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.
## SECRET which defaulted on World War I debts owed to the United States cannot be the recipients of private credits today, since no bloc country is a member of the Bank or the Fund. Furthermore, the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 (65 Stat. 644) in effect precedes any financial assistance by the United States Government to Soviet bloc countries. 2. Freeze Soviet bloc assets in the United States. Discussion. The provisions of Section 5(b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, together with the national emergency declaration of December 16, 1950 give the Executive the necessary domestic authority to impose controls blocking all Soviet bloc assets in the United States. On the basis of this authority, blocking controls have been instituted with respect to (a) Communist China and North Korea in 1950, (b) component parts of a steel mill belonging to Czechoslovakia in 1952, and (c) the Sues Canal Company and the Egyptian Government in 1956. With the exceptions discussed below regarding the Polish and Romanian claims settlements, neither customary nor conventional international law seems to impose any restrictions on the United States in freezing Soviet bloc assets under its jurisdiction as a national security measure in the event of a Berlin crisis initiated by the Soviets. Pursuants to the claims settlement agreements recently concluded with Poland and Rumania (TIAS 4451, 4545), the United States has released all its blocking controls imposed during World War II against Polish and Rumanian properties in the United States. To the extent that implementation of this countermeasure applied to any of these properties, there would be violations by the United States of the claims settlement agreements. And as a practical matter, the freezing of any Polish and Rumanian assets by the United States would be likely to bring about the cessation of the annual payments due as under the above agreements. 3. Cut off all United States financial facilities to Soviet bloc countries. Discussion. Section 5(b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act provides the necessary domestic legal authority for this countermeasure, which could be implemented by Treasury Department regulations similar to those presently in effect with respect to Communist China and North Korea (31 C.F.R. 500.201). From an international standpoint, no problems of legality are presented by this countermeasure. 4. Expand export control measures against Soviet bloc, including selective embargo.
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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.