Today’s post comes to us from NDC blogger Neil Carmichael.
The autumn of 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the political crisis that resulted in the erection of the Berlin Wall and created a divided city for 28 years. The National Declassification Center of the National Archives and Records Administration and the Historical Publications Office of the Central Intelligence Agency have partnered together to publish newly declassified documents that reveal intimate details of the five months Berlin Crisis of 1961.
Included in the upcoming joint publication are newly released documents that show behind the security discussions and planning. The Department of State has added a contemporary 600-page report, never before disclosed, on the impact of the events surrounding the Berlin Crisis and the deepening of the Cold War. Other documents show the real-time threat to the legal status and rights of the three Western Powers in Berlin; Britain, France and the United States.
On October 27, 2011, the National Declassification Center will host a one-day conference on the Berlin Crisis of 1961. The conference will focus on events leading up to and following the Vienna summit between Khrushchev and Kennedy, the height of tension during August with the construction of the wall and the eventual standoff between the U.S. Army’s Berlin Brigade and the Soviet Union 80th Tank Division.
http://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/cold-war/1961-berlin-crisis/2011-conference.html
