THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 10 JUNE 1968

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005976193
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: June 10, 1968

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The President's Daily Brief
10 June 1968
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THE PRESIDENT'S
DAILY BRIEF
10 JUNE 1968
1. South Vietnam
2. Soviet Union
Replacement of National Police
director Loan and Saigon mayor Cau has
stirred little reaction so far. Both
men were in Ky's camp and their removal
further erodes the vice president's
power base.
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3. Colombia
4. Laos
The Colombian Senate meets tomor-
row to consider the unusual case of a
president who has tendered his resigna-
tion. The resignation, announced by
President Lleras on Friday, probably
will be rejected, but Lleras may find
his precipitous move is politically ex-
pensive.
The resignation was triggered by
Lleras' anger at Senate opposition to
his constitutional reform bill. Lleras'
action, however, is widely viewed as a
political ploy and, in the end, he
stands a good chance of alienating im-
portant leaders of his own party. It
also will weaken the coalition that
governs Colombia.
-Fighting is tapering off. Each
year the Communists shift to the defen-
sive about this time with the approach
of the monsoon rains.
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Top Secret
FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
.) Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
2.) North Vietnamese Reflections of U S
Political Attitudes
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10 June 1968
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
10 June 1968
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
North Vietnamese Ambassador in Moscow Meets US
Citizens: In English language broadcasts on 7 and
8 June over its international service, Hanoi an-
nounced that Nguyen Tho Chan, the North Vietnamese
ambassador in Moscow, had had separate meetings
with Cyrus Eaton and a delegation of American profes-
sors and students from Windham College in Vermont.
The Hanoi statements made it appear that both Eaton
and the college delegation welcomed the "successes"
of the Vietnamese Communists. The statements also
pointed out that the ambassador had asked his visi-
tors to convey the Vietnamese people's sincere
thanks to those Americans "who are fighting persis-
tently against the US war of aggression in Vietnam."
The meeting with the Windham group was apparent-
ly chiefly a propaganda exercise, according to in-
formation passed to the American Embassy in Moscow
by the group. Chan apparently took Hanoi's stand-
ard line on the war and negotiations and stressed
his government's independence of both Moscow and Pe-
king. He claimed that US prisoners of war were
"eating better" than Vietnamese and called the as-
sassination of Robert Kennedy a political murder by
hawkish elements in the US. The Vermont students
were also treated to several propaganda films on
North Vietnam and given literature supporting Hanoi's
position on the war.
* * *
Views on the Paris Negotiations: In separate
conversations with a Western journalist, Liberation
Front and Hanoi officials in Phnom Penh have given
their views on the Paris talks. Both officials were
adamant in insisting that the complete and uncondi-
tional cessation of the bombing was a necessary pre-
requisite to more substantive discussions.
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The Front official, a second secretary in the
Phnom Penh office, stressed the necessity of a com-
plete American withdrawal from South Vietnam. He
claimed that the Front now controls all provinces
of South Vietnam, "except for the provincial centers."
When pressed on this claim, however, he could not
specify any area in which a peaceful Front regime,
free from possible allied attack, had been estab-
lished.
The press and cultural attach?f North Viet-
nam's embassy in Phnom Penh claimed that Hanoi had
entered into the talks with the US because it con-
sidered the time to be favorable. He discounted al-
legations that the talks were the product of a "hawk-
dove" controversy among Hanoi's leaders and denied
that either Moscow or Peking had any influence on
North Vietnam in its decision to begin discussions
with the United States.
The North Vietnamese attach?lso derided the
effectiveness of US bombing but admitted that the
bombing limitation had been a source of "great re-
lief" to the people of Hanoi and said that many
evacuated enterprises were now returning to the capi-
tal.
* * *
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"Victories" in Saigon: On 9 June the Viet Cong's
clandestine radio, in Vietnamese to South Vietnam,
broadcast a commentary on "the victories of the Sai-
gon armed forces and people." It claimed that com-
patriots in many areas of the city had risen up, in
coordination with "the enemy-annihilating fire of
the revolutionary armed forces," and had dealt "stag-
gering blows" to the "American devils and their
lackeys." It asserted that their ability to fight
on urban battlefields had increased despite the
enemy's counterattacks.
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Rice Harvest Prospects: A Czech report from Hanoi
is the latest indication that Hanoi's fifth-month rice
crop, which is currently being harvested and normally
provides about one-third of the yearly harvest, may be
in some difficulty. The report, broadcast over Prague
Radio in English on 8 June, noted that the harvest has
begun after an unusually long and cold spring period
and is generally expected to yield less rice than usual.
The report also took note of the annual government ap-
peals for greater effort in harvesting the crop, avoid-
ing waste, and preparing the ground for the planting of
the major fall crop.
There is no clear evidence as yet just how large
the deficit in the spring crop will be. Hanoi's rice
harvests of the past several years, however, have gen-
erally fallen below the normal annual average of 4.5
million tons. For the past two years, these deficits
have been made up by large imports of rice and rice
substitutes from China and the Soviet Union.
* * *
Hanoi Restricts Travel of Foreigners: The North
Vietnamese may be attempting to shield reconstruction
efforts in the Hanoi area from the eyes of foreigners
resident in the capital. According to a Czech broad-
cast of 8 June in English over the international serv-
ice, the city administration in Hanoi has published
a notice restricting the movements of foreigners in
Hanoi and its vicinity as of 10 June. The notice
states that foreigners without special permits will
not be allowed to enter certain areas where important
installations such as power plants, industrial com-
plexes, and dikes are located.
* * *
Aid to Hanoi: Le Thanh Nghi, Hanoi's traveling
economic emissary, continues his aid-seeking swing
through Eastern Europe. Agreements on aid for 1969
now have been signed with Hungary, Bulgaria, and Po-
land. The pact with Poland, signed on 8 June, in ad-
dition to covering the usual manufactured goods and
equipment, states that "installations for complete
plants" will be supplied. This may refer to the Po-
lish effort to provide miscellaneous small factories,
a program which has been dormant during the bombing
of areas in North Vietnam where industrialization was
taking place. During the past two years, large num-
bers of North Vietnamese have continued to undergo
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technical training in Poland and other East European
countries.
After his stop in Poland, Nghi traveled on to
Bucharest, where agreements similar to those reached
with the other East European countries will probably
be signed in the next few days.
* * *
II. NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
Hanoi on Senator Kennedy's Views: Statements on
the situation in South Vietnam by Senator Robert Ken-
nedy were highlighted in articles in the North Vietnam-
ese press over the weekend in an attempt to refute US
statements in support of South Vietnam and to defend
the right of the whole Vietnamese people to fight the
Americans in all of Vietnam.
An authoritative "Commentator" article in the par-
ty daily, broadcast on 7 June over Hanoi's internation-
al service in English, strongly derided the idea of a
US commitment to the Republic of Vietnam, and went on
to quote remarks by such prominent Americans as John
Kennedy, Walter Lippmann, and John K. Galbraith criti-
cal of the government of South Vietnam. In addition
to quoting the late President Kennedy, the article
quoted the late Senator Kennedy as saying that the US
presence in Vietnam had led the Americans to rely on
the same group as did the French. This had caused the
disastrous decline of South Vietnam over the past 13
years.
Kennedy's statement about the 13 years of South
Vietnamese decline was also featured in another article
in the party daily, broadcast in English on 8 June
over Hanoi Radio's international service. The article
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attempted to refute the concept of a South Vietnam-
ese nation. It argued strongly that Vietnam is one
country, with one history and one people. It re-
jected the US claim of infiltration and aggression
against the South and sharply pointed out that "only
maniacs could think of Vietnamese, wherever they
might live, who were fighting in their own country,
infiltrating or invading another country."
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