NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A030600010104-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 31, 2006
• Sequence Number: 104
• Publication Date: April 29, 1978
• Content Type: REPORT

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CIA-RDP79T00975AO30600T8P cret
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Access to this document will be restricted to
those approved for the following specific activities:
Saturday 29 April 1978 CG NIDC 78/100C
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NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions
State Dept. review completed
Top Secret
0 r-- J (Security Classification) 25X
Aff Aff Aff Aff Aff Aff Aff Aff Aliff -
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National Intelligence Daily Cable for Saturday, 29 April 1978.
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The D Cable is for the purpose of informing
senior US officials.
AFGHANISTAN: Situation Report
LEBANON: Forming a New Government
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USSR: Tlatelolco Treaty
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USSR: New Advanced Computers
SOUTH KOREA: Better Credit Terms
BRIEFS
Rhodesia
China-US
Portugal
Romania
Bulgaria
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AFGHANISTAN: Situation Report
The coup against the Daoud regime in Afghan-
istan seems to have succeeded, at least in the capital. Kabul
was relatively quiet yesterday afternoon, troops supporting
the new government apparently were mopping up dwindling pockets
of resistance. //Still-fragmentary reporting indicates that
casualties were heavy in the city and many government buildings
were damaged or destroyed. There appears to be ZittZe doubt that
President Daoud has been killed.//
The membership of the new ruling military council
has not yet been revealed. The spokesman for--and possibly
chairman of--the council, Lt. Col. Abdul Qadir, has been named
Chief of the Defense Force, according to Radio Kabul.
The council has announced that the constitution has
been abrogated and that the country will be ruled by military
decree. All public meetings are banned, citizens of the capital
have been instructed to return to their jobs today, and govern-
ment officials and military officers have been warned to report
promptly to swear allegiance to the new regime.
I We lack information on the situation outside Kabul.
The new government reports that all military and air units
have joined the revolution, but we have no confirmation of
this claim. At the time the coup was launched, Daoud's nephew
was in command of an army corps in the southwestern city of
Kandahar; this city, moreover, is in the area of the Durani
tribe, which until now has furnished all of Afghanistan's
rulers for the past 200 years. The fate of the unit and of its
commander are unknown.
There have been no reports yet of reactions from the
extremely conservative religious leaders in the provinces.
Many of them exert great influence over the rural population
and have frequently been at odds with Daoud over his attempts
to modernize Afghanistan. Most are fanatically anti-Communist.
The new government seems to have recognized
the dangers of stimulating such conservative opposition. It
has issued bland pronouncements on its ideology and program,
emphasizing Islam and nationalism. //If the new leaders are
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confirmed leftists, as appears probable,// they will almost
certainly soft-pedal any leftwing rhetoric until they consider
the country to be safely under their control.
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So far, there have been no strong reactions to the
events in Kabul from Afghanistan's neighbors. The Soviets have
printed straight news accounts of the coup and have issued no
commentary. In Iran, the Shah appears resigned to the probabil-
ity that he will have to deal with a leftist government on his
eastern border. So far, he has refrained from any public com-
ment on the coup. The Pakistani press has simply repeated news
LEBANON: Forming A New Government
//The Lebanese Parliament on Thursday ap-
proved a declaration of principles that may serve as a prelimi-
nary consensus around which a new cabinet can be formed, and
former Prime Minister Huss has been asked to put together a
new government. The declaration is ambiguous, however, and
possibly contradictory.//
//The declaration calls for actions that
are largely outside Lebanese control and have little chance of
being carried out in the near future. Its passage may help Huss
put together a broadly based political cabinet, but it will do
little to help the cabinet function afterwards.//
//The most ambiguous aspect of the declara-
tion concerns its call for control of Palestinian activity
within Lebanon. A central provision says flatly that "all Pal-
estinian and other armed action throughout Lebanese territory
must be halted." As initially passed by a preliminary parlia-
mentary committee earlier this week, this part of the declara-
tion had been heralded as a major victory for the Christians.//
//The declaration actually passed, however,
included a prologue reaffirming earlier pan-Arab agreements
that guarantee the Palestinians significant freedom of action
in southern Lebanon, specifically including the right to bear
arms against Israel.//
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//Lebanese Christians had been arguing that
the Israeli invasion of the south nullified these agreements,
and the Christians presumably still adhere to that stand. Vari-
ous leftist groups, however, have made their support of the
declaration contingent on acceptance of the prologue as an in-
tegral part. As a result, the declaration is not so much a
starting point for national reconciliation as it is a way of
papering over serious national rifts.//
//The declaration nonetheless may serve a
useful function. Besides serving as the basis for the formation
of a government that reflects various political views, it also
seems to have helped reduce the tension generated earlier this
month by Muslim-Christian and Syrian-Christian clashes.//
//Other provisions of the declaration in-
clude a call for Israeli withdrawal and the restoration of the
Lebanese Government's authority in the south--something Lebanon
is powerless to implement. It also states that the Lebanese
Army must be rebuilt on a "sound and correct national basis."
This statement presumably reflects Muslim concerns that the
Army now being reconstituted is dominated by Christians, but
it is vague enough to be unobjectionable to all sides.
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USSR: Tlatelolco Treaty
Soviet President Brezhnev will probably sign Proto-
col II of the TZateZoZco Treaty, which establishes a nuclear
free zone in Latin America, during Mexican President Lopez Por-
tiZZo's visit to Moscow in mid-May. The US, the UK, France, and
China have already signed this protocol.
Protocol II obliges nuclear-weapons states to respect
the denuclearized status of the zone and not to use or threaten
to use nuclear weapons against the contracting parties.
Soviet adherence to the protocol probably would be
intended to dramatize Moscow's role as a proponent of disarma-
ment issues on the eve of the UN Special Session on Disarma-
ment. Signing the protocol could also give the USSR a stronger
basis for objecting to transit of the Panama Canal by US ships
carrying nuclear weapons.
The Soviets probably consulted the Cubans before de-
ciding to sign the protocol--perhaps during Cuban Foreign Min-
ister Malmierca's visit to the USSR last week. Cuba has not
signed the treaty because of what it terms "longstanding prob-
lems with the US."
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USSR: New Advanced Computers
//The Soviets have announced that they
have developed two new large-scale, high-speed scientific com-
puters. The announcement, in a Pravda article early this month,
indicates that the USSR has made a strong commitment to produc-
ing these computers. Advanced computer developments are classi-
fied in the USSR, and public announcements have been made in
the past only when the Soviets have had or were very close to
having operational models.//
//The two new machines--the Elbrus-1 and
Elbrus-2, previously referred to as VS-1 and VS-2--are compara-
ble, in computational capabilities, to some of the largest US
computer systems available commercially. The Elibrus-1 has been
fabricated for testing, and a well-developed prototype of the
much faster Elbrus-2 probably also exists. The machines are
being developed by the same group that produced the BESM-6,
which has been the workhorse of Soviet large-scale scientific
computers since the mid-1960s.//
//Unlike such general-purpose computers
as the Soviets' Ryad models, large-scale scientific computers
are not intended to be produced in large numbers. Because of
their size, design, high performance, and cost, their applica-
tion is limited to complex military and technological problems
in such areas as air defense, nuclear weapons design, aircraft
design, seismic analysis, and long-range weather forecastin .
South Korea's strong economic performance and bright
financial prospects have substantially improved the credit
terms it has been offered for overseas borrowing. Seoul has
recently negotiated two major Eurodollar loans with interest
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rates sharply lower and maturities longer than any it has ob-
tained in the past. With excess liquidity in international
capital markets, the loans reportedly have been quickly sub-
scribed despite the lower rate of return. The planned with-
drawal of US ground troops from South Korea appears to have
had little effect on the negotiations.
The Pohang Iron and Steel Company obtained one of
the loans. This was a $100 million, seven-year credit with an
interest rate 1.375 percent above the London Interbank Offered
Rate--the rate paid by bankers when borrowing from each other.
In addition to the favorable terms, the loan did not require
a government guarantee and was the first Eurodollar credit in
which Korean banks participated as comanagers.
An even more noteworthy credit--for $300 million--is
being arranged by several major US banks for the Korea Develop-
ment Bank and the Korea Exchange Bank. This loan--to be used
to finance development projects--reportedly will have a 10-year
maturity and carry a .875 percent margin over the bankers'
rate, the most favorable terms South Korea has ever received.
The black co-minister for justice in Rhodesia's bi-
racial interim ministerial council, Byron Hove, was dismissed
from his post yesterday by the executive council, according to
an announcement from Salisbury. The executive council consists
of Prime Minister Smith and the three black nationalist lead-
ers--Abel Muzorewa, Ndabaningi Sithole, and Jeremiah Chirau--
who signed an internal settlement agreement with Smith last
month.
Hove was dismissed as a result of a dispute with his
white counterpart over white dominance of the police force. He
had been appointed to the council by Muzorewa, who could have
vetoed his dismissal since all executive council decisions
must be made by consensus. Smith and the white ministers on
the ministerial council probably convinced the blacks that
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Hove's dismissal was necessary to maintain the confidence of
Rhodesia's whites--a point Smith has used with good effect in
the past in bargaining with the nationalists. 25X1
Peking has officially nominated Chai Tse-min, cur-
rently its Ambassador to Thailand, as the new head of the Chi-
nese Liaison Office in Washington. The post has been vacant
since Huang Chen returned home in November to become Minister
of Culture.
Chaff served previously as Ambassador to Hungary,
Guinea, and Egypt and as the president of Peking's Association
for Friendship with Foreign Countries. He has the reputation
of being a confident and realistic diplomat. With Chaff as head
of the Liaison Office, Peking will again have two ambassadorial-
level representatives in Washington: the deputy head of the
Liaison Office, Han Hsu, also holds the rank of ambassador.
Portugal
Portugal and the International Monetary Fund have
agreed on terms for a $50 million loan after months of nego-
tiations. The accord means Portugal will get a major portion
of the $750 million in credits pledged to it by a group of for-
eign governments. It will also greatly improve the country's
chances of refinancing a major part of its short-term debt.
The agreement calls for stiff restrictions on credit and an
immediate 5-percent devaluation of the escudo, followed by
additional monthly devaluations of 1.2 percent through next
April.
President Ceausescu will begin a two-week tour of
Asian Communist countries on 15 May. Foreign Minister Andrei
told the US Ambassador to Romania on Wednesday that Ceausescu
will visit China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. He
is expected to return to Bucharest on 31 May.
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The China trip, which has been expected for some
time, is intended in part to balance Ceausescu's visit to the
US earlier this month; the Romanians customarily try to main-
tain a balance in their relations with all the important powers.
While in Vietnam and Cambodia,
Ceausescu may try to act as a conciliator in the conflict be-
tween those countries.
Bulgaria
A reshuffle of Bulgarian Government and Central Com-
mittee officials yesterday reflects a belated attempt to
strengthen the management of agriculture. Minister of Agricul-
ture Gancho Krustev and Deputy Premier Mako Dakov were fired.
Dakov, a former Minister of Forestry, was reported to have
been responsible for the supervision of the agricultural sec-
tor in the Council of Ministers. The head of the Central Com-
mittee's department for agriculture also was dismissed.
Bulgaria's harvest in 1977 fell far short of planned
targets, mainly because of a summer drought. Agricultural ex-
ports to the West are an important source of the country's
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