The Graduate School and University Center
of the City University of New York
Albert Schweitzer Chair in the Humanities / Box 540 Graduate Center: 33 West 42 Street, New York, N.Y, 10036-8099 212 790-4261
3 March 1986
Mr. Tad Szulc
4515 29th Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
Dear Tad:
I am afraid my notes on the talk with Carol Rafael are not especially illuminating, but here goes. (The talk took place on 28 May of this year,)
"We want normal relations with the United States," he said, "but normal doesn't necessarily mean friendly. We have a traditional friendship with the North American people. There is no hostility in Cuba toward North Americans in general. On the government-to-government level, we would like coexistence on the basis of mutual respect." There had been two times, he continued, when relations seemed to be moving toward rapproachment: in the last months of the Kennedy administration; and again during the Ford administration. The first was terminated by Kennedy's assassination; the second when Henry Kissinger became angered by the Cuban role in Angola.
See you at the Alliance reunion.
Yours ever
Arthur Schlesinger, jr.
Tad Szulc Collection of Interview Transcripts
