63. Memorandum From the President’s Military Representative (Taylor) to President Kennedy1
SUBJECT
- Actions agreed at the discussions at Hyannis Port, 8 July 1961
1. Within ten days (i.e., by 18 July)
- a.
- The Secretary of State will submit a political prospectus on Berlin and related matters with appendices covering political, economic and propaganda actions in support of the U.S. program.
- b.
-
The Secretary of Defense will produce the defense plan in support of the U.S. program to include such matters as the ground probe, airlift (garrison and civilian) and measures to improve overall military posture particularly in the field of conventional weapons and forces. For the latter, he will base his recommendations on the assumption that main reliance will not be placed on the use of atomic weapons at the outset of a military engagement with the USSR in Europe.
(Mr. McNamara considers that the papers being prepared by Defense for the NSC meeting on 13 July 1961 respond to the foregoing undertaking.)
- c.
- Based upon the foregoing documents, the Kohler task force will prepare a combined check list of possible actions relating to Berlin which should be considered for implementation in the present and emerging situation. The list will show for each action the lead time of decision.
[Here follows a paragraph on an unrelated subject.]
- Source: National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Box 38, 505 Berlin Contingency Planning. Top Secret. On July 8 Rusk, McNamara, and Taylor flew to Hyannis Port for a meeting with the President. According to one account Kennedy expressed his dissatisfaction with the state of Berlin planning and, impressed by the reservations which Schlesinger had raised to Acheson’s report, decided to ask Acheson to prepare a political program for Berlin. (Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp. 388-389) No other record of this meeting has been found. On July 10 the President sent a short memorandum to Taylor asking him to provide a list of the things agreed at the meeting and the papers he had requested from the Departments of State and Defense. (National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Box 38, 505 Berlin Contingency Planning)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩