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.
“Fuller”2 pages
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## SECRET publicly known, or to defer the request until visible inflationary manifestations appear in the economy. The earlier date might have a desirable effect on the public's consciousness of the gravity of the situation, might permit the probable inflationary reactions to be absorbed by a greater degree of economic slack, and might avoid the necessity of a special session of Congress. The later date might avoid premature inflationary effects should the crisis be short-lived, might avoid sidetracking of the President's general legislative program, and might lead to quicker Congressional action. However the final timing decision is made, immediate action should take the form of the establishment of task forces to draft the required standby legislation, to review emergency plans for the use of existing powers, to draft regulations and orders for eventual issue under present or additional legislation, and to plan for setting up a new economic stabilization agency to administer such programs as became necessary. The task forces should, of course, operate as secretly as possible to avoid premature disclosure of plans. ## 5. International Arrangements to be Considered Consultation and negotiation should be held at an early date concerning potential movements of capital from one national currency to another or some currencies to gold that may arise from anxieties growing out of developments in the Berlin situation. Similar consultation and arrangements should be directed towards the raw material situation so that shortages, speculative stock building, scare buying and unnecessary price increases can be prevented or minimized through international machinery or concerting common policies over imports and use of stocks. There should be especial consultations and negotiations with the West German Federal Republic designed to secure action on its part to relieve the additional strain on U.S. balance of payments that would result from large scale deployment of additional U.S. forces in Western Europe.
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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.