Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XV, Berlin Crisis, 1962–1963

101. Memorandum From the Assistant to the President’s Military Representative (Legere) to the President’s Military Representative (Taylor)⁰

Washington, August 23, 1962.

1. Attached is a Klein memo to Bundy¹ on the latest Berlin development. I think all its points are well taken.

2. In summary, Klein reminds that if the East Germans stop Allied military access into East Berlin, our contingency plans call for stopping Soviet access to the Tiergarten memorial. But the Soviet communique of yesterday² ties Allied access between West Germany and West Berlin to their access to the Tiergarten memorial and Spandau. HENCE, if the East Germans stop us at Friedrichstrasse and we follow through with our plan of stopping Soviet access to the Tiergarten memorial, the Soviets could use this sequence to “justify” halting Allied access from West Germany to West Berlin, and the fat would be in the fire. Klein ends by noting that a State-Defense-JCS working group worked last night to develop possible courses of action.³

3. There is a Berlin Task Force meeting this morning. I assume the course or courses of action from last night’s study will be discussed. The “vital interest” logic would unfortunately indicate the following course:

a. If the East Germans block us at Friedrichstrasse, no “vital interest” is affected;

b. Therefore, don’t follow the plan of blocking Soviet access to their memorial because if we do,

c. They will block our access from West Germany to West Berlin—a “vital interest.”

4. I personally cannot help thinking of the way we used the selfsame “vital interest” logic a year ago to justify our acceptance of The Wall, only to wring our hands a few months later for not having reacted more vigorously. My idea of a logical approach to this problem is to try to deduce the Soviet motive for executing this latest move, because it surely wasn’t pointless. As I see it, there are three major possible motives, either singly or in combination:

a. Remove their (Soviet) responsibility in world opinion for the atrocities at the Wall;

b. Prepare the way for the East Germans to make a de jure as well as de facto international boundary of the sector-sector border (the extended erection of customs-type shacks at crossing points would support this theory).

c. Establish a Freeman-Yakubovsky channel for Berlin matters in order to dry up the usefulness of our Allied officials in Berlin, thus tending to reinforce the idea of West Berlin as just a piece of municipal real estate inside the DDR, not worth all the local wrangles, which hereafter can be “settled” at military CINC level.

5. Whatever the motive, we should not back down one inch on anything anywhere, or the Soviets will have taken us again. If we are blocked from East Berlin, we should shut the Soviets off from their Memorial as planned. If they then make trouble on the autobahn for us, tant pis; we cannot avoid trouble with those birds unless we are prepared to back down every time they scowl at us. So maybe it’s better to have a little trouble sooner. Above all, General Clay is so eternally right when he says that if we stand up to them like men they will back down, not bomb New York and Washington.

[1 paragraph (8–1/2 lines of source text) not declassified]

L

0. Source: National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Box 38, 510 Partition of Berlin. Secret.
1. Dated August 22, not printed.
2. See footnote 2, Document 100.
3. No record of this meeting has been found.