM missile transporters at the port of ariel
have been loaded on the decks of Soviet ships in the
harbor, and one of the ships is apparently leaving
port. The USSR thus appears to be shipping missiles
from Cuba without waiting for ships capable of carrying
them below deck.
State Department review completed
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4. When this process of removal has been completed,
Khrushchev may well announce to the world that he has
carried out his commitments to President Kennedy. He
will then call on the President to respond by issuing
a formal declaration guaranteeing Cuba against invasion
by the US and other Western Hemisphere countries. The
Soviet leaders would undoubtedly hope that these moves
will effectively undercut US insistence on UN on-site
inspection of the missile sites and weapons being re-
moved by Soviet ships. They may believe that such a
Soviet announcement, possibly accompanied by the pub-
lication of photographs purportedly establishing "proof"
of Soviet performance, will deprive the issue of
inspection and verification of its force and immediacy
and that the US will then have no choice but to accept
Soviet "good faith" in having made good on Khrushchev's
commitments. The Soviet leaders probably would also
believe these moves would put them in a strong position
to charge the US with "bad faith" if the President
should decline to give formal assurances against an
invasion of Cuba on the ground that Khrushchev had
failed to carry out his pledge to accept UN verifica-
tion. Moscow's reply to this probably would be that
the USSR had every intention of allowing full UN veri-
fication but that the adamant opposition of the
"sovereign and independent" government of Cuba made
it impossible to put these arrangements into operation.
5. In a further effort to "document" the USSR's
good faith in implementing its pledges, Moscow may
make public the alternative plan which Kuznetsov pre-
sented to Mr. McCloy on 4 November, under which the
Soviets would provide the US with photographs of dis-
mantled missiles sites, give the US the Soviet schedule
for moving the missiles to Cuban ports, together with
shipping schedules, and allow US ships to come alongside
Soviet ships in such a way as to enable US inspectors
to see and count the missiles. If the present New
York negotiations fail to produce agreement on in-
spection and verification procedures, Moscow would
claim that US insistence on full UN on-site verification
in Cuba was only a device for delaying a settlement and
evading implementation of the President's offer of
assurances against an invasion of Cuba.
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6. It is not clear at this point whether there is
collusion between the USSR and Cuba in rejecting full UN
verification or whether the Soviets are simply taking
advantage of Castro's opposition to avoid creating a
precedent which would pose serious problems for the USSR
in the future, particularly on questions of disarmament
and nuclear test ban controls. It seems clear, however,
that in view of President Kennedy's demand for UN
verification, Khrushchev felt he had no choice but to
accent this in his backdown letter of 28 October. J I 25X1
7. While the Soviet leaders thus apparently felt
obliged at the height of the crisis to agree to UN verifica-
tion in Cuba, they later came to believe that after Khru-
shchev's 28 October letter removed the immediate danger
of US military action they could safely maneuver to ex-
tricate themselves from Khruschev's embarrassing commit-
ment by hiding behind Castro's opposition to any.UN pres-
ence in Cuba.
8. A similar ambiguity surrounds the motives and
pressures underlying the shift in the USSR's position on
removing the IL-28's from Cuba. Prior to his arrival
in Havana, Mikoyan assured Ambassador Stevenson and Mr.
McCloy on 1 November that the IL-28's would be included
in the list of offensive weapons to be withdrawn in an
estimated 10 to 15 days.
Soviet representatives in Havana told U Thant's party
"many times" that they were determined to remove all
the equipment which President Kennedy regarded as of-
fensive, including the IL-28's.
9. On 5 November, however, Kuznetsov professed
surprise that the US regards these bombers as offensive
weapons. He contended they are basically obsolete
in view of their low ceiling and speed, that they are
good for only "coastal defense," and that they cannot
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be used in combat over enemy territory. He gave
a negative reply to a direct question whether the
USSR would include the IL-28's in the weapons to be
removed from Cuba.
10. In view of the very marginal strategic
value to the USSR of deploying these bombers in
Cuba, we believe this shift in the Soviet position
may well be evidence of the serious difficulties
Mikoyan is encountering in his talks with the Cuban
leaders. Castro has made it clear that he was not
consulted on Khrushchev's decision to withdraw the
missiles and that, in any event, they were never under
Cuban control. The IL-28's, however, may be an en-
tirely different matter in that they may have been
actually transferred to Cuban control under the
terms of military assistance agreements. If this is
the true state of affairs, it remains to be seen
whether the USSR will risk jeopardizing its whole
relationship with Castro by applying sufficient
pressure to force him to consent to the removal of
the bombers. Castro, in any event, is in a good
position to use this question in demanding heavy
compensation in the form of economic assistance and,
possibly, further and more specific Soviet commitments
to protect the Cuban regime in all contingencies.
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