At the request of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, the agencies that belonged to the U.S. Intelligence Board began work on a National Intelligence Estimate to provide a “comprehensive analysis” of West German nuclear “capabilities and intentions.” In this Airgram, the State Department requested input from the Bonn embassy on the upcoming NIE.

In this memorandum, an unnamed official at the U.S. Embassy in Bonn analyzed various West German nuclear and non-nuclear alternatives in the event of failure of the proposals for collective nuclear defense arrangements. An independent nuclear capability was ruled out as an alternative because “no responsible political leader in Germany of any party, any known private group, or any discernible body of Garman opinion … considers it desirable.”

In the weeks following the November 1961 West German federal elections when a new cabinet formed, CIA sources in Bonn provided information on the thinking of the group of “Young Turks” in Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s cabinet that included Defense Minister Franz-Joseph Strauss and Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder.