558 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



letter to the British,15 the commander of the Soviet forces in East Ger-
many asserted that members of the British mission had "carried out ac-
tivities which . . . could lead to undesirable consequences." Such
remarks had seemed at the time to testify to a Soviet desire to provoke,
or, at the very least, a willingness to see a mutual withdrawal of the Mili-
tary Missions-whether on Soviet or Western initiative. However, after
some retaliatory Western obstruction of the Soviet Military Mission in
the FRG at the end of July, harassment of the Western Missions was
markedly reduced. Evidently the Soviet Union judges the Military Liai-
son Missions to have enough value-reciprocal or otherwise-for them
to remain in operation for some indeterminate period.
    One can only speculate on the reasons that might lead Moscow to
conclude the Military Liaison Missions ought to be maintained. As re-
gards its own Mission in the FRG, the Soviet Union might well ascribe
greater importance to the reports it receives from Frankfurt than West-
ern observers have previously allowed. There are no service attaches at
the Soviet Embassy in Bonn, and it is possible that Soviet military
authorities regard the professionally-trained men attached to their
Frankfurt Mission as a necessary substitute. Reliable sources of informa-
tion on military happenings in the FRG which seem quite abundant to
the West may seem less so to the USSR.
    As regards the Western Military Missions in East Germany, there
are several considerations which might impel Moscow either to desire
their continuing operation or, at least, to acquiesce in it. First of all,
the
Missions can fulfill a limited but useful liaison function from Moscow's
point of view by providing an official channel of communication be-
tween the USSR and the Allies below the diplomatic level. The existence
of such a channel enables the USSR, when it desires to do so, to deflate
incidents which could potentially heighten tension. When Moscow
chose not to exploit the forced landing of a US C-47 transport in East
Germany last May for enhancing East German claims to sovereignty, it
used the Missions to settle the affair. The USSR may estimate that the
personnel of the Western Missions fulfill relatively harmless reconnais-
sance functions in view of their circumscribed movements in East Ger-
many and the surveillance to which they are subject. Moscow, and the
GDR, may consider the maintenance of the Missions worthwhile for
their scapegoat value; it is quite possible that the East Germans overesti-
mate the impact of their propaganda-exemplified by Ulbricht's July 19
press conference-designed to paint the Missions as nothing but the
vanguard of a revenge-minded Bundeswehr thirsting to invade the
GDR. Finally, it may be that the USSR regards its or the GDR's treatment



15Not found.