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.
“Sea”8 pages
Nature of Allied Harassment, Countermeasures or other Action 11. c. Freeze or seize, as appropriate, all bloc assets under jurisdiction of NATO Powers. ## PHASE III (cont'd) Countries Taking Action 11. c. MTD Powers US Action Agencies 11. c. State Treasury ## General Comment 11. c. In freezing Soviet bloc assets, US might have legal problems under claims settlement agreements with Poland and Romania. Otherwise it would experience no legal problems in freezing. There is basis for seizure under existing US law, but courts might find action invalid. It would not appear, however, that seizure would be necessary since all desired economic pressure in this field could be accomplished by freezing without seizure (see Appendix B). By frezing Soviet bloc assets, UK will have gone as far as it can. Existing UK legislation gives powers, subject in certain instances to Parliamentary approval, to control payments and securities, but new legislation might be required to make action fully effective in UK. It is worth noting that present sterling balances of bloc countries are insufficient to cover their current liabilities. Consequently this measure would probably result in a net loss, to say nothing of suspension of payment under bloc debt agreements which would certainly follow.
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 163 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.