Date

Sep 12, 1962

Description

During this meeting, the military sub-group reviewed the final draft of the “preferred sequence” paper, with basic differences remaining unsettled. The discussion began with review of the text of paragraph 18 concerning responses to a blockage of air access; for example, the Jack Pine contingency plan would permit hot pursuit of attacking aircraft.

Early in the discussion, Admiral John Marshall Lee observed that he did not want the paper to include certain wording about contingency plans if the “paper were ever to fall under Mr. Khrushchev’s eyes.” He may have taken for granted that Soviet spies were embedded NATO, and they were; the following year the French arrested George Pâques, who had been working in NATO’s International Section for years.

The key issue at this meeting was the wording of Phase IV on nuclear weapons use, which both the French and the German representatives felt was a little “weak.” For example, Hans-Georg Wieck wanted to add a sentence referring to readiness for “general war.” Admiral Lee had favored a “grand finale” with language mentioning a situation “dominated by the nuclear equation,” to which Wieck objected because it had implications that “control [was] no longer possible.” The whole point of the German proposal was that the purpose of demonstrative use was to try to avoid general war.

Lee reminded Wieck that the British had added a phrase at the end of Phase III about the imminence of general war if conventional conflict did not induce Moscow to back down. The discussions could not settle the matter and the wording of Phase IV remained brief and “dominated by the nuclear equation” was still in the text. As State Department official Robert H. Kranich observed at the close of the meeting, the paper would go to NATO Permanent Representatives for their review. The goal would be to “minimize hard confrontations among the four powers” over differences in language. Both the French and the Germans accepted sending the paper as it was – their reservations notwithstanding.

Source

RG 59, Records of Bureau of European Affairs, Office of German Affairs, Records Relating to Berlin, 1957-1963, box 5, Berlin-Military Sub-Group 1961-63

Document published in following posting(s):

Crises, Alerts, and DEFCONS, 1961-1976 – Part II

Apr 8, 2021

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense International Security Affairs, Meeting of Military Sub-group Washington Ambassadorial Group. 3:30 P.M., September 12, 1962, “Discussion of Final Draft of Preferred Sequence Paper,” 12 September 1962, Top Secret