CONFIDENTIAL
*(Classification)*
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE
INR BRIEFING NOTE
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TO: The Director, INR
GIST: More on the GDR Berlin Restrictions
DATE: June 12, 1963
TIME: regular am
COMMENTS CONTAINED IN INR BRIEFING NOTES ARE INITIAL AND TENTATIVE.
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SOURCE(S)
Berlin 1640
1642
CLASS./CONTROL(S)
Further details on the new GDR restrictions on Berlin access indicate a complete reorganization of the basis on which Interzonal Trade is now handled is part of the package. Also included apparently is new financial regulation for sewage charges — these evidently affecting primarily West Berlin. The new trade and sewage payment systems will go into effect July 1 for the most part. Passport and visa requirements went into effect at midnight last night, but a grace period of some four weeks (til July 15) allowed for West Germans to obtain passports.
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FBIS 58 June 11
Moscow TASS
22 June 12
Moscow Domestic
TASS issued a statement yesterday afternoon reporting the GDR measures are a regular news item and quoting GDR justification for the actions. No editorial comment, however. This morning, Brezhnev, Podgorny and Kosygin sent greetings to the GDR on the fourth anniversary of the 1964 Friendship Treaty, expressing mutual esteem and firm solidarity, but with no mention of the new GDR actions.
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INR: Additional details of GDR measures, particularly as they affect trade, begin to look by extremely clever squeeze play on FRG. East Germans evidently are prepared, and obviously with Soviet connivance, to risk abrogation of IZT arrangements. Perhaps they are even hoping for such abrogation. (Ulbricht has been working since the 1960 IZT episode to guarantee GDR’s invulnerability from such countermeasures and probably now could absorb the losses with relatively little consequences.)
Thus the FRG’s one major weapon, IZT, is more or less blunted. The GDR would be delighted if it were used — to eliminate it once and for all — but if it is used, the FRG has relatively little else. And by being hesitant about invoking IZT measures, the FRG risks antagonizing its allied who insist Bonn must go first.
The Soviets sit benignly in the wings, having no active role to play but offer moral support for their agents — if the GDR can get away this time with acting as the Soviet agent on Four Power access matters.
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INR OFFICE
RSB
BRIEFER
Hautner
EXTENSION
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CONFIDENTIAL
*(Classification)*
NM 31097 DocId:33061196 Page 21