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

185. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Germany⁰

Washington, April 13, 1963.

2484. Please deliver following personal and confidential message from Secretary to FonMinSchroeder at earliest appropriate opportunity:

“I feel I must tell you that a Bundestag session in Berlin at this time,¹ with all the attendant difficulties and frictions which this would generate, might well give rise to a situation which could compromise the possibility of the President visiting Berlin in the course of his forthcoming trip to Europe. I am sure that such a course of events would run counter to your wishes in the matter as well as to our own. I am therefore looking to you and your colleagues to use your influence in every appropriate way to help bring about a satisfactory resolution of this matter.

I anticipate that the three allied governments responsible for Berlin will be in touch with you shortly on this point.”²

Rusk

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 US/Kennedy. Secret; Priority; Eyes Only. The time of transmission is illegible.
1. On April 6 a German Foreign Ministry representative had stated in the Bonn Quadripartite Group that the President of the Bundestag intended to call a plenary meeting of that body in Berlin May 20–22. (Telegram 2685 from Bonn, April 8; ibid., POL 15–2 W GER)
2. On April 19 the three Western powers presented identical aides-mémoire to the German Foreign Ministry expressing their “serious reservations” about holding a Bundestag meeting in Berlin. (Telegram 2799 from Bonn, April 19; ibid.)