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.
“Mission Control”2 pages
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Phase II (September 17 - December 1) Introduction of economic sanctions of moderate intensity, as described in Phase II listing. Phase III (December - January) Final preparation for, and possible subsequent introduction of major economic sanctions, as described in Phase III listing. Problems of Application - The United States is in a position legally (Trading with the Enemy Act, Export Control Act of 1919, Emergency Powers of the President) to implement the sanctions listed in the attachments to this paper. A new Presidential emergency proclamation may nevertheless be desirable. Other NATO countries, the United Kingdom in particular, may, or in fact do have legal or precedent problems associated with the implementation of various, but not all, of these proposed sanctions. Tripartite (US, UK, France) consideration of economic sanctions has been in terms of their application against the Soviet bloc not including Communist China. While this has no practical significance insofar as the US is concerned, it could involve important slippages and leakages elsewhere over a sustained period. In view of the special situation affecting US economic relations with Poland, this study does not contemplate the extension of economic sanctions against Poland until Phase III is reached. Possible impact - A measure of the possible impact of economic sanctions against the Soviet bloc may be inferred from the East German reaction to the West German statement of September 30 abrogating the interzonal trade agreement as of the end of 1960. Although the trade pact was reinstated on December 30, the State Planning Commission, presumably acting on the findings of special economic commissions appointed in the interim period, charged industrial and foreign trade planners with the task of "achieving independence" from Western supplies by 1962. The importance to East Germany of Western (particularly West German) imports of certain steel and machinery products to hasten the achievement of this "independence" is indicated by US intelligence studies and pointed up by East German efforts on a major scale to obtain alternate Western suppliers when the interzonal trade agreement was abrogated. Within the framework of selective sanctions limited to the Soviet Zone, previous studies indicate Soviet Zone sensitivity in particular to sanctions applied only to key industries or commodities, which would also be indirectly disruptive to the USSR due to interrelationship of Soviet bloc planning. Sanctions limited in scope would offer advantages in terms of their greater political feasibility to the Allies. Organisation
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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.