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 # SUMMARY OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE COURSES OF ACTION A. For purposes of planning, the course of action has been projected from July 17 until January 1. This period has been divided into three phases. Each phase corresponds to a predicted development in pursuit by the Soviet Union of its present policy. Needless to say, rigid schemata of this kind seldom if ever work out with great precision in practice, regardless of how necessary they may be for the planning of a complex and inter-related program of action; the intrusion of unpredictable events is always a certainty. (In the present case, for example, it is quite likely that the issue will be taken to the UN by one nation or another if the crisis develops very far.) Moreover, if Western policy is successful the crisis will not develop through all three phases but will be arrested before that occurs. On the other hand, early stages may last longer than the schedule indicates and subsequent stages would accordingly occur later than now scheduled. For planning purposes, the dates marking transitions from phase to phase are the earliest dates on which it can be assumed the transition would ever occur. ## B. The three phases are as follows: Phase I - From now until the period during which we would anticipate a call for a "peace conference" on the part of the Soviet Union. This might come any time after the German elections on September 17, though it is probably more likely to be related in timing to the Communist Party Congress in mid-October. For purposes of planning, however, we should consider September 17 as the end of Phase I. During this period the West must demonstrate clearly its determination to defend its vital interests at all costs. It must also set in motion a program of military and civil defense preparedness which will put it in position to undertake military action shortly after the end of Phase III if the crisis should develop through all phases and military action should prove necessary. Simultaneously it must prepare the way for use in later stages of severe measures of economic warfare on a NATO-wide basis. Initial measures should be taken, and plans laid, for psychological warfare. At the same time the West must make every effort to obtain the support of world opinion for its basic position on Berlin and Germany and to prepare the ground for whatever negotiating stance it might wish later to adopt. The point at which negotiations with the Soviets might occur, or the manner in which they would be brought about, is impossible to state with certainty. It is assumed the West would not wish to negotiate until its preparedness had reached sufficient proportions to alter Soviet estimates of our determination.
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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.