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.
“The Advance”7 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
## 4. Task Force for New Legislation There should be established and operated as secretly as possible a special Legislative Task Force chaired by a Presidential designate charged with the responsibility for drafting the stand-by legislation prescribed above. It should consult with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, the Budget Director, and the Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization or successor agency. Drafts of proposed legislation dealing with direct price, wage, and rent controls exist in the files of the OCDM, and a draft dealing with consumer and real estate credit controls is available at the Federal Reserve Board. These should be reviewed and updated. New drafts are necessary for discretionary authority over labor disputes, use of stockpiles for counterspeculative purposes, and stand-by tax authority. ## 5. Task Force for Emergency Economic Stabilization A second task force should be constituted to sharpen and perfect detailed preparation for an emergency economic stabilization program to be instituted coincident with the development of Berlin capability. This general task force should include representatives of the OCDM or successor agency, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Federal Reserve Board, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, Interior, and Agriculture. The function of this task force would be to review and update emergency planning in each department or agency for the use of existing statutory powers; to prepare drafts of regulations, orders, plans, and programs under existing powers and under any additional legislation that may be required. ## 6. Plans for New Stabilization Agency The Bureau of the Budget, in consultation with the OCDM or its successor agency and other departments or agencies, should develop plans for the establishment of a new agency in the Executive Office of the President to direct and coordinate any economic stabilization program that becomes necessary. In this connection, the Bureau should assess the degree to which the Executive Reserve, organized under the Defense Production Act would meet the personnel needs of the new agency and the extent to which it would have to be supplemented by transferring personnel from existing agencies.
Not linked to a story yet.
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.