THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 28 OCTOBER 1967

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005974089
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: October 28, 1967

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The President's Daily Brief
28 October 1967
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DAILY BRIEF
28 OCTOBER 1967
1. North Vietnam
2. Laos
North Vietnam lost or evacuated
nearly all of its fighters as a result
of US air action during 24-27 October.
North Vietnam still has substantial
reserves of fighter aircraft in China
and presumably could receive additional
MIGs from Peking if requested. Hanoi's
ability to resume fighter operations
will depend less on the repair of run-
ways and revetments than on the replace-
ment of equipment and personnel probably
lost in the raids on Phuc Yen.
The annual movement of supplies
from North Vietnam into the Laos pan-
handle appears to be under way as the
rainy season draws to a close. Supplies
moved through the panhandle road network
are estimated to have risen during each
of the past three years, reaching ?a high
of about 30,000 tons during the 1966-67
season. The Communists probably intend
to ship this much or more during the
coming dry period.
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3. Soviet Union
4. Soviet Union
The launch yesterday of a Soyuz-
type spacecraft probably means that So-
viet manned space flights could resume
in the near future--possibly before the
anniversary celebrations next month.
This is the first launch directly
connected with the manned space program
since the death of the Russian cosmo-
naut last April. It is probably a check-
out of modifications and improvements
made as a result of the investigation
of the Soyuz disaster.
Disagreement in the Soviet leader-
ship over economic priorities has again
broken into the open. Politburo member
Dmitri Polyansky, the top agricultural
man, has written an article saying that
agricultural investment is being slighted.
?Polyansky makes this statement just
after the economic plan for 1968 and
projections for 1969-70 have been made
public. His statement of dissent now--
after the government has formulated its
policy--is a rather venturesome move.
We suspect he lost out in the Politburo
voting on next year's plan, but that he
intends to resume the debate in hopes
of changing the 1969-70 figures which
are still not firm.
Polyansky fails to say with whom
in particular he is arguing; we surmise
it is Kosygin who has been pushing con-
sumer goods--not agriculture--in .rcent
statements.
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5. Soviet Union -
Middle East
6. Common Market
7. Denmark
Despite official disapproval, the
organizers of the second session of Ber-
trand Russell's "International War
Crimes Tribunal" have succeeded in se-
curing facilities outside Copenhagen
for its meeting in late November. The
decision to hold this meeting in Denmark
has created difficulties for Prime Minis-
ter Krag who, although he finds the
whole business personally distasteful,
has taken the position that he cannot
legally prevent it.
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Top Secret
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Top Secret
FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
Top Secret
16
28 October 1967
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
28 October 1967
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
Maurer on His Trip to Hanoi: Rumanian Prime
Minister Maurer in a 25 October conversation with
the American ambassador in Bucharest gave a detailed
account of the impressions he formed during his re-
cent, secret trip to North Vietnam. Maurer's basic
conclusion from his four days in Hanoi was that the
North Vietnamese are now more flexible in their at-
titude toward negotiations and that there definitely
would be talks if the US unilaterally and uncondition-
ITTY?stopped the bombings without demanding any form
of reciprocity or prior guarantee of such talks.
The Rumanian offered no evidence for his asser-
tions that talks will follow a bombing cessation,
and he does not appear to have been given any assur-
ances in this regard by the North Vietnamese. Rather,
his report, taken together with other recent informa-
tion on his trip, suggests that Hanoi's current posi-
tion on the war is the same now as it was when first
outlined last January by Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy
Trinh--there could be talks with the US if the bomb-
ing is stopped unconditionally.
Maurer's account of his Visit was almost delib-
erately optimistic but showed in the last analysis
that the North Vietnamese are taking their usual in-
flexible stand even in conversations with their allies.
Maurer's testimony makes it clear that not only will
there be no reciprocity on Hanoi's part for a bombing
halt, but that the North Vietnamese intend to continue
fighting in the south and to maintain their supply op-
erations to their forces in South Vietnam during any
talks.
Maurer also spelled out in terms unusually frank
for a Communist leader the fact that the Communists
believe once talks begin, the pressures on the US for
compromises leading to an end of the war will be ir-
resistible. This, of course, is what Hanoi has in
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mind by insisting that the fighting in the south will
continue while talks are being conducted.
More from Nobel Committee: Duncan Wood, a mem-
ber of the Nobel prize committee, has passed along to
the US mission in Geneva some more observations on
talks held earlier this month with Vietnamese Commu-
nist representatives in Moscow. Wood expressed gen-
eral discouragement at the negative results of the
meetings, which were initiated by the Nobel group to
sound out the Communists on prospects for a negoti-
ated settlement of the war.
Wood's comments indicate the group was given a
hard-line position by the Vietnamese. The North Viet-
namese ambassador, for example, made it quite clear
that in any future talks with the US, there could be
no discussion of matters related to South Vietnam.
In response to Wood's question about what postbombing
talks might entail, the ambassador replied: "Oh,
we'd talk about relations between our two countries."
Wood also apparently received the standard Com-
munist line on the future of South Vietnam as most
recently outlined in the new program of the Liberation
Front. He was told that North Vietnam would accept
an "independent, democratic, neutral, prosperous
South Vietnam with reunification a matter to be dis-
cussed between the North and South." Wood expressed
a realistic assessment of this position in stating
that in his understanding, an "independent and demo-
cratic" government meant a coalition of elements in
the south "who had seen the light" and were accept-
able to the Liberation Front.
Wood received no response when he asked the Com-
munist representatives if a provisional executive
might be set up during a cease-fire period and whether,
if the bombings were stopped, they would discuss in
negotiations with the US the mutual freezing of forces
in the south.
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* * *
Hanoi Continues to Send Students Abroad: De-
spite the demands which the war has made on its man-
power, North Vietnam continues to send students
abroad for training. A 24 October Hungarian broad-
cast reported that 332 students had arrived in Buda-
pest to receive training in the chemical and tele-
communication industries or to study at Hungarian
universities. The group is part of some 1,000 North
Vietnamese students who will receive training in
Hungary during a three-year period.
II. NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
Nothing of significance to report.
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Top Secret
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