Documents / FOIA release
This Top Secret study by the Interdepartmental Coordinating Group on Germany and Berlin, dated July 12, 1961, and released by the Central Intelligence Agency, answers NSC Directive No. 58 of June 30, 1961. It sets out courses of action for the Berlin crisis but does not judge their merits. It covers imminent presidential decisions, a three-phase timetable running to January 1, military preparations and mobilization, covert action, economic sanctions, public information, negotiating positions and checkpoint procedures for East German personnel.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
(c) The President also has authority to control exports. This could be used to prevent domestic supplies from being drained off by spaculative or panic buying from abroad. (d). The President through his control over the expenditures of the Federal establishment could reduce or defer Federal outlays so as to offset in part inflationary aspects of additional defense expenditures. (a) The President and the Secretary of the Treasury have broad powers, under the Trading With the Emany Act and the Gold Reserve Act, over external financial transactions. Their applicability to effect exchange or capital controls is constrained by international arrangements to which the U.S. is a party such as the International Monetary Fund Agreement. (1) With reference to any control of imports that might prove desirable to implement international arrangements designed to dampen spaculative buying, there is some opinion that the national security clause of the Trade Agreements Extention Act of 1958 (Section 8), and section 5 (b) of the Trading With the Enemy Act, and Title I of the Defense Production Act of 1950 may provide some basis for action. These and other immediately available control powers not listed are clearly inadequate to cope with the threat of psychological inflation of the 1950 type. Nevertheless, it is important that plans for use of these available powers be devised forthwith to the maximum degree practicable and that existing legislation be analyzed carefully for further Presidential powers that might be used to meet the Berlin contingency. The importance of such controls, however weak, is that they may be used upon need given adequate administrative preparation. The disadvantage of controls based on legislation still to be secured is the danger that the very request for such legislation may touch off precisely the inflationary reaction it is designed to avoid. The announcement effects are known to be great and the inevitable lag between request and operation is long enough for considerable damage to be done. It is clear, however, that a request to Congress for further enabling legislation must be made. What is now available could handle neither a prolonged military build-up bringing the country near the limits of its productive capacity nor a short but powerful expenditure spree motivated by panic on the anticipation of shortages. ## 2. New Powers Needed - Additional Legislative Proposals A request to Congress for new legislation giving the President stand-by authority to deal with the economic consequences of new national
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 163 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.