 
there was no purpose, he said, for us to interfere with any of his ships 
now bound for cuba, for they contained no weapons. 
he then explained why they carried no missiles: all the shipments of 
weapons were already within cuba. 
this was the first time he had acknowledged the presence of missiles in 
cuba. 
he made reference to the landing at the bay of pigs and the fact that 
president kennedy had told him in vienna that this was a mistake. 
he valued such frankness, wrote khrushchev, and he, too, had similar 
courage, for he had acknowledged "those mistakes which had been committed 
during the history of our state and i not only acknowledge but sharply 
condemned them." 
(president kennedy had told him in vienna that he was quick to acknowledge 
and condemn the mistakes of stalin and others, but he never acknowledged any 
mistakes of his own.) 
the reason he had sent these weapons to cuba was because the u.s. was 
interested in overthrowing the cuban government, as the u.s. had actively 
attempted to overthrow the communist government in the soviet union after 
their revolution. 
khrushchev and the soviet people wished to help cuba protect herself. 
but then he went on: "if assurances were given that the president of the 
united states would not participate in an attack on cuba and the blockade 
lifted, then the question of the removal or the destruction of the missile 
sites in cuba would then be an entirely different question. 
armaments bring only disasters. 
when one accumulates them, this damages the economy, and if one puts them 
to use, then they destroy people on both sides. 
consequently, only a madman can believe that armaments are the principal 
means in the life of society. 
no, they are an enforced loss of human energy, and what is more are for 
the destruction of man himself. 
