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
## Item 3a (Phase III) Initiate measures to prevent Soviet and satellite aircraft from making overflights and technical stops or, alternatively, to make overflying and technical stops difficult. 1) Refuse overflight clearance for special flights. Comments: This would be more difficult in connection with Czech and Polish aircraft than with the others. The Chicago Convention obliges signatory states to permit overflights and technical stops by other signatories. (However, means exist for delaying overflights, and charges by Czechs and Poles that this was being done could be strung out for a considerable period of time in ICAO.) In addition, the bilateral air agreements between NATO members and these and other bloc states may contain provisions of this kind. However, means might be found within the terms of the Chicago Convention or the bilaterals for abrogating them, and in any case the bilaterals normally contain clauses for abrogation with a fixed period of notice (for the UK and France, one year in the case of the satellites and six months for the USSR). 2) Refuse to permit regularly scheduled overflights and technical stops. Comment: (Same as paragraph 1 Comment under this Item.) 3) Strictly apply NATO air defense identification procedures. When bloc aircraft fail to hold to control times, altitudes and courses within allowable limits, make identification intercepts, file violations through ICAO and protest through diplomatic channels. As a more extreme measure, require offending bloc aircraft to land at the nearest airport for inspection and identification. A record of continuous violations could be used as grounds for future denial of clearances to the offending airline. Comment: The Czech airline in particular is a frequent violator in this respect.
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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.