THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 28 OCTOBER 1969

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1969-1977
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005977061
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: August 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2016
• Publication Date: October 28, 1969

, Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2016/04/27 : CIA-RDP79T00936A007600240001-7
The President's Daily Brief
28 October 1969
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2016/04/27 : CIA-RDP79T00936A007600240001-7
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THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF
28 October 1969
PRINCIPAL DEVELOPMENTS
President Hilu is nowfaced.with decisions that may
determine Lebanon's survival. (Page 1)
Prime Minister Gorton has only a slight edge as the,
counting of ballots continues in Australia. (Page 2)
The USSR and Communist China are engaged in long and
arduous talks about the border. (Page 3)
? More trouble is in store for Kenya as tribal antip-
athies rise. (Page 4)
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LEBANON
? The fighting between the army and the fedayeen
has been reduced to occasional sporadic outbursts,
and the attention of most of the Arab leaders is
turning to the mediation conference in Cairo. Feda-
yeen leader Yasir Arafat reportedly offered yester-
day to effect a cease-fire until the conference dis-
bands.
Although his army and the majority of his
people are still loyal, President Hilu is
facing an increasingly bitter choice. Am-
bassador Porter believes he must either
compromise with the fedayeen or resign. If
he were to choose to fight it out against
the domestic and foreign forces that threaten
him, as the ambassador sees it, the result
would be the destruction of Lebanon.
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AUSTRALIA
Returns from Australia's elections on Saturday
point toward the continuation in office of the Lib-
eral-Country coalition with the slimmest of major-
ities--one to four seats. The outcome depends both
on absentee ballots, which will take several more
days to count, and on the tallying of "second-pref-
erence" votes in districts where the voters' first-
choice candidate failed to get enough votes for elec-
tion.
Gorton obviously has suffered a severe
setback. Among almost cePtain casualties
is External Affairs Minister Gordon Freeth,
who is close to Gorton. Freeth's speech
last August implying approval of a Soviet
presence in Southeast Asia confused the
traditionally vote-getting anti-Communist
issue and was responsible for some of the
government's losses.
The 8 percent swing to the Australian La-
bor Party has revitalized that party, and,
failing victory, it can at least be ex-
pected to take the offensive against a
broad spectrum of government policy. La-
bor leader Gough Whitlam, a moderate, has
scored a personal triumph and is in a
strengthened position to do battle with
the left in his own party.
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USSR - COMMUNIST CHINA
Soviet leaders concede that the border talks
will be long and arduous, but they have been attempt-
ing to convey an optimistic attitude in discussions
with foreign officials. Kosygin told French Foreign
Minister Schumann earlier this month that Moscow de-
sired to use the talks as a step toward more normal
relations. Brezhnev presented a similarly concilia-
tory thesis in a speech to visiting Czechoslovaks
yesterday.
Polemical propaganda from both sides has dimin-
ished, although the Chinese still attack such Soviet
policies as negotiations with the US on the seabeds
treaty.
The Soviets have not yet replied to the strong
statement on the border issue the Chinese let fly on
8 October. Silence does not mean forgiveness, how-
ever. A Soviet Foreign Ministry official is reported
to have told a foreign diplomat recently that Moscow
fully intends to answer China's "false and slanderous
statements," once the Kremlin has decided on the for-
mat.
The Soviet leaders have negotiations of
various kinds going on or pending with a
number of Western nations, and they under-
stand the benefits of demonstrating their
businesslike and even charitable attitude.
Lack of use is unlikely to dull their skill
at invective, however, and the decision on
the "format" of their reply to the Chinese
statement will come easily if the talks in
Peking turn sour.
The Chinese have displayed little regard
for the Western practice of image build-
ing, but on the border issue, at least,
they have' more to lose than the USSR if
they permit the dispute to be resolved by
force. Thus, it is understandable that
they do not want to be disruptive to the
point of causing the Soviet leaders to call
their negotiating team back to Moscow.
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KENYA
The Kikuyu-dominated government of President
Jomo Kenyatta has arrested all leaders of the oppo-
sition Kenya People's Union. The government claims
that these men, most of whom are Luo tribesmen, were
responsible for the disturbances that marred Ken-
yatta's goodwill tour of Luo areas over the past
weekend. As many as a dozen people were killed on
Saturday when security troops opened fire on Luos
who were throwing rocks at the President.
This overreaction to the incidents is cer-
tain to widen the rift between Kenya's two
largest tribes. The Luo were already bit-
ter because they suspect Kikuyu leaders of
plotting the assassination of the Luos'
fellow tribesman, Tom Mboya.
In addition to further violence, there may
be longer-range effects. The armed forces
chief has recently been critical of the
government's handling of tribal relations,
and his dissatisfaction could eventually
lead him to move against the government.
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NOTES
USSR - Vietnam Peace Groups: Nguyen Minh Vy
of the North Vietnamese delegation to the Paris
peace talks was among the 40-odd participants at
the meeting of the "Liaison Committee of the Stock-
holm Peace Conference on Vietnam" on 10-11 October.
Warsaw Pact: Warsaw Pact consultations on
preparations for a European Security Conference will
begin on Thursday in Prague, according to an an-
nouncement from Budapest. The meeting, which prob-
ably will be at the deputy foreign minister's level,
apparently has been scheduled to take the play away
from a similar gathering of NATO deputy foreign min-
isters on 5-6 November. Earlier reports from East-
ern European sources that such a meeting was in the
wind indicated that the Warsaw Pact powers are plan-
ning to issue a new appeal on European security.
(continued)
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Surinam: Saturday's election has reversed the
political scene, and the anticipated new government
will be made up from two parties that were in the
opposition before the corrupt Pengel administration
was forced out of office last February. The in-
coming administration, considerably more liberal
than Pengel's was, will be faced with several im-
portant decisions, including determination of the
pace of independence, the settlement of the border
dispute With Guyana, and the pursuit of solutions
to a multitude of vexing economic problems.
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Top Secret
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