54. Memorandum From David
Klein of the National Security Council Staff to the
President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0
Washington,
May 17,
1962.
SUBJECT
I am attaching the working paper on “The Next Steps on Berlin” which is
now on its way to Chip Bohlen and
the Secretary for their comments and suggestions. At this juncture we
have no idea what will emerge after the Secretary and Chip Bohlen have had a chance to wrestle
with the problem.
As we see the exercise (Martin,1Henry
Owen and I went over it at some length), there are two
problems which must be resolved for the achievement of a satisfactory
Berlin arrangement—Soviet acceptance of our military presence in Berlin
and acceptable arrangements for our access to the city and a gesture on
our part which meets the Soviet concept of “respect for GDR sovereignty”.
Foy2
feels strongly that in view of the Salinger conversations3 in Moscow (I have
not seen the Moscow report on them and therefore am prepared to accept
Foy’s reaction), the question
of the Western military
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presence in Berlin must be nailed down firmly before we move too far
ahead in our exploratory discussions with the Soviets.
And as soon as there is some indication of Soviet give in this matter, we
can make a significant move on the question of “respect for GDR sovereignty”, indicating a readiness to
accept a GDR presence at the access
control points. These would be the essential elements of the “deal”,
with the non-aggression and non-diffusion commitments added.
You talked yesterday about a possible change in nomenclature for the
Western forces such as “police forces”, which might make our military
presence saleable to the Soviets. I am not aware of any indication that
a police force would be more acceptable to the Soviets than a military
force unless this was suggested by Salinger in his Moscow talks. However, in his comments
to Gardner Cowles, Khrushchev did say “Western troops must
leave Berlin or at least give up their occupation status”, which I took
to mean that some formula which removed the words “occupation forces”
might be acceptable. We could explore this possibility with the Soviets
once we had some indication that they were prepared to live with our
forces in Berlin.
As for tactics, the consensus of Hillenbrand, Owen
and Klein was that we should avoid
tabling papers; attempt for the time being to get German agreement on
the substance of the revised Draft Principles Paper; and let the
Secretary present to the Soviets orally what the Germans have agreed to
substantively, with the Secretary improvising the orchestration as he
goes along.
A new paper might be needed later. For the present however we should
avoid new documents, and eliminate the interminable debate with our
Allies over words, phrases and punctuation.
German agreement to the present draft of the Principles Paper should give
us sufficient license to move ahead with the Dobrynin dialogue. And this would be consistent with the
President’s commitment to Adenauer
on the question of consultation.
Henry again suggested an early
offer to the Soviets of accepting the GDR at the check points. After some discussion, it was
agreed that this might be in order but only after two or three more
rounds with Dobrynin, and
provided Dobrynin gave some
indication of give in the Soviet position on the Western military
presence in Berlin.
As for transforming the character of the talks—by shifting their level
and locus—and perhaps letting Bohlen and/or Kohler carry them on privately with Dobrynin away from the Department, the
consensus was that this would be useful, but only after the Secretary
made progress in nailing down the principal points under discussion.
The immediate task then is to establish Soviet intentions, to ascertain
whether serious negotiations are possible. And if there appears to
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be promise of Soviet movement,
we should set down the principal elements of an acceptable arrangement
along the general lines of the proposed Draft Principles.
Allied consultation remains a tricky problem. In view of the experience
of the last few weeks, however, the general feeling is that some of the
difficulty might be avoided if there were fewer papers tabled and
greater reliance placed on oral explanations with the Soviets.
Attachment
THE NEXT STEPS ON BERLIN
- 1.
- We assume that (a) the possibilities of reaching an
understanding with the Soviets on Berlin have not yet been
exhausted, no matter how slim they may now seem, and (b) the
case for continuing U.S. contacts with the Soviets on Berlin
remains strong, whatever be the current judgment as to the
urgency or lack of urgency with which the latter view the
situation. Under present circumstances there would accordingly
seem to be five possible courses of action which we might
consider:
- a.
- To concede fully that we cannot move any farther or
faster than the Germans want us to. This would mean
waiting for the substantive comments which they promised
at Athens to give us on the revised “principles paper”
and the International Access Authority paper but not
presenting the Soviets with any further paper until they
had made some major concession or at least until the
situation had developed to a point where the Germans
accepted the tactical desirability of putting such a
paper forward. It would presumably mean continuing the
exchanges between the Secretary of State and Ambassador
Dobrynin, but
at a deliberate pace and without the introduction of any
significant new substantive materials on the part of the
West.
- b.
- To accept the German judgment that we should put
another paper forward at this time but, in the light of
their substantive comments on the revised “principles
paper”, to have the Secretary, in his discretion,
explore orally with Dobrynin possible language changes in
the “principles paper” given to the Soviets at
Geneva.
- c.
- To put pressure on the Germans after receiving their
comments on the revised “principles paper” with a view
to their accepting, no matter how reluctantly, that we
present it to the Soviets at an early stage rather than
awaiting some major concession.
- d.
- To foreshorten the negotiations process drastically
through fairly unorthodox methods in order to achieve
either early agreement or
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clear deadlock within a period of
some 6 to 8 weeks. This might involve giving the Soviets
a revised “principles paper”, embodying, in effect, our
fallback positions, and stressing that, if the Soviets
want changes additional to those made, then we would
have to consider the talks as deadlocked and our
proposals withdrawn. While we would not break off
contacts, we would say that the U.S. had no intention of
using them to discuss further changes in our “principles
paper” and that the talks might well be transferred to a
lower level.
- e.
- To start with the assumption that the experience of
the past month has shown that the U.S. cannot conduct
exploratory talks with the Soviets in a useful way and
at the same time observe the amenities of conventional
consultation with our Allies. We might, therefore, try
to put our contacts with the Soviets on an even more
private and confidential basis, without consulting our
Allies in advance or from meeting to meeting. We would
make it clear to the Soviets that any proposals advanced
or discussed were entirely provisional without any
commitment on our part or that of our Allies. Only if
there seemed to be a real prospect of agreement with the
Soviets along lines which might have been developed in
these discussions, would we then take up substantive
proposals with our Allies preparatory to moving into the
more formal kind of negotiations required for a
definitive arrangement in which they would be
included.
- 2.
- None of the foregoing fails to raise serious problems, but, on
balance, 1(b) seems to involve the least practical difficulties
and still to be consistent with the objective of continuing
contacts with the Soviets to further explore whether the
possibility of an agreement exists.
- 3.
- We cannot permit ourselves to be diplomatically sterilized, as
the most extreme interpretations of Adenauer’s position would make us, nor can we
logically refuse to discuss our “principles paper” with the
Soviets as something which might conceivably be modified to take
account of the Geneva talks, as long as our basic interests are
being preserved. At the same time, to put forward a revised
version of the “principles paper” in writing, against the
express wishes of the Germans, would run counter to the
assurances we have given them and might precipitate another
Donnybrook of the kind we just had.
- 4.
- The shock approach suggested in 1(d) might have to be
considered if we had any reason to think that time were running
out, and that the Soviets would ineluctably move ahead within
the near future to take the unilateral action which they have
threatened, unless some dramatic Western gesture of this sort
were made. This does not seem to be the case. Ambassador
Thompson in Moscow
believes it unlikely that the Soviets will pay our price for a
real Berlin solution and that the present “neither peace nor
war” situation will continue. After an effort at some sort of a
deal with the West Germans, Ambassador Thompson thinks,
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Khrushchev would sign his
separate peace treaty but would take steps to prevent it from
bringing on serious conflict with the West. Moreover, for the
U.S. to offer further concessions without any indication of give
in the Soviet position, would be a debatable negotiating tactic.
The Soviets would be unlikely to be impressed by U.S. statements
that this was the ultimate in concessions, and it is not clear
precisely what the alternative course of action for the U.S.
would be if the Soviets did not accept these concessions and we
were then forced to carry out our threat to cut off discussions
with the Soviets on the “principles paper”. Such a statement of
purpose on the part of the U.S. may become desirable at some
point in the discussions, but it does not seem to have been
reached at the present stage.
- 5.
- If such a new tactical approach were to be followed, it
presumably would have to be done without prior consultation with
our Allies, following the procedures suggested in 1(e). This
latter might, of course, also be used for a more leisurely
approach. The difficulty with 1(e) is that it leaves us at the
mercy of the Soviets. By leaking out the contents of such
“private” discussions, they could completely foul up our
relations with our Allies and bring about a real rather than a
synthetic crisis of confidence. Soviet bad faith apart, it is
difficult to believe that talks could actually be carried on
without becoming known to our Allies. The pressures therefore
for information would be difficult to resist.
- 6.
- As to the substance of our position, we should shortly have
the German comments on the “principles paper” discussed at
Athens. These may or may not be helpful, but under the
circumstances we would presumably have more flexibility orally
than in trying to put in a new paper. Two revisions of the
International Access Authority paper have been prepared as the
U.S. side—one attempts to adapt the Soviet version presented to
us in Geneva; the other attempts to adapt our version by
incorporating a number of Soviet suggestions. Since the main
German objection was to the make-up of the Board of Governors,
and since neither of these versions takes care of this point, it
would seem desirable to await the German comments on the old
paper which they have promised before floating the new
versions.4