Office of the Historian

3. Memorandum From David Klein of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1

Washington, January 16, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • The German “Peace Plan”

The Germans finally tabled their heralded peace plan.2 As you will see from a copy I have attached, it is really a “non-plan.” It deals with German reunification but has nothing in it of possible interest to the Soviets.

The understanding at yesterday’s meeting was that the Ambassadorial Group would reassemble early next week to discuss the proposals. (Knappstein said he couldn’t handle questions at this meeting.)

My suggestion to Thompson and our Germans was that Knappstein should be asked at the next meeting how he would make this proposal more salable to the Soviets, and that a working group be given the job to convert this non-starter into a negotiable package.

On the U.S. side, we have been working with some ideas (including Adenauer’s standstill proposal, the Pell and Mansfield plans),3 and I think we probably can re-fashion this German widget into something more negotiable. However, there is a clear tactical advantage in keeping the project a German initiative—if only to keep the French involved and the Germans on board.

Unless major scenario changes are ordered by the 7th floor, this operation will get under way early next week—the object being to produce a useful plan in the shortest possible time.

If nothing else, this will insure that some of us will be working while you all are sunning yourselves in the far south.4

D Klein
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Germany, vol. 1. Confidential.↩
  2. Document 2.↩
  3. For extracts of the relevant portions of Adenauer’s May 5, 1962, standstill proposal, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962, pp. 698–700. In December 1963, Senator Pell suggested that the Western powers exchange recognition of the German Democratic Republic for guarantees of free passage to Berlin. Senator Mansfield had, on a number of occasions, most recently in August 1962, suggested that recognition of the East German regime could lead to a settlement of the Berlin question.↩
  4. A handwritten notation by Bundy next to this paragraph reads: “Good. Keep it up.” A second notation at the bottom of the page reads: “Told Mr. Klein 1/16/64 M. Z.” (Mildred Zayae, Bundy’s secretary)↩