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
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## SECRET were engaged in hedging or speculating activities, their efforts must have been frustrated. Outlays for business fixed investment continued on their trend with no apparent influence attributable to Korea: the 10 percent rise (in current dollars) during 1950-III was a bit less than the gain of the second quarter. Similarly, nonfarm inventory investment in the third quarter was slightly below the level of 1950-II: $3.8 billion compared with $4.2. Manufacturers' stocks of finished goods fell by $0.5 billion from June to September; this was clearly an involuntary decline resulting from the unexpected strength of demand. The $10.5 billion increase in stocks of goods-in-process failed to match the rate of rise in sales. Manufacturers' inventories of purchased materials rose sharply from $11.3 to $12.6 billion. This increase could reflect an attempt to stockpile materials, but the increase could well have been induced by the expansion of demand, since stocks of purchased materials barely kept pace with sales. With a few exceptions in retail trade, inventory-sales ratios in all sectors of business declined during the third quarter. The evidence indicates that firms typically responded to the buypancy of consumer demand but does not suggest that they were initiating inflationary pressure. The consumer emerges as the villain of the piece. Both output growth and inflationary pressure diminished during most of the fourth quarter. GNP rose 3.8 percent in current dollars, with price-rises and output-gains contributing equal shares of the increase. Consumers relaxed from their spending spree of the previous quarter, and saved 8.1 percent of their disposable income. Outlays for consumer durables fell 12 percent. Retail sales flagged in October and November. Although Congress had given the President power to control prices on September 8 with passage of the Defense Production Act, the waiving strength of inflation made direct controls seem unnecessary. The key expansionary factor in this period was inventory investment. Stocks were accumulated at record annual rate of 15.0 billion dollars in 1950-IV, with the largest portion--10.8 billions--in durables. In that quarter, stocks of durable goods rose between 11 and 15 percent at the retail, wholesale, and manufacturing levels. Particularly large gains occurred in machinery and transportation equipment. In manufacturing, stocks-in-process, purchased materials, and finished goods expanded in parallel. Inventory-sales ratios rose throughout the economy. By year-end, they were still slightly below June levels in manufacturing and wholesale trade. In retail trade, inventory-sales ratios went above pre-Korean levels, providing some evidence of speculative stocking by retailers. Meanwhile, government outlays for
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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.