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COpy CONFrAL COpy COpy April 19, 1959 Summary of conversation between The Vice President and Fidel Castro: When Castro arrived for the conference he seemed somewhat nervous and tense. He apparently felt that he had not done as well on "Meet the Press" as he had hoped. He was particularly concerned about whether he might have irri- tated Senator Smathers for the comments he made with regard to him. I reassured him at the beginning of the conversa- tion that "Meet the Press" was one of the most difficult pro- grams a public official could go on and that he had done ex- tremely well -- particularly having in mind the fact that he had the courage to go .on in Eng~jsh rather than to speak through a translator. The subjects we discussed were no different from those on which he had made public statements on several other occasions. A brief summary, however t might be of in- terest, particularly' in view of the comments t made withre- gard to the positions he took. I suggested at the outset that while I understood some reasonable tbme might elapse before it would be feasible to have elections· it would nevertheless be much better· from his vieWpoint if h.e were not to s·tate so categorically that it would be asbng as four years before elections would be held. I urgea him to state his position as being in favor of having elections at the earliest possible date and that four years would be the maximum amount of time that would elapse before elections were scheduled. He went into considerable detail as he had in public with regard to the reasons for not hold- ing elections, emphasizing particularly that "the people did not want elections because the elections in the pas·t had pro- duced bad government." He used the same argument that he was simply reflect~ ing the will of the people i.n justi.fying the executions of war criminals and hts overruling the acquittal of Batista's avia- tors. In fact he seemed to be obsessed with the idea that it was· his responsibility- to carry out the will of th.e people COpy COpy COpy