Kennedy Warns Khrushchev on Cuba After Russian Vows
Help to Castro; Migs and Tanks Attack Beachhead -- President is Firm -- Tells Soviet U.S. Will Not Permit Meddling--Asks Laos Truce
By Wallace Carrol
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, April 18--President
Kennedy warned the Soviet Union tonight that the United States would tolerate
no outside military intervention in Cuba.
The President reacted in
less than ten hours to a threat by Premier Khrushchev to give the Castro
regime "all necessary assistance" in repelling attacks by anti-Castro forces.
In an icily worded message,
the President rebuffed Mr. Khrushchev's request that the United States
suppress the efforts of the anti-Castro exiles who are trying to maintain
a beachhead in Cuba.
The President also took
up the Soviet Premier's implied threat to stir up trouble in other parts
of the world. If the Soviet Union sincerely wants to improve the international
atmosphere, Mr. Kennedy said, it should accept a cease-fire in Laos, cooperate
with the United Nations in the Congo and agree to reasonable proposals
for a ban on tests of nuclear weapons.
Communism Rejected
The President went beyond immediate
issues to reject Soviet claims to the inevitable triumph of communism.
"The great revolution in
the history of man, past, present and future is the revolution of those
determined to be free." Mr. Kennedy declared.
Secretary of State Dean
Rusk handed the President's message to the Soviet Ambassador, Mikhail A.
Menshikov, at 7 P.M. The message answered a communication from Premier
Khrushchev that was given to the United States Embassy in Moscow this morning.
"You are under a serious
misapprehension in regard to events in Cuba," Mr. Kennedy told the Premier.
The Castro dictatorship,
he said, is "an alien-dominated regime." This was a restrained reiteration
of the American contention that Dr. Castro's Government is under Soviet
domination. Many Cubans, the President said, have found the denial of liberties
intolerable and have turned to resistance against Dr. Castro.
"Where the people are denied
the right of choice," the President said, "recourse to such struggle is
the only means of achieving their liberties."
The President then replied
to Mr. Khrushchev's threat to aid Dr. Castro. Mr. Kennedy said:
"I have previously stated
and I repeat now that the United States intends no military intervention
in Cuba.
"In the event of any military
intervention by outside forces we will immediately honor our obligations
under the inter-American system to protect this hemisphere against external
aggression."
This was an allusion to
the pact of Rio De Janeiro of Aug. 15, 1947, that bound the republics of
the hemisphere to consider "an armed attack by any state against an American
state . . . as an attack against all the American states." It also pledged
the republics to "assist in meeting the attack."
The implication was that
the United States would regard Soviet military intervention on the side
of Dr. Castro as an attack on an American state and would answer in kind.
Although the United States
is pledged not to intervene in Cuba, Mr. Kennedy said, "The United States
admires the Cuban patriots who wish to establish a democratic system and
will do nothing to curb them.
"The United States Government
can take no action to stifle the spirit of liberty," Mr. Kennedy declared.
The prevailing view among
high officials, as well as in the embassies of allied nations, was that
the Soviet Union would not risk an armed conflict with the United States
over a country so far from its own borders.
The expectation was that
the Russians would continue to give arms and military training to Dr. Castro's
forces, but that they would stop short of anything that might draw them
into a general war.
Despite this feeling, there
was deep concern that arose mainly from two other circumstances.
U.S. Involvement Noted
The first was an uneasy awareness
in the Government that the good name and prestige of the United States
had become entangled in a small military operation carried out by a few
hundred Cuban exiles.
The second was a conviction
that Premier Khrushchev, as well as Dr. Castro, had now determined to exploit
the Cuban situation to the utmost--by Premier Khrushchev's personal skill
in influencing world opinion, by maneuvers to pillory the United States
in the United Nations, by mob attacks on American Embassies, and by all
the other devices of propaganda.
All reliable sources here
agree that so-called "invasion" of Cuba by the exiles is only a limited
operation. One high official said the landing forces might number 300 men.
Another said there might be as many as 600, but certainly no more.
Both agreed that the objective
was to carry supplies to the forces on the island already resisting the
Castro Government.
This small-scale effort,
however, was magnified from the beginning by exiles in their desire to
encourage the Cubans to rise against Dr. Castro.
Both Dr. Castro and Premier
Khrushchev have presumably been aware of the limited size of the landing
forces. Thus, it is reasoned here, that they are happy to go along with
the exiles in exaggerating the scope of the landings, believing that eventual
propaganda effects of a disaster for the anti-Castro forces will be enhanced.
For the same reason, they
are considered eager to heighten the appearance of United States involvement.
A disaster for the anti-Castro exiles would then become a deadly blow to
United States prestige.
The President discussed
the Cuban situation at his weekly breakfast meeting with the Democratic
leaders of Congress. News bulletins on Premier Khrushchev's message arrived
while the meeting was going on and the text came in a little later.
Leaders Are Grim
The leaders as they left the
White House were unusually tight-lipped. Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House
of Representatives, said:
"It's a serious situation
down there, and I don't know whether it will work out or not."
Later the President conferred
on his reply with Secretary of State Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, the Presidential
Assistant for National Security Affairs, Charles E. Bohlen, one of the
State Department's leading specialists on Soviet affairs, and Foy D. Kohler,
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs.
One of Premier Khrushchev's
principal objectives, it is generally agreed here, is to play the role
of protector of the small nations against the "imperialist" West.
President Kennedy apparently
felt that the Soviet Union should be left in no doubt that this country
would not tolerate outside intervention in Cuba.