◆ SpookStack

There was no mention of dates; no mention of an "invasion" by a force of Cubans; no mention whatsoever of anything like a "D-DAY"; no mention of US air strikes; and no mention of a date. (I do not recall any mention of air strikes by non-US forces either, and am fairly sure there was none.) The three key factors for us were: appearance of an internal uprising, no U.S. participation, and nothing during the General Assembly session. I am very clear about these matters, as I was responsible for our handling of the Cuban item then before the General Assembly. Foreign Minister Roa kept delaying de- bate in order to have the item available, when and if something happened. Confident that nothing would happen during the General Assembly, and having no idea of the degree of U.S. involvement, we coop- ._ erated in this tactic. Our negotiating position on the substance of draft reso- lutions pending on the subject, based on the same assumption, also was wrong. I was also intimately involved in the false statements of Gov. Stevenson, which he made about the two aircraft in Florida just before the invasion. It was obvious at tha~ point that something was accelerat- ing (though we were completely uninformed about an invasion). Nevertheless, we were fully assured from Washington that the two planes in Florida were legitimate Cuban airc~aft which had defected. °I wrote the first draft to this effect myself. This was then rewritten in Wash- ington, where it was cleared by Secretary Rusk himself and, I was told, by the re- sponsible person in CIA. When Mr. Sisco telephoned the redraft back on Saturday morning [15 April], I commented about half - 257 -