CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A026300180001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 30, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 10, 1974
• Content Type: REPORT

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Central Intelligence Bulletin
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April 10, 1974
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April 10, 1974
Central Intelligence Bulletin
CONTENTS
ISRAEL: Debate within the cabinet continues. (Page 1)
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PORTUGAL: Leftist organization claims responsibility
for explosion on Portuguese troopship. (Page 4)
SOUTH ASIA: Accord provides for release of 195 Paki-
stani prisoners of war held in India since 1971.
(Page 5)
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GUATEMALA: Hit-and-run attacks by terrorists likely
to draw harsh government response. (Page 13)
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LAOS: New government seeks development assistance
from the USSR and Eastern Europe. (Page 15)
AUSTRALIA: New defense plan announced. (Page 16)
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ISRAEL: Prime Minister Meir has denied press
reports that she has threatened to resign. Mrs. Meir
appears to be pressing ahead with efforts to preserve
her coalition government and to overcome differences
within her Labor Alignment brought on by demands for
Defense Minister Dayan"s resignation.
Dayan?s Rafi faction is determined to prevent,
his being made the political scapegoat for the mild-
tary shortcomings highlighted in the Agranat Commis-
sion's report, and it is still insisting that all
cabinet members or none resign,
There appears to be growing sentiment within
the government for a solution that would transfer
Dayan to another portfolio but would not require the
entire cabinet to resign, Mrs, Meir is said to favor
a cabinet reshuffle along these lines,
The desire to avoid a cabinet resignation re-
flects the increasing concern within the Labor Align-
ment that Mrs. Meir may refuse to head a new cabinet
if the present one is forced out over the Dayan
issue, Labor leaders fear that this would lead to
an immediate succession struggle,which they believe
the party is not now prepared to face.
The leaders of Mrs. Meir's two coalition partners,
the National Religious Party and the Independent
Liberal Party, also are said to oppose the resigna-
tion of the entire cabinet. They fear that such a
move mi ht only aggravate their own internal divi-
sions.
Apr 10, 1973
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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Seoul has been relatively quiet since April 3,
when the government issued a decree banning student
political activity outright and providing harsh pen-
alties, including death, for any violations. Politi-
cal tensions remain high, however, as the more deter-
mined student, Christian, and intellectual dissidents
seek ways to intensify public pressure for Pak's re-
moval from leadership.
PORTUGAL: A Portuguese leftist organization has
claimed responsibility for the explosion last night
on a Portuguese troopship minutes before it was sched-
uled to sail for Portuguese Guinea.
The organization, called the "Revolutionary
Brigades," has been involved in similar terrorist ac-
tions in Portugal since 1971. It reportedly is con-
nected with a dissident leftist exile group headquar-
tered in Algiers.
The incident occurs at a time when the Portuguese
Government is deeply troubled by a dispute over the
country's overseas policy. If the government con-
cludes that dissidents plan to capitalize on this con-
troversy to launch a series of sabotage activities, it
will clamp down hard. The National Assembly, for ex-
ample, would not hesitate to grant Prime Minister
Caetano the power to revoke individual liberties to
combat subversion should he ask for it.
Apr 10, 1974
Central Intellagence Bulletin
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SOUTH ASIA: The agreement hammered out in New
Delhi during the past five days by the foreign min-
isters of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh goes a
long way toward normalizing relations on the subcon-
tinent.
The accord, made public today, provides for the
release of 195 Pakistani prisoners of war who have
been held in India since the end of the Indo-Pakistani
war for possible war crimes trials in Bangladesh.
In return for this major concession by Dacca, Paki-
stan reportedly has agreed to accept more Biharis---
non-Bengalee Muslims--from Bangladesh and to review
the applications of still more.
The accord takes reconciliation beyond Pakistan's
recognition of Bangladesh last February, which broke
the two-year stalemate between Karachi and Dacca.
It permits the two to begin bilateral negotiations
on various matters, including the division of the
former east wing's pre-1971 debts and assets and the
establishment of trade and communication ties.
For their part, India and Pakistan have agreed
to begin discussions on the resumption of postal and
telecommunications and travel links. Other facets of
the 1972 Simla Agreement--air links, and overflight
privileges, trade and economic ties, scientific and
cultural exchanges, and cooperation--are to be dis-
cussed and implemented as soon as possible.
Bengalee Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman is sched-
uled to arrive in New Delhi today en route home after
three weeks in Moscow for medical treatment. He and
Prime Ministers Gandhi and Bhutto are expected to give
their formal approval to the accord promptly.
Apr 10, 1974
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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Guatemala
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GUATEMALA: A series of attacks on government
facilities over the past two weeks may be part of a
terrorist campaign protesting fraud in the presiden-
tial election last month.
The incidents--hit-and-run bombings and acts of
sabotage--appear to have been the work of leftist ex-
tremists. The most serious occurred in the interior
city of Quezaltenango, where incendiary bombs exploded
in the home of a government coalition congressman-
elect and in the coalition headquarters. The extremist
Rebel Armed Forces claimed credit for cutting telephone
lines in the city. An arson attack on a municipal
building in another city and the sabotage of telephone
lines in Guatemala City also may have been carried out
by political extremists. Another incident--a grenade
tossed into a police hospital. in the capital--may have
been retaliation for alleged police involvement in the
assassination of an antigovernment journalist. His
funeral had just been held in a church adjacent to the
hospital.
The wave of violence, if it continues, is likely
to draw a harsh response from the government, which
has regularly cracked down hard. on opposition elements
it believed were responsible for terrorist incidents.
The election fraud has created a climate ripe for ex-
tremist terrorism and government counterterrorism.
While opposition leaders, such as the leftist mayor
of Guatemala City, are renouncing rough tactics, they
contend that many people who are an rV over the elec-
toral fraud will turn to violence.
Apr 10, 1974
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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LAOS: The newly formed coalition government in
Vientiane is trying to obtain economic development
assistance from the USSR and Eastern Europe. If such
aid is granted, it will be the first in more than a
decade.
Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma has said that Laos
will seek to revive the estimated $3.5-million Soviet
.aid agreement signed in 1962. That agreement was
suspended the following year after the Pathet Lao with-
drew from the last coalition government.
Souvanna wishes to give priority to construction
of a highway network through Pathet Lao - controlled
territory to North and South Vietnam. Such a network
would give Laos a more direct route to the sea for its
mineral exports--almost exclusively tin concentrates--
which now go through Thailand. Vientiane has discussed
this project with Saigon in the past, but nothing was
done, in part because the plan would require clearing
the Viet Cong from a considerable amount of South Viet-
namese territory.
Souvanna is also interested in bridging the Mekong
near Vientiane as part of a longer range plan to pro-
vide a direct overland link with Bangkok.
The primitive Laotian economy needs relatively
large amounts of foreign assistance. Recent economic
aid has been around $65-70 million a year, primarily
for the financing of imports. Most of this was pro-
vided by the US. Even though the $3.5 million in
Soviet aid would be a modest increment, it would rep-
resent an auspicious beginning for the new government.
Moscow has not yet responded but its response will
probably be favorable,
Apr 10 , 1974 Central Intelligence Bulletin
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AUSTRALIA: Defense Minister Barnard has announced
a five-year defense plan that he claims will provide
the largest and best equipped peacetime army Australia
has ever had. The timing of the announcement is a
political move aimed at undercutting opposition criti-
cism of earlier cuts in the defense budget.
The plan calls for increasing the army's strength
from 31,000 to 54,000 men by 1976, and for spending
$500 million for the procurement of new equipment, in-
cluding 2 US-built light destroyers, 8 long-range mari-
time patrol planes, 53 tanks, and 45 support vehicles.
Canberra has apparently not y decided on which air-
craft and tanks to urchase.
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Increasing the army's strength by almost 75 per-
cent in two years may be an unrealistic goal. Australia
abolished the draft in 1972, and the army currently is
3,000 men short of its authorized strength. 25X1
Apr 10 , 1974 Central Intelligence Bulletin
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