THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 19 MAY 1976

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1969-1977
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0006015113
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: August 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2016
• Publication Date: May 19, 1976

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2016/07/19 : CIA-RDP79T00936A013400010006-2
The President's Daily Brief
May 19, 1976
2
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Exempt from general
declassification schedule of E.O. 11652
exemption category, 5130 LOW)
declassified onlal on approval of
the Director of Central Intelligence
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IL/ J. J. ? -A. ?
May 19, 1976
Table of contents
Lebanon: The rift between Damascus and Palestinian leaders over
Syria's attacks on Lebanese and Palestinian leftists has
stalled attempts to work out a new cease-fire agreement.
(Page 1)
Syria-Egypt: The joint Saudi-Kuwaiti effort to mediate the dis-
pute between Syria and Egypt appears to be off to an inaus-
picious start. (Page 2)
Rhodesia: Small groups of terrorists appear to have penetrated
deeper into the country than they have previously. (Page 3)
Notes: USSR; Turkey-Greece (Page 4)
FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
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SYR IA
n,
BUYARAT
? 41744
BEIRUT
DAMASCUS
559774 5-76
Golan
Heights
MILES 20
0 KILOMETERS 20
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LEBANON: The rift be-
tween Damascus and Pal-
estinian leaders over
Syria's recent attacks
on Lebanese and Pales-
tinian leftists has
stalled attempts to
work out a new cease-
fire agreement. The
joint Lebanese-Pales-
tinian-Syrian truce
committee apparently
has not met since early
last week.
Libyan Prime Minister Jallud's ef-
forts to mediate the dispute are
not likely to amount to much.
Jallud's lavish praise of Syria's
role in Lebanon, on the one hand,
and his promises of unlimited aid
to the Lebanese left, on the other,
underscore Tripoli's poor under-
standing of the nature of the dis-
pute.
The Syrians seem to have little
interest at the moment in resolv-
ing their differences with the Pal-
estinians or in engineering a new
truce. Their reluctance may be
the result of their alleged agree-
ment with the Christians to delay
the transfer of power from Presi-
dent Franjiyah to Ilyas Sarkis un-
til Syrian forces in Lebanon elimi-
nate the security threat from Leba-
nese and Palestinian radicals. A
report that additional Syrian
troops moved into Lebanon yester-
day lends additional credence to
this allegation.
During the past two weeks, more
than 1,000 regular Syrian troops
have entered Lebanon, most of them
disguised as members of Saiqa, the
Palestinian group supported by
Damascus. These troops are pri-
marily concentrated in the Tripoli
and Beirut areas. We believe there
are well over 5,000 Syrian troops
inside Lebanon and over 2,000 more
in Syria adjacent to the east-cen-
tral Lebanese border who could
move in on short notice.
Heavy fighting continued in Beirut
yesterday as leftist and Christian
militiamen struggled to regain ter-
ritory in the port area and com-
mercial district. Both sides con-
tinue to shell residential areas
and to impede the delivery of food
and fuel supplies.
--continued
1
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_ _ _ _ _
SYRIA-EGYPT: The joint
Saudi-Kuwaiti effort to
mediate the dispute be-
tween Syria and Egypt
appears to be off to an
inauspicious start.
The situation in the mountains
east of the capital also worsened
as leftist forces gained positions
from which they can shell the
Christian resort area of Farayya.
The leftist advance on Farayya,
which is well within the Christian
core area, apparently triggered
the renewal yesterday of a major
artillery duel between the Chris-
tian city of Bayt Miri and Kamal
Jumblatt's stronghold at Alayh.
Egyptian and Syrian leaders appear
reluctant to reconcile their dif-
ferences at their meeting which
begins in Riyadh today. The Syr-
ians seem determined to raise the
second Sinai agreement as the prin-
cipal topic of discussion and to
elicit at least the appearance of
change in Egypt's position on the
accord as a condition for recon-
ciliation.
Cairo(
/will flatly refuse
to discuss the Sinai agreement.
The Egyptians will almost certainly
avoid even a reiteration of their
policy on the accord in order not
to appear to be making concessionkm
to Syria.
25X1
25X1
2
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-.1111116
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Rhodesia
Lilo gw
Lusaka
Zambia
Southwest
Africa (Nami ia
Beira
Mozambique
Channel
Botswana
Road
Railroad
559777 5-76
200 KILOMETEr
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RHODESIA: Small groups
of guerrillas appear to
have penetrated deeper
into Rhodesia than they
have previously, de-
spite more aggressive
counterinsurgency oper-
ations by Rhodesian se-
curity forces.
The heaviest action continues to
be in the northeastern border area,
the center of guerrilla operations.
Last weekend, rebels blew up gas
pumps in an attack at Inyazura,
some 80 kilometers (48 miles) from
the Mozambique border, forcing the
government to suspend night pas-
senger train service between Salis-
bury and Umtali.
Following the recent highly publi-
cized attacks on rail lines, the
Rhodesian government has increased
security in the southeast, where
they previously had few troops or
police stationed. Thus far this
month, the army has mounted two
sweep operations in the region and
has announced that its current of-
fensive could last for some time.
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Food shortages in the
USSR are leading to re-
ports in the Western
press of civil distur-
bances.
Turkey is planning to
hold air and naval ex-
ercises in the Aegean
from June 2-5 that will
come within six to
seven nautical miles of
four Greek islands.
NOTES
The French newspaper Le Figaro
carried an article on the subject
yesterday. It said Westerners re-
turning from the southern part of
the European USSR report that, in
Rostov and Kiev, stalls were
smashed in the collective farm mar-
kets and windows of several state
food shops were broken by Soviet
citizens dissatisfied with the
small amount of produce on sale.
The Greeks reportedly believe the
chances of a confrontation are low
but are nonetheless concerned.
The Turks have said on several pre-
vious occasions that they would
hold exercises within the Greek-
claimed 10-mile airspace limit but
no penetrations were reported.
4
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Top Secret
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