BERLIN - EAST GERMANY CIA FILES
552 pages of selected OSS and CIA files covering Berlin and East Germany from 1943 to 1961. Documents cover the destruction of Berlin during World War II, Soviet military actions and plans, intelligence operations, the 1948 March Crisis, the Berlin Airlift, suppression of revolt in East Germany, the Berlin Tunnel, and the Berlin Wall.
Berlin seems to have figured one way or another in most of the intelligence operations mounted in Europe during the first two decades of the Cold War. Files include documents dealing with Oleg Penkovskiy, the CIA's agent inside Soviet military intelligence and on the General Staff, who was privy to information at the highest levels of the Soviet military. Penkovskiy describes the internal tensions undermining Khrushchev's position in the Politburo as they applied to the Berlin situation. Penkovskiy began spying for the West early in 1961. He made several trips to the West, each time meeting clandestinely with his handlers.
Files include: Internal memoranda concerning the conduct of operations or the establishment and maintenance of an American intelligence presence in Berlin. Intelligence reporting from the field on specific topics. These run the gamut from raw intelligence reports from the field to more finished products ultimately intended for dissemination to intelligence analysts and other recipients. In general, this kind of reporting would not be seen by policymakers until it had been subjected to some level of analysis and editing in Washington. Finished intelligence produced in Washington, DC, and intended for distribution to a widespread audience in the intelligence and policymaking communities. Included in this category are current intelligence reports, which keep policymakers and intelligence officers up to date on events as they happen, and National Intelligence Estimates concerning Berlin. National Intelligence Estimates, or NIEs' are at the pinnacle of the American intelligence process and represent the agreed position of the agencies responsible for producing intelligence on a given topic. They are designed to provide policymakers with regular, detailed analyses of diverse aspects of the world situation, including the policy objectives and likely actions of other nations and their military capabilities and potential. Although predictive in format, they frequently devote much space to weighing the merits of often conflicting pieces of evidence. Special National Intelligence Estimates (SNIEs) are shorter, more ad hoc analyses written when a more rapid response is needed.