Dobrynin asked earlier this morning if I could see him and I made arrangements to have him come to the office at 12 o'clock Noon.
He delivered another letter from Mr. Khrushchev.(1) I read it and found that it concerned our list of offensive weapons that Stevenson had submitted.
I explained to Dobrynin that from the first it had been made clear by the Soviet Union that they would get rid of any weapons which we considered offensive and certainly it was very clear that the bombers, the IL 28's, had to go. Dobrynin replied that he was not familiar with that position and also did not know what was on the list that Khrushchev mentioned in his letter. I told him I would get a copy of it; that it was basically the same list of weapons that had been listed in the President's Quarantine Proclamation. He replied he would obtain a copy from Kuznetsov.
During the middle of the conversation the President called and said that he had just received some preliminary information which indicated that several of our planes over Cuba had been fired upon. In ending my conversation with Dobrynin, therefore, I stressed the fact that any arrangements that were made were dependent upon there not being any incidents in the air above Cuba.
Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, USSR, Khrushchev Correspondence (Cuba), Vol. I-C, 11/3/62-11/16/62. Top Secret. Drafted and initialed by Robert Kennedy. Copies sent to McGeorge Bundy and Rusk.