204. Editorial Note
In a June 21, 1962, memorandum to the President on Berlin, Secretary of Defense McNamara stated that he felt “certain that our improved military position and our firm response to provocation have had a major influence on Soviet attitudes. From the beginning Khrushchev has [Page 446] sought to develop his campaign against Berlin in such a way as to avoid serious risk of general war.” While the Soviets were not likely to try to precipitate a crisis around Berlin, McNamara continued, neither were they likely to modify their positions to allow a political agreement to be reached. For text, see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, volume XV, pages 192–195.
On July 5 the President received a message from Chairman Khrushchev which proposed the elimination of Western military forces in Berlin and their replacement by “UN police military formations” composed of troops from the three Western allies, neutral states, and small Warsaw Pact and NATO states. The UN forces would be reduced in size by 25 percent each year and removed by the end of the fourth year. This would happen in the context of an agreement that also solved the larger German issues. A week later Secretary of State Rusk and Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin discussed Khrushchevʼs letter, which Rusk dismissed as a repetition of previous Soviet positions. On July 17 the President replied to Khrushchev, stating that what the U.S. found “especially troubling in the present Soviet position is the consistent failure, even in the very formulation of the problem, to take any real account of what we have made clear are the vital interests of the United States and its Allies.” For text of the Khrushchev and Kennedy letters and the memorandum of the Rusk- Dobrynin conversation, see ibid., pages 207–212, 215–222, and 224–229.