DCI/NIO MEETING -- 28 MAY 1986

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87R00529R000100060012-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2011
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: May 27, 1986
• Content Type: MISC

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/01: CIA-RDP87R00529R000100060012-5
NIO/EUROPE
27 May 1986
DCI/NIO Meeting -- 28 May 1986
Germany
Germany has once again become the center of East-West disputes:
-- In Berlin, East German authorities have declared that US, French
and British diplomats entering the eastern sector of the city
can no longer do so strictly on the basis of their post-World
War II occupation authority but must have passports with East
German visas. Although this GDR action had to have Soviet
approval, it is unclear whether the Soviets initiated it,
routinely coordinated a GDR request or were maneuvered into
approving it by the GDR. Ironically this GDR action against
four-power rights comes when the Soviets have (1) just
reaffirmed another four-power institution--the Military Liaison
Missions--that the East Germans are known to loathe, and (2)
reached a seeming modus vivendi with the three western allies
over the air corridors (the Soviets do not deprive the allies of
the minimum airspace needed for safe landings, the allies keep
protesting that this is not enough but do nothing about it).
-- In West Germany, meanwhile, Bonn and Moscow have entered an open
polemic over the Soviet liability for economic losses due to the
Chernobyl accident. While Soviet secrecy is the root cause of
the problem and has generated European-wide outrage, the
authorities in West Germany made the post-Chernobyl situation
worse by issuing ambiguous and sometimes exaggerated
radioactivity warnings. As a result, farmers suffered some
needless losses and the CDU now fears that the farmers of Lower
Saxony will retaliate by either abstaining or voting for the
Greens in the all-important 15 June election. To cope with this
danger the federal government has acted with unusual dispatch in
compensating the Lower Saxony farmers for their losses. The
publicizing of demands for compensation from Moscow are probably
intended to keep the focus on Moscow rather than on nuclear
power per se or the federal government's own handling of the
Chernobyl crisis.
Thus the Soviet-East German move over access to East Berlin, the
wanton Soviet disregard of international norms of conduct over Chernobyl,
and Kohl's political imperatives have put the Soviet Union and its East
German allies into a confrontational stance against the US, the UK,
France and West Germany. The Berlin situation is particularly ticklish
as it will require a backing down by one side or the other and, as any
attempt to whittle away the few remaining four-power prerogatives in that
city, could easily escalate into a tenser confrontation.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/07/01 : CIA-RDP87R00529R000100060012-5