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As I recall, the nature of the Presi- dent's statement on non-involvement of u.s. Forces and territory was worked out with Mr. Schlesinger on the day of the briefing by Amb. Barnes. But you may want to check with him on that. 96/* * Others queried in addition to Mr. Pedersen, on the subject of the Barnes briefing were Francis T. P. Plimpton, Charles W. Yost, and Charles P. Noyes. Among other things, Mr. Plimpton said: "I do not recall any mention of an air strike against Castro's airfields, either before or on D-Day"; and, in addition, Plimpton stated that he was "in complete accord with everything" that Mr. Pedersen had written to the author. 97/ Charles W. Yost was present at part of the brief- ing which Barnes gave to Stevenson, but having taken no notes, he did not recall any of the specifics. 98/ Charles P. Noyes, too, was vague on being briefea on the operational plan, noting that: "As I recall it, we were trying to prepare ourselves to conduct a de- fense in the UN against what we assumed would be a vio:I;.ent attack on Cuba." 99/ The author also sent inquiries to both Harlan Cleveland and William Bowdler, but neither had responded as of this writing. Mr. Cleveland, however, sent a memorandum to the Secretary of State on 12 April 1961 requesting guidance -- as Stevenson himself did in the cable cited above for 16 April 1961 -- for the UN Ambas- sador in an upcoming speech on Cuba. Cleveland'smemo- randum raised the question of the validity of comments in the planned speech which denied that the US was sup- porting and promoting the anti-Castro efforts which were being so widely publicized. Cleveland closed his memorandum with the following: If I may add a general comment, I con- fess to some concern as to whether the Cuban matter has not been held so tightly, no doubt for good and sufficient reasons of security, as to make impossible a really adequate review of its foreign pOlicy impli- cations. Certainly neither Ambassador (footnote continued on following pag~) - 260 -