◆ SpookStack

In preparation for the debate [US Cuban debate in the UN], Tracy Barnes and I had held a long talk with Stevenson on April 8 [1961]. But our briefing, which was probably unduly vague,' ,left Stevenson with the impression that no action would take place during the UN discussion of the Cuban item. Afterward, when Harlan Cleveland, the Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, Clayton Fritchey of the United States Mission to the UN, and I lunched with Stevenson at the Century, he made clear that he wholly disapproved of the plan, regretted that he had been given no opportunity to comment on it, and be- lieved that it would cause infinite trouble. But, if it was national policy, he was prepared to make out the best possible case. 77/ . The question of what Stevenson was or was not told became critical following the D-2 air strike against Cuba on 15 April 1961. Appearing in an emer- gency session of the UN Political and Security Commit- tee on the afternoon of 15 April -- an emergency session that had been called at the request o~ Raul Roa, the Cuban Foreign Minister -- Stevenson stated that the attack on the airfields had been conducted by defectors from Castro's own air force. In the course of this discussion Stevenson presented the photographs of the B-26 which Zuniga had landed in Miami International Airport to support the defector cover story, but the - 238 -