Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

260.

East Berlin, January 26, 1984, 1337Z

1.: Confidential—Entire text.
2.: At about 1400 hours a family of three walked into the front entryway of the Embassy and requested asylum. They are in the same area as the one other (Ref B), making a total of four now just inside the front door.

Action requested: Department’s guidance on handling per reftels.

3.: We have not had a chance to interview the family, which includes a child, but they were carrying packages which contain a small stock of provisions.
4.: The physical situation was described Ref B for the current four persons. One basic option is to let them into interior spaces or halls for further discussion, which would have the psychological impact of admission by letting them through the controlled door, but could shut out the public. The other basic option is to ask them again to depart and to leave the steel screen door up, overnight if need be, until they do so. This means that others, including press, could enter the landing area with the asylum seekers. As noted Ref B, closing the steel screen makes the front door impassable.

Ridgway

Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Cable File, Europe (State) NODIS IN (01/21/1984–04/23/1984). Confidential; Niact Immediate; Nodis.↩
In telegram 23572 to East Berlin, January 25, Eagleburger wrote that he had established a working group to address how to handle asylum seekers. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, N840002–0114)↩
Telegram 255 from East Berlin, January 26, reported on the asylum seekers who had entered the Embassy. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, N840002–0134)↩

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume X, Eastern Europe