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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(B) On the Railway Line Berlin-Holmstedt, with empty rolling stock being routed back on the Berlin-Oebisfelde Railway Lines, (C) In the air corridors Berlin Hasborg, Berlin-Bueckenburg, and Berlin-Frankfurt-Main." 15. Another conceivable type of face-saving formula for the Soviets under the most optimistic assumptions regarding the effectiveness of the Western deterrent might be simply an agreement that the four occupying powers meet regularly at such levels as may be agreed to consider the German problem as a whole as well as the extension and development of contacts between the two parts of Germany. West and East German advisers might participate in line with the formula developed for the 1959 Geneva Conference of Foreign Ministers. This might enable the Soviets to parade their virtue, stressing how in the interests of world peace they were willing to sacrifice just claims in order to have another attempt at settlement of the German question by negotiations, the real intent being merely to talk the subject to death in protracted discussions which both sides recognized from the outset could lead nowhere, while the status quo in Berlin continued unchanged. ## C. Failure of Western Deterrent 16. A failure of the Western deterrent might derive from a collapse of nerve or general unwillingness of our NATO Allies to engage in a course of action in which they would consider the hazards far to exceed the objective to be gained. (Although this is obviously a crucial question, we may assume here that the US has decided not to go it alone.) Under these circumstances, although the cost in prestige would inevitably be very great, we would presumably be casting about for some means of extricating ourselves from an untenable situation in a way best calculated to maintain the Atlantic Alliance and to put the best face possible on a bad mess. Outright acceptance of the Soviet free city proposal would presumably go too far and provide too little camouflage. Moreover, we would presumably wish to move towards an arrangement not under the apparent threat of Soviet unilateral action but, if possible, within the context of formalized negotiations in which agreement would appear to emerge as the result of a certain process of give and take. 17. Under the
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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.