CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN - 1953/07/26

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Current/Central Intelligence Bulletin Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02872246
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: July 15, 2019
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2019
• Publication Date: July 26, 1953

- Approved for Release: 2019/07/10 CO2872246
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26 July 1953
Copy No. 67
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN
DOCUMENT NO.
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DATE REVIEWER'.
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3.5(c)
Office of Current Intelligence
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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CURITY INFORMATION
SUMMARY
SOVIET UNION
1. Soviet Union apparently abandoning work on Main Turkmen Canal
(page 3).
2. Soviet freight rate concession to Peiping indicated (page 3).
FAR EAST
3. Rhee assassination plot alleged by South Kprean police (page 4).
WESTERN EUROPE
4,, West Germans believe four-power talks still possible (page 5).
5. Adenauer seeks political advantage in publicizing his defense
plan (page 5).
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SOVIET UNION�
1. Soviet Union apparently abandoning work on Main Turkmen Canal:
Comment:
One of the "great Stalinist projects," the 700-
mile Main Turkmen Canal connecting the Aral and Caspian Seas was
begun late in 1950 and is still in an early stage of construction.
Several other major construction projects,
such as the tunnel or causeway from Sakhalin to the Far East main-
land, are believed to have been abandoned since Stalin's death. This
suggests that significant revisions in the capital investment program
of the present Five-Year Plan are being implemented. Such revisions
may result in increased investment in sectors of the economy where
results would be more immediately apparent.
2. Soviet freight rate concession to Peiping indicated:
Comment: This is the first indication of a
recent reduction of Soviet rail freight rates for Peiping's benefit.
Known charges paid by Peiping on imports by rail from European
countries have heretofore corresponded with those published in the
1950 schedule of internal Soviet freight rates. According to this
schedule, the charges on a shipment of fertilizer would be 280 rubles
a ton.
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3.
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SECURITY INFORMATION
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A concession on these costs may have been
made at the April Sino-Soviet conference on through rail service.
Growing trade between China and the Satellites has caused conges-
tion at Satellite ports and increased the need for Moving more goods
overland.
FAR EAST
3. Rhee assassination plot alleged by South Korean police:
Chough Pyong-ok, opposition Democratic
Nationalist Party secretary general, who
was beaten and arrested for opposing Presi-
dent Rhee's stand on the armistice, informed
an American embassy officer on 24 July that he had been accused of
plotting to assassinate the president.
The South Korean police charged him with
being the principal instigator among eight others, including former
Prime Minister Chang Myun, in a plan to install assembly vice-
speaker Cho Bong-am as the new president. Chough regarded the
charge as a clumsy attempt at a political frame-up.
Comment: Rhee has utilized the armistice
crisis to eliminate any semblance of an effective opposition party.
The Democratic Nationalist Party is on the verge of disintegration as
a result of police intimidation.
3.3(h)(2)
There have been two other reports that Pro-
vost Marshal General Won Yong-tok had uncovered an assassination plot
and arrested an unknown Korean as its ringleader. It is probable that
Won invented the story to justify strong police action.
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WESTERN EUROPE
4. West Germans believe four-power talks still possible:
West German government and party leaders,
commenting on the 22 July Pravda editorial,
still see a possibility for four-power talks.
A high Foreign Ministry official believes
that there will be further clarification of the Soviet position in Izvestia
or in a formal reply to the three-power note. A Christian Democratic
leader states that his party was somewhat relieved by the negative
Pravda reaction since it lessened the danger of effective Soviet inter-
ference in the West German election campaign.
A spokesman for the opposition Social Demo-
cratic Party frankly admitted his party's deep disappointment at Pravda's
negative attitude. He hoped, however, that this was not Moscow's final
word, and that the way was still open for ultimate Soviet acceptance of
the bid for four-power talks.
Comment: While these reactions are colored
by the Social Democrats' desire for four-power talks and the coalition
parties' opposition to them, the Pravda editorial has clearly set the
USSR back in its unity propaganda campaign.
5. Adenauer seeks political advantage in publicizing his defense plan:
High Commissioner Conant, reporting on the
Bonn government's release to the press of
parts of Chancellor Adenauer's 8 July letter
to the Washington foreign ministers' confer-
ence, states that e chancellor evidently hopes to exploit his collective
security plan in the present election campaign.
This plan is designed to seize the initiative
from the Social Democrats and the neutralists by convincing the German
public that the EDC is compatible with German unity and is not an ag-
gressive instrument. Adenauer, according to Conant, has now assumed
the role of champion of peaceful achievement of German unification.
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Comment: Although Adenauer did not propose
a nonaggression pact between the EDC and the USSR, as reported in
the press, he did suggest the European community as the base for a gen-
eral European collective security system, to which both the Western
and Eastern European nations might adhere.
Adenauer's proposal represents an effort to
solve his major electoral problem, which is the reconciliation of EDC
with German unification while still avoiding neutralization. Other EDC
nations may consider the plan premature and object to Germany's in-
volving them in possible negotations with the USSR on such an issue.
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