Office of the Historian

395. Memorandum of telephone conversation between Ball and McGeorge Bundy, October 251

October 25, 1962, 1 a.m.
[Facsimile Page 1]

Bundy said that the President wants to go along with Ball’s version. He said that since we can’t get any agreement on the longer version, they will go along with the short version. Bunday said that they will have to get across to Adlai—

Ball said he was talking with Cleveland and that he doesn’t think we can soften it any. Ball said that we are going to have to think about getting McCloy down—Bundy agreed that Ball should ask McCloy to come down.

Bundy said that the President just came into the room and he said that he thought the first clause of paragraph 3 . . . in order to give time might mean we willing to give. Can’t we leave that out?

Bundy and Ball agreed that the 3rd and 4th paragraphs could be put together.

  1. Response to Khrushchev message. No classification marking. 1 p. DOS, Ball Papers: Lot 74 D 272, Telcons—Cuba.↩