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.
# SECRET ## IMMINENT DECISIONS This section deals with the decisions that will need to be taken soon, in order to launch the courses of action described in this report. Undarlying these specific decisions, of course, is a more fundamental one: whether the broad courses of action indicated in this paper should be accepted as a basis for our approach to the Berlin problem. 1. Military Preparations. A decision will be needed as to whether, and in what degree, a progressive mobilization of US resources and manpower should now be undertaken. The arguments in favor of early large-scale mobilization are: (i) It might deter the Communists from blocking our access. (ii) It would make it possible to carry out the proposed military ground response to the blocking of allied access promptly after blocking; the four months needed to call up, train, and deploy units from the reserve components could be completed by 15 December, if they were started now. (iii) It could result in an improvement of the free world's military posture, which would be valuable regardless of how the Berlin crisis turned out. (iv) It would give us a head start in seeking to gain a more favorable ratio of forces in the event that the Soviets, with greater ready reserves but lesser over-all capacity, tried to out-mobilize us. The arguments against early large-scale mobilization are: (i) It might engage the Soviets' prestige and thus make it more difficult for them to abandon their threats to block our access. (ii) It could frighten off US allies, who might consider that it would prevent a strategy of diplomatic maneuver; resulting allied disunity might encourage the Soviets to proceed with pressure against Berlin. (iii) It might not be necessary, since the Berlin stockpile, supplemented by an airlift, could keep Berlin going for a sufficient period to inaugurate preparations for ground combat after our access had been blocked, (even though the resulting capability would, of course, be less than if preparations were started now and continued for four months after access was blocked). (iv) It might trigger psychological fears of war and shortages in the US which could lead to inflation and thus require controls on the economy. The choice need not, of course, be between black and white alternatives; it might be one of degree. Some kinds of early preparations will be necessary and may be helpful as a deterrent, even if it is decided to have a period of several months' final preparations
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.