THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 11 OCTOBER 1975

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1969-1977
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0006014925
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: August 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2016
• Publication Date: October 11, 1975

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The President's Daily Brief
October 11, 1975
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Exempt from general
declassification schedule of E.O. 11652
exemption category 5B( 1),(2),(3)
declauified only on approval of
the Director of Central Intelligence
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
October 11, 1975
Table of Contents
Lebanon: Prime Minister Karami has got-
ten Syrian President Asad and leaders of the
Palestine Liberation Organization to agree on
a new peace plan. (Page 1)
Lebanon: We present the major judgments of an In-
teragency Memorandum on Lebanon. (Page 2)
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Portugal: Government leaders continue their tough
public line against leftist-inspired disorders
and military indiscipline, but so far they
have taken no decisive action. (Page 5)
Notes: Morocco - Spanish Sahara; USSR; West Ger-
many (Refugees); West
Germany - West Berlin; China; Cuba-Angola
(Pages 6, 7, and 8)
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LEBANON
Prime Minister Karami reportedly
has gotten the acquiescence of Syrian
President Asad and leaders of the Pales-
tine Liberation Organization to a plan
to impose a
cease-fire in Beirut. The plan also
calls for Palestinian forces to withdraw
from Muslim areas of the city in order
to avoid an army-fedayeen clash.
President Franjiyah and Interior Minister Shamun,
both Christians, pledged to support his peace
plan and would not tolerate violations of the cease-
fire by Christian Phalangists. Asad agreed to
the plan, provided Yasir Arafat went along with it.
Arafat was scheduled to meet with
other Palestinian leaders to get their
agreement.
Palestinian forces are
more in evidence in a peace-keeping role. In addi-
tion, a flurry of political activity has led to
widespread expectation in the capital that more ef-
fective action is being taken to end the fighting.
however the fighting will not end unless some
fundamental changes are made in Lebanon's current
political balance that would give the now politi-
cally favored, but outnumbered, Christians a lesser
role. Radical leftists among the Muslims appear
determined to continue the fighting; responsible
Muslims are attempting to control them, but at the
same time cannot allow the leftists to be crushed.
Inevitably, even the Muslims will be
drawn into supporting the leftists if the Chris-
tians continue to refuse to make political conces-
sions.
The Phalangists remain intransigent, fearing
that concessions will lead to their political de-
mise.
Many Christians also believe
that the US and other Western powers will come to
their rescue no matter how far they push the sit-
uation.
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LEBANON
We present below the major judg-
ments of an Interagency Memorandum on
Lebanon.
--The spiraling cycle of violence in Lebanon has
thrown the country's traditional political system
seriously out of balance and has brought Lebanon the
nearest it has been to national collapse.
--The need for fundamental changes in the 1943 Na-
tional Covenant, which provides for a distribution
of political posts that favors the Christians over
the country's Muslim majority, is the central issue
in the crisis. Whether the country drifts further
into chaos depends primarily on some immediate con-
cessions by the Christian leadership to the moderate
Muslims' demands for greater political power, and
a scaling down of leftist reform proposals.
--The principal stumbling blocks to a workable com-
promise appear to be the continued intransigence of
the Muslim extreme leftists and the Christian Pha-
langist leader Pierre Jumayyil. The extreme left-
ists, abetted by the more radical Palestinian feda-
yeen "rejectionists," are seeking to overturn the
political system through violence and see little
reason to stop now. Jumayyil, on the other hand,
is seeking to preserve the status quo and is making
it difficult for the old-line Muslim and Christian
leaders to cooperate by his refusal to discuss any
changes in the 1943 Covenant.
--If the so-called Committee for a National Dia-
logue fails to reconcile soon some of the competing
demands of Muslims and Christians, and the extrem-
ist groups are not curbed, the situation is likely
to disintegrate into even more widespread violence
leading to all-out civil war.
--Prolonged civil strife carries a high risk of
military intervention by Syria and Israel, and the
possible dismemberment of the country.
--Thus far, Israel has reacted with restraint, and
Syria, along with Palestine Liberation Organization
leader Yasir Arafat, has attempted to play an active
mediating role. No major Lebanese Christian or Mus-
lim leader appears deliberately bent on provoking
Syrian or Israeli intervention, and no leader is
actively seeking partition of the country.
(continued)
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--A return to public order in the short term is
dependent largely on the ability of Syria and the
less radical fedayeen organizations to curb the small
but dangerous extremist groups, restraint by Jumay-
yil's Phalangist militia, and the curbing of arms
supplies to both Muslims and Christians.
--A joint Arab military force reportedly has been
proposed by moderate Lebanese Christian and Muslim
leaders to enforce a truce while a political com-
promise is negotiated. Such a force will be diffi-
cult to organize and deploy very soon and the ef-
fectiveness of such a force, if it materialized,
would be questionable.
--A sense of national self-interest may overcome
divisive forces, as it has in past Lebanese crises,
but Lebanon is clearly at a crossroads. In the
short term, the Muslims probably will not curb their
demands for basic modifications in the Covenant, and
the Christians may not agree to compromise under the
duress of continued fighting.
--Even if compromise is achieved, the prospect for
any quick return to stability is bleak. The govern-
ment has shown no ability to exercise effective au-
thority during the current crisis or to utilize the
army to provide basic security. The communal ten-
sions that have been inflamed over the past six
months will not easily subside. Over the longer
term, a more ideological division may develop with-
in the country as moderate Christians and Muslims
gravitate toward their more militant co-religionists.
--The Soviet Union has been attentive to the tur-
moil in Lebanon, but apparently has not tried to
exacerbate it. As the divisions sharpen, the
Soviets will be compelled to increase their assis-
tance to the left and press the moderates for con-
cessions. In the event of full civil war, or Syrian
and Israeli intervention, Moscow probably would try
to match any US role in dealing with the crisis,
supporting Syria and the leftists and seeking to
expose Sadat and moderate Arabs as insufficiently
militant. However, we do not believe this would
extend to direct Soviet intervention so long as
the affair was restricted to Lebanon.
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PORTUGAL
Government leaders continue their
tough public line against leftist-
inspired disorders and military indis-
cipline, but so far they have taken no
decisive action.
A joint meeting of the cabinet and the Armed
Forces Revolutionary Council was under way most of
yesterday. The session, called by the cabinet to
work out measures to restore order, has apparently
not yet ended.
In its statement on Thursday calling for the
joint meeting, the cabinet did announce the replace-
ment of the leftist officials who had been in control
of the Bank of Portugal. This is a vital step toward
adoption of more realistic economic policies and a
clear sign that Prime Minister Azevedo is still in-
tent on reducing Communist influence in the govern-
ment.
The military mutiny in Porto continues, and
some 150 radical military policemen are said to
have gone there to reinforce the dissident troops.
There are some signs that the government is
moving ahead in assembling the military interven-
tion force it announced two weeks ago. Loyalist
commandos are to form the backbone of the new force,
which may ultimately grow to four battalions of 400
men each. Such a force could be a major help in
restoring the government's authority.
The leader of the Popular Democratic Party, one
of the two anti-Communist parties in the government,
called on President Costa Gomes yesterday to give up
his post as armed forces chief of staff. He said
such a move would aid the government's effort to re-
store order. The President has been criticized by
some anti-Communists for indecisiveness during the
present turmoil, and the party leader presumably
shares this view.
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