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wa¥ through that the draft was not a denial. Mr. Sisco said that it was and that the rest of the text would show that. It did, although it may well be that we strengthen- ed the words on the phone.* I then took the text to Governor Steven- son, telling him that the Department had verified that, whatever else was happening, the two planes concerned were legitimate defecting planes of the Cuban Air Force. As we by then had pictures of these planes in New York, as well as the statements of the pilots, both of which were also legit- imate if the Washington text was true, we added those elements to the statement he later made to the Committee. As we were obviously dealing with a delicate matter on which it was important to be right, I suggested to Gov. Stevenson he verify the statement again directly with Secretary Rusk. He asked his secretary to make the call, but just at that point Mr. Sisco called him. Gov. Stevenson then verified the statement with Mr. Sisco in- stead, and we shortly went into the Commit- tee where he made it. (All of the above took place in a small working office we then had in the UN building itself.) \ Foreign Minister Roa attacked our state- ment in the Committee so robustly that I began to get concerned again. Saturday afternoon I asked one of our staff members to get corroborating details on the planes -- engine numbers and other data -- that we could read into the record during the next debate to prove that these two planes were from the Cuban Air Force. * Joseph Sisco was Deputy Director of the Office of UN Political and Security Affairs located in the De- partment of State in Washington, D. C. - 258 -