THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 21 JULY 1969

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1969-1977
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005976889
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: August 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2016
• Publication Date: July 21, 1969

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The President's Daily Brief
21 July 1969
19
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CHINA
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Battalion 200-400 300-500
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Division 5,000-7,000 5,000-8,000
VIETNAM
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?
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
MAJOR PROBLEMS
VIETNAM
Ho Chi-Minh's statement of 20 July on the occasion of
the 15th anniversary of the Geneva Accords contained the stand-
ard Communist claims of success on the battlefield coupled?
with the usual demands for complete and unconditional with-
drawal of US forces as a precondition for elections or other
political arrangements in South-Vietnam. He alleged that 80
percent of South Vietnam's territory and 75 percent of its
people have been "liberated" by Communist forces. Praising
"our armed forces and people ..fearless of sacrifices and
hardships," he promised "total victory" to the Communists..
Hanoi Radio and the party newspaper Nhan Dan, as well
as a broadcast in the name of the Provisional Revolutionary
Government, all elaborated on Ho's themes,' in an apparent
attempt to recapture some of the propaganda initiative from
Thieu. None of these statements of the Communists, however,
offered any new proposals or otherwise suggested that any
initiatives were imminent.
Saigon, Hue, Kontum city and a number of allied bases
scattered throughout South Vietnam were hit by light and gen-
erally ineffective mortar and rocket fire over the weekend,
but there was no upsurge in the over-all level of enemy ac-
tion. There were still some indications, however, that ele-
ments of the Communists' 1st,. 7th, and 9th divisions are try-
ing to'prepare for some form of coordinated activity against
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Tay Ninh city and against allied military positions in north-
ern III Corps during the next few days.
MIDDLE EAST
At Annex today we discuss the increasingly fretful and
unpredictable mood in the Arab world.
2
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There is nothing significant to report on Soviet
Affairs or Europe.
II, OTHER IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS
INDIA
With Morarji Desai's refusal to rejoin the government,
and Mrs. Gandhi's decree nationalizing most of India's pri-
vate banks, the possibility of papering over the split in
the Congress Party has become remote indeed. Mrs. Gandhi's
conservative opponents have waged an astute campaign against
her, and they will be able to make a good deal of capital
out of her recent high-handedness. She is far from defeated,
however. The nationalization decree is sure to gain her the
backing of important sections of the party.
The battle probably will be resolved one way or the
other in the next day or two. The party's parliamentary
caucus met yesterday, and its highest policy-making body
is meeting tonight. One thing which seems certain is that
the parliamentary opposition will have plenty of chances to
exploit the crisis when the legislature convenes today.
3
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EL SALVADOR - HONDURAS'
A number of clashes in violation of the cease-fire have
been reported. Salvadoran troops apparently have been largely
responsible for these incidents. The Salvadorans also show
.no inclination to comply with the OAS call to withdraw their
forces from Honduran territory.
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32
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ARABIA
?24--
934781.69
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1-DK 11-1E PKE3IDEN1 UNLY
THE J1100D IN THE ARAB WORLD
The Arabs, like the Israelis, are laboring under a heavy
burden of frustration these days. It scarcely needs saying
that far more things still divide the Arabs than unite them,
but on the question of Israel, they share a common feeling of
having been wronged and of seeing no way out. Consequently,
the Arab mood has become fretful, irresponsible, and, most im-
portant, unpredictable.
The Arabs' gloom is rooted in a sense of their own impo-
tence vis-a-vis Israel. All of them, even the fedayeen, rec-
ognize that their chances of inflicting significant damage on
Israel at the moment are practically nil. Nearly all of them,
moreover, are having their noses rubbed almost constantly in
some specific aspect of Israeli invincibility. The Egyptians
are chagrined at Israel's fortifications along the Suez Canal
and its overflights of Egyptian territory. Jordan looks fu-
tilely at the Israeli presence in Jerusalem and the West Bank,
as does Syria at the air of permanence in the Israeli settle-
ment on the Golan Heights. Lebanon, of course, is terrified
at the prospect of Israeli reprisals.
Given this dilemma, it is not surprising that the Arabs
view the situation with a mixture of emotions, many of which
contradict each other:
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--Nearly all of them feel constrained to maintain the
pressure on Israel as best they can, and to do so with a good
deal of bluster. They cannot afford to be upstaged by the
fedayeen.
--At the same time they remain conscious that there is
little they themselves can do, and for this reason they look
for a deus ex machina to rescue them. Most of them are not
particularly sanguine, however, in part because they remain
convinced that the US is in Israel's corner and possibly be-
cause they may have nagging doubts about Soviet support.
--A constant and painful goad to Arab state leaders has
been the ability of the fedayeen, without really hurting Is-
rael much, to project themselves to the forefront of the anti-
Zionist crusade. Drawing primarily on Palestinian refugees,
the fedayeen groups have grown and prospered while Husayn has
had to watch large-scale desertions from his crack army, while
the Syrian army has bled itself in political purges, while the
Iraqis have barely contained the ever-present challenge of
Kurdish tribesmen, and while the well-equipped Egyptians have
had to content themselves with recurrent rounds of training and
inconclusive artillery exchanges along the Suez Canal. The
fedayeen remain dangerous because they are willing to sabotage
any reasonable peace agreement, and could pull down the gov-
ernments of Jordan and Lebanon in the process. Jordan still
is confronted with the "state within a state" of the armed
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fedayeen, and Lebanon has not been able to replace the govern?
-
ment forced out months ago by the dispute over support for the
?fedayeen in Lebanon.
--Occasionally through all this pessimism there surfaces
the notion that somehow, some day, the Arabs can triumph over
the Israelis. This feeling crops up occasionally in the Egyp-
tian military, and more frequently among the fedayeen, who re-
main convinced that their cause will succeed even while they
admit that their campaign against Israel is not accomplishing
much.
--When the pressures get really severe, most of the Arabs
begin to show a streak of fatalism and resignation. This can
propel them either way: either toward acceptance of their un-
happy lot for the moment, or toward the idea that decisive ac-
tion against Israel, no matter how suicidal, must be under-
taken. So far, most of the important Arab leaders have kept
such feelings under control, although the popular support given
the fedayeen is goading them into ill-considered attacks.
We expect that this range of feelings may be reaching the
point of dangerous unpredictability. The Arabs remain unhappy
at their impotence, faintly hopeful that someone will bail them
out, occasionally indulging in irrational flights of optimism
or fatalism committed to doing all within their limited means
to make life difficult for Israel. In this mood a key figure
to watch is Nasir. He still possesses almost infallible in-
stincts for political survival, as well as the propaganda ma-
chinery still capable of reviving his now tarnished charismatic
leadership of the Arab world. Caught between the millstones
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of fedayeen "heroism" and Israeli toughness, Nasir's sure
sense of political opportunism is looking for some solution
with which he can attempt to regain his former reputation
and carry the Arab people with him--and this carries the
risk that he could set them off on a dangerous path.
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