document consists of_ 1 _pages RUIUber_l__ot 3- ccpies Se-ries A- STANCARD FORM NO 84 Office Memorandum UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT SECRET DATE August TO BNA Mr Robert M Brandin FROM Mr Kerrigan SUBJECT Addetidwn to Briefing Notes On Greenland 7 1959 w -1 ' Purchase of Greenland We have had several inquiries 1n recent years abOllt feaaibility of purchasing Greenland from the Danes The most recent o f these was an inquiry from Admiral Radford the then Chairman of the Joints Oliefs of Staff addressed I think to Mr Murphy asking for the Tupartment' s views upon a proposed purchase agreement There was also some thinking never committed to informal inquiry in Joint Chiefs about possible purchase of northern half of Greenland Our response to 'Radford which you will find in the files was along the tlimeral lines that it was our view that the time was long past when eueh a pl an would be feasible although it might have been practical enough in the early thirties We went on to point out that Greenland is under the Constitution of 1954 an inwgral part of Denmark just as much as the State of New Jersey is an integral part of the United States of AJneriea Apart from any other considerations this change in st a tus from that of a colony to an integral part of a Kingdom created a nearly insolu ble Constitutional problem as regards the sale The response then went on to stress tba psychological to Denmatk and general Danish sensitivity to threats to its sovereignty in Greenland importance of Greenland The final point as I recall was that any overt action in the direction of attempted purchase of Greenland could be extremely dangerous for the retention of our actavities there and could hardly improve our status since we are permitted to do almost anything literally that we want to in Greenland SECRET