Hungarian ambassador to Czechoslovakia Lajos Cséby summarizes Deputy Head of the Sixth Main Department [of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs] Stross’s report on relations between Cuba and Czechoslovakia. Stross reports friendly relations between the two countries, which did not experience difficulties during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Stross outlines Cuba’s problems, economically and politically, and believes that Cuba’s revolutionary success depends on its economic growth. Cuba misunderstood the Soviet Union’s approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis. This led to signs of Chinese influence on Cuban politics, which Stross believes are reversing since Castro’s [1963] visit to the Soviet Union.

In a report on the Cuban Communist Party, Bulgarian Embassy counselor S. Cohen discusses strengths and concerns with the Cuban goverment. The Cuban revolutionary movement debunked the theory of geographically determined fatalism, but also displays a strong dependence on the Latin American liberation movement (e.g. Jose Mari, Simon Bolivar) for inspiration instead of socialist principles. Cohen reports negative developments including the Cuban government’s growing ambition to rule the Third World revolutionary movement and strong belief in the Cuban armed struggle as a template for all national liberation movements. The Cuban delegation strongly endorsed armed struggle as the only means of socialist advancement at the Tricontinental Conference recently held in Havana. Bulgaria must remain close with the Cuban government to help it develop economically and mature politically.

The document includes excerpts from a Bulgarian delegation's report on their visit to Latin America in 1960. The excerpt covers the delegation's visit to Cuba.

Avramova and Agnelov report Cuba's desire to establish diplomatic and cultural relations with Bulgaria. Cuba's interest paramountly involve trade. Avramova and Angelov summarize meetings with important government officials, particulalry Ernesto Guevara, head of the National Bank, and Raul Castro, Minister of Armed Forces. Topics include: the development of the revolution against the Batista government, post-Batista power struggles, geographical fatalism and US influence, Cuba's challenges (e.g. illiteracy, the lack of specialists), land and agricultural reform, construction, industrialization. The delegation recommends the establishment of official relations with Cuba and an invitation for Raul Castro to visit Bulgaria.

Drozniak replies to Ogrodzinski regarding the information he received from from [Charles E. “Chip”] Bohlen that Cuba has been removed from the list of priorities of US foreign policy. Bohlen also confirms, through Drozniak, that the content of the talks between [Secretary of State Dean] Rusk and [Soviet Ambassador Anatoly] Dobrynin. The Americans are assessing that the USSR is not currently in any hurry to resolve the issue of Berlin. When it comes to a next meeting [between the Americans and the Soviets], the US will wait for a Soviet initiative.

There is an opinion among a small group of the heads of Latin American diplomatic posts that the US would push through the sanctions against Cuba, except for the military ones, as far as possible.

Lösch and Cde. Blas Roca discuss the role of the Soviet Union and its actions in the Cuban crisis and their support of the Cuban revolutionary government.

At the request of the United States Delegation, the Council of the Organization of American States met this morning, in a “secret” session, acting provisionally as an Organ of Consultation, on the case of Cuba. The object of the meeting was to listen to Mr. Alexis Johnson, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, about the latest developments registered in Cuba. The talk was divided into three parts, namely: Presence of Soviet troops on the island; Visit by Prime Minister Fidel Castro to the Soviet Union; and Internal situation in Cuba.

Alexei Adzhubei, Khrushchev’s son-in-law and the editor-in-chief of Izvestia, reports on his meetings with US journalists and officials in Washington, DC. Especially significant was his 30 January meeting with President John F. Kennedy in which Kennedy compared the communist revolution in Cuba with the 1956 Hungarian Revolution suppressed by the Soviet Union. Adzhubei also described Kennedy's comments on German reunification.

Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko cables the Soviet Embassy in Havana that the Soviet leadership had decided to allow UNSG U Thant and his representatives to visit Soviet launchers sites in Cuba and verify that the launchers are being dismantled.

The ambassador gives an assessment of the Cuban domestic and foreign policy. He characterizes Fidel Castro as an adventurer and points to certain communist party decisions that are incompatible with the Marxist-Leninist doctrine.