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

161. Memorandum From the Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (LeMay) to Secretary of Defense McNamara⁰

JCSM-981–62

Washington, December 10, 1962.

SUBJECT

• Berlin Planning (U)

1. On several occasions in the past few months the Joint Chiefs of Staff have expressed their concern to you that little, if any, progress is being made toward a solution of the Berlin problem. At best, our most comprehensive plans aim at a limited objective of return to the status quo ante following some infringement by the Soviets on our vital interests related to Berlin. Recent exhaustive examination of this problem, as transmitted to you in JCSM-556–62, dated 28 July 1962, subject: “Reappraisal of the Berlin Situation (U),”¹ revealed that in the present situation we have extremely limited leverage, short of serious military action, to balance the unfavorable tactical situation resulting from the physical location of Berlin so far within the borders of the Soviet Bloc. Consequently, our necessarily limited responses in the Berlin situation do not consistently convey an adequate impression of our determination to defend our vital interests. This may have influenced Soviet thinking with respect to Cuba. Knowing that you share this concern, the Joint Chiefs of Staff forward in this memorandum the results of a recent Joint Strategic Survey Council study on the Berlin problem.²

2. The present United States political initiative seeks to take advantage of the lull in Communist aggressive actions against Berlin. Discussions at several diplomatic levels are probing to clarify Soviet intentions and possibly changing policies. Current United States efforts appear to include some degree of international participation in Berlin and its access routes. The Joint Strategic Survey Council study introduces an alternate to the “international” type of solution, and provides a basis for eventually diminishing rather than maintaining our military presence in Berlin. While most of the features in this proposal have previously been considered, as far as we know they have not been presented in a coordinated package in which both the early and later stages have been considered.

3. In forwarding the proposal outlined herein, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would emphasize that any agreement sought for the Berlin problem must be developed within the framework of continuing struggle between the Free World and the Communist Bloc. The German question is pivotal in this struggle; and West Germany’s economic, political, and military assets remain important ingredients in the power equation. In this context, while the German and Berlin questions represent immediate manifestations of East-West divergencies, they should never be regarded as the basic source of these divergencies. Any plan, including that outlined below, which ignores this premise could be self defeating.

4. In considering the Berlin situation, the following paragraphs (initially addressed to an analysis of the Cuban situation) provide a rationale within which to address the Berlin problem:

• “a. Both the United States and the Soviet Union each have many interests. Only a portion of these can accurately be described as ‘vital interests,’ i.e., interests which, if damaged, would cause serious and long-term harm to the status of security of one or the other of the two great powers.
• “b. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have vital interests in Berlin; neither can afford being pushed too far without serious damage to its own military, political, and international positions. In Laos, to illustrate a different situation, both the United States and the Soviet Union have an interest, but neither has a vital interest. Neither would welcome a loss, but either could, if necessary, afford a loss without irreparable damage to its own security or to its own network of the international power structures.
• “c. In both these illustrations, Berlin and Laos, there is a sort of equilibrium-of-interests. In the one case (Berlin), both have vital interests at stake, and, therefore, each must consider carefully the effect of its own moves on the other. In the other case (Laos), neither has vital interests, and, therefore, neither is induced to put forth its utmost effort with all forms of power in order to keep from losing.
• “d. While both have a sort of equilibrium, the important difference between the two types of interests is that there is much more freedom of action in the situations which are not vital. The possible actions and responses-to-actions in those cases in which the great power has a vital interest are much narrower and at the same time much more predictable because of the narrowed range of alternatives.”

It follows then that a solution in Berlin must necessarily involve a certain degree of disengagement of vital interests. One might logically reason that this process is the reverse of the process of involvement of vital interests such as the recent buildup in Cuba.

5. In furtherance of this theme, it is quite apparent that the Soviets, in proposing a treaty with East Germany, are in reality trying to disengage their political vital interests in Berlin by absorbing them into their vital interests in the East German Government. The price they would like us to pay for this is our military withdrawal and sacrifice of our military interests in Berlin. Since they are asking that a military vital interest of the United States be sacrificed for the disengagement of a political vital interest of the Soviets, the power equation would be out of balance, and the proposition is unacceptable. The only basis on which we can seriously consider negotiations would be that of a political disengagement for a political vital interest or a military disengagement for a military vital interest.

6. To illustrate this thesis, it would be appropriate to reverse the Soviet proposal and offer the Soviets Allied political disengagement in Berlin for a major Soviet military withdrawal (such as their military withdrawal from East Germany). Naturally, this would be as outrageous a proposal to the Soviets as their proposal is to us; for here we would be trading a political vital interest for their military vital interest, and, consequently, the equation would be out of balance. To keep the exchanges equitable, we could offer to accept the Soviet’s East German treaty scheme expanded to include a comparable West German treaty scheme with neither side forsaking its military vital interests. This, then, would result in a political disengagement by both the major powers without the sacrificing of any of their military vital interests.

7. On the face of it, the equation is now in balance. Political disengagement on both sides and military involvement on both sides should be an acceptable solution to each. Some additional safeguards to make it palatable to each will be necessary. For instance, Khrushchev has referred to a NATO-Warsaw Pact nonaggression agreement; there might be ways in which this could be worked out. But most importantly, the problem of access to Berlin must be firmly nailed down.

8. a. If Berlin were on the border, the access problem would be easy. It is not, and this is the problem. Most suggestions up to this time have tended toward some sort of UN or other international supervision of access. An “international” solution would bring more, rather than fewer, fingers in the pie. Any form of international management would serve to perpetuate rather than eliminate Berlin as a point of international friction (the examples of UN interposition in the Gaza Strip, in Korea, in Laos, and in the Congo all point to this tendency). Therefore, it is proposed that we move in the other direction, away from the “international” type of solution. Since Berlin cannot be brought to the border, we propose taking the border to Berlin by creating some sort of an umbilical cord, a guaranteed access corridor, between West Germany and West Berlin controlled only by West Germans, with no intermediate accesses and no checkpoints. It is not implied that this guaranteed access should be the only access; the present water, air, rail, and road accesses could and should be continued with detailed arrangements worked out by the West and East Germans on the basis of their mutual self interests. But the insurance policy, the umbilical, would have to be in existence in addition to these. This umbilical cord could perhaps be a long-term lease, guaranteed by NATO and the Warsaw Pact, of a strip of land on each side of an existing autobahn (with new by-passes around towns and cities); or it might be a new autobahn, perhaps with a parallel railroad or a monorail, perhaps even an elevated autobahn, inside a leased strip all the way from the West German border into West Berlin. Rough cost estimates are $550 million for an elevated autobahn and less than that for a new autobahn on the surface. Neither of these is an exorbitant price for prospect of settlement of this thorny question, and the cost could be distributed at least between the United States and West Germany and perhaps throughout NATO.

b. The right of way through East Germany could be closed off by fences, mine fields, or whatever the East Germans may want; and non-access bridges or tunnels would ensure free East German crossings. But, whatever the detailed arrangements, this one insurance access must be guaranteed and must be under the exclusive control of the West Germans. By this means we have, in effect, moved West Berlin to the border. This establishment of the two parts of Germany in juxtaposition to each other with the basic political barrier of the opposing great powers removed leads naturally to an evolutionary development of the next step. We can assume that the arrangement will be peaceful, because it is guaranteed by both sides. We can hope that, since the external political barriers would have been removed, the physical barriers might break down. Inevitably Germans will talk to Germans and, quite reasonably, interflow between East and West Germany would develop and should be encouraged.

9. Thus, East Berlin would become a part of East Germany; West Berlin would become a part of West Germany; both great powers would have withdrawn from direct political participation in Berlin; both great powers would retain their military involvements through NATO and the Warsaw Pact in West and East Germany, and through those two countries in the divided city; West Berlin’s viability would be preserved by the guaranteed and uncontrolled access; the prospect of a reunited Germany would be extended further into the future; and the criticality of Berlin as a direct US-Soviet confrontation point would recede to become part of the more manageable larger problem of Western Europe versus Eastern Europe.

10. When the matter of the political disengagement is in hand, we might reasonably look forward to a military-for-military disengagement. This action would again keep the equation in balance. A phased back-up, a reduction on a geographic or numerical basis of non-German forces, might be accomplished by substitution of West German military for tripartite military and of East Germans for Soviets in Berlin. This would accomplish one of our aims which is disengagement by both powers in Berlin. It does not appear practical now or in the foreseeable future to disengage West Germany from NATO nor East Germany from the Warsaw Pact. Any later and more extensive force reductions or redistributions would have to be considered in the total context of the NATO requirements then existing.

11. By the stratagem of an exclusively German city, which is itself a concession to the Soviets, we would give physically in Berlin but maintain our presence and treaty obligations through the West Germans who would, in fact, own the Allied sectors of Berlin and the access real estate. Both super powers, the United States and the Soviets, would eventually withdraw politically and militarily in Berlin and thus substantially disengage their vital interests there. In time, one could expect the natural tendency of a people with identical ethnics and culture to drift toward cohesion and nationalization. Thus, we might eventually reach our distant objective of unification and a legal plebiscite.

12. In summation, the major elements of the plan are:

a. East Berlin would become a part of East Germany and West Berlin would become a part of West Germany, with guaranteed arrangements for West Germany-to-West Berlin travel controlled only by West Germany (this is, for the United States, the critical element of the entire proposal).

b. Both the Allies and the Soviets would clean up the World War II remnants by each side recognizing and completing the treaties with both West Germany and East Germany.

c. Some nonaggression agreement or comparable and acceptable NATO-Warsaw Pact agreements could be accepted if not substantively harmful. This should not be offered by us, but should be available as a negotiating trade feature if asked for by the Soviets.

13. Berlin thus becomes a German, not a direct US-Soviet problem. The main task in the future would then be to permit the Germans to work out their own future while at the same time ensuring that they do not force a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict to serve their own private ends.

14. a. While it might not be feasible for the United States to offer this proposal today, there are good indications that thought in West Berlin and West Germany is moving in this direction. Opportunity to offer it may come in the near future, and will almost surely come at the time when political forces or the actuarial tables provide a successor to Chancellor Adenauer.

b. It is recognized that use of such a proposal would depend upon its acceptance by our Allies. The proposal in this study includes concepts which may require further development. Since the Berlin problem is under continuous and extensive study within the United States Government, the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggest that the proposal be transmitted to the Secretary of State for consideration.

For the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

Curtis E. LeMay

0. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 66 B 3542, 091 Germany. Top Secret. The source text bears no drafting information. On January 17, 1963, McNamara sent a copy of this paper to Rusk. (Department of State, Central Files, 762.0221/1–763)
1. Not printed. (Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 66 B 3542, 091 Germany)
2. Attached but not printed.