Office of the Historian

241. Memorandum of Conversation0

MVW USDEL MC/17
Camp David, March 21, 1959, 2:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Contingency Planning for Berlin

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • The President
    • The Acting Secretary
    • Mr. Quarles
    • Mr. Murphy
    • General Twining
    • Mr. Merchant
    • Ambassador Whitney
    • Mr. Reinhardt
    • Mr. Irwin
    • General Goodpaster
    • Major Eisenhower
  • UK
    • Prime Minister Macmillan
    • Foreign Secretary Lloyd
    • Sir Frederick Hoyer-Millar
    • Ambassador Caccia
    • Sir Norman Brook
    • Sir Patrick Dean
    • Sir Anthony Rumbold
    • Mr. Bishop

At the President’s request, Mr. Irwin outlined the United States contingency plans as presently conceived, Whereupon the President asked whether the British were doing anything comparable. The Prime Minister’s reply was to say that they had not been asked, but would do so if General Norstad asked them. There followed a discussion of the best locus for developing tripartite planning in this connection. Mr. Quarles referred to the fact that we had sent a team of qualified people [Page 528] to “ride the Autobahn” and report the actual facts of the present situation with respect to Soviet and East German procedures so that we might have a completely accurate picture. Mr. Lloyd asked that this team coordinate with the British and French authorities in Germany before returning to Washington so that we might have an agreed tripartite picture of the present situation.

There followed a discussion as to what would constitute interference or obstruction to our access to Berlin. Mr. Quarles observed that the military were awaiting precise instructions on this point. The Prime Minister described the issue as being that of determining whose game keeper was acting. And given the possibility that nothing might happen following a Soviet handover to the East Germans, whether we should consider impersonification or actual obstruction as the breaking point. Mr. Murphy noted that the problem really came with the stamping of documents, which was something to which we would not agree. The Prime Minister summarized his question by asking whether the moment for action came when the East Germans actually would effect some obstruction or when they merely said they had the right to do so. The President said we agreed that we should show papers for the purpose of identification, that we found the issue of stamping more difficult. The Acting Secretary stressed the value of a forthright announcement of our position both as to our juridical rights and what we intended to do as a practical matter immediately upon any Soviet handover to the GDR or the signature of a treaty between them and the Soviet Government.

Sir Frederick noted that there was an obligation on us to keep access open to Berlin for civilian traffic but that no such obligation rested on the GDR. The Prime Minister suggested that the threat to civilian traffic was even more acute than the threat to our military traffic but Sir Anthony Rumbold pointed out that this was not the case, at least under the present announced Soviet policy.

Mr. Irwin said that a problem for contingency planning was whether you went to the United Nations after the first refusal by GDR authorities to let your traffic through on the old basis or whether you tried a second probe to see whether they would support that refusal by force; in other words, whether one wished to create the symbol of force before going to the United Nations or wished to go there before such a symbol of force had been created.

The President said that the Foreign Ministers should be instructed to ascertain what the Soviets really intended to do. He also pointed out that if we were to take any positive action such as blockading the Dardanelles and the Baltic, we would have to have public opinion with us. The Prime Minister again asked whether we acted in the presence of a symbol of authority (paper) or in the presence of a symbol of force (barrier [Page 529] or other physical obstruction). As far as the United Nations was concerned, he thought we should go there as soon as it was clear at a Summit or elsewhere that no progress was possible with the Russians.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1214. Top Secret; Limit Distribution. Drafted by Reinhardt and cleared by Merchant.↩