MONTHLY WARNING ASSESSMENT: USSR-EASTERN EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83B01027R000300120037-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 13, 2008
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: January 23, 1979
• Content Type: MEMO

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THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
State Dept. review completed
National Intelligence Officers
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
23 January 1979
NFAC #0377-79
VIA Robert R. Bowie
Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment
Richard Lehman
National Intelligence Officer for Warning
FROM . Arnold L. Horelick
National Intelligence Officer for USSR-EE
SUBJECT : Monthly Warning Assessment: USSR-Eastern Europe
Summary
Community analysts, meeting on 15 January, saw the growing Chinese
military buildup on the Vietnamese border since the Vietnamese
conquest of Kampuchea as increasing the. possibility of eventual
Chinese attack on Vietnam, and as consequently moving the chance
of some Soviet retaliation against China one branch point closer.
The Soviets probably see the Shah's departure as ushering in a new
stage which will progressively place the neutralization of Iran
more directly on the agenda, and which may open the way for eventual
Soviet overtures to a neutralist regime. The Shah's departure and
the threatened return of Khomenei may have also increased the chances
for eventual civil war in Iran which could bring into play the question
of Soviet involvement with one side. While the Soviets have not yet
found an effective response to Romania's latest acts of defiance last
November, the Romanians are said to still anticipate eventual economic
sanctions. The Polish Ambassador to the US has privately added the
weight of his opinion on the side of those who see the Polish economic
situation as extremely grave and as increasing the chances of an
eventual popular explosion.
1. The Vietnam-Cambodia-China-USSR Imbroglio. The chain of events
since the last meeting of community analysts in late November has moved
to a point where the possibility of Sino-Soviet armed conflict growing
out of these events is now one branch point closer than it was. The
Vietnam blitzkrieg overrunning Kampuchea has been followed by both
widespread Kampuchean guerrilla resistance and a large-scale Chinese
military buildup on the Vietnamese border. The manner of the buildup,
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23 January 1979
its timing and the mix of forces involved have increasingly suggested
Chinese offensive intentions. The Soviets have publicly and privately
downplayed this contingency and have thus also avoided committing
themselves to any particular course of action in response. Recent
unusual Chinese preparatory steps in Sinkiang suggest concern that
the Soviets might in fact respond to a Chinese move against Vietnam
with pressure of some sort on the Sino-Soviet border. Two Alert
Memoranda have been prepared on this subject in January under the
aegis of the NIOs for China and the USSR.
2. Iran. Community analysts broadly agreed that the Soviets see
the Shah's departure as ushering in a new stage which will progressively
place the "neutralization" of Iran more directly on the agenda. The
Soviets probably expect a further unraveling of those Iranian forces
that continue to favor close ties with the US, and they will do what
they can do to help push events in this direction by trying to perpetuate
and exploit Iranian nationalist resentment of US past support for the Shah.
They probably hope and expect the Bakhtiar regime to be a fairly short-
lived, transitional one. When and if a successor regime more inclined
toward neutralism emerges, the Soviets are likely to make some diplomatic
gesture toward it, regardless of its ideological hue. In the meantime,
they undoubtedly perceive their own freedom of operation in Iran in the
field of intelligence and covert action as having been greatly enhanced
by the crippling of SAVAK, although we cannot adequately monitor what,
if anything, they are doing to take advantage of these more permissive
operational conditions.
One specific contingency whose likelihood has been somewhat increased
by the departure of the Shah and the threatened return of Khomenei is the
eventual emergence of full-scale, prolonged Lebanon-style civil war in Iran
which would bring the question of Soviet military assistance to one side
into play. This possibility has been enhanced by the removal of the Shah's
restraining hand from senior officers who have all along resented inhibitions
against using force, and who may feel that this option is dwindling and will
disappear entirely if not soon exercised. In the event of a subsequent open
split in the Army and emergence of a struggle involving armed civilians, it
is conceivable that the Soviets would then covertly funnel supplies and
other assistance to some forces on the side they favored, while professing.
nonintervention. It is also possible that under these circumstances the
Soviets would move troops to the adjacent frontier, and that they might
caution the US against assistance to one side under pain of active intervention
by Soviet forces to help the other.
3. Elsewhere in the Middle East, and South Asia, analysts noted
diverse reflections of the malaise and fears of coming Soviet inroads
created by the departure of the Shah and the continued tumult in Iran.
In addition to growing anxiety and desire for US reassurances seen in
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, specific concern over the vanishing of the
Iranian military bulwark is likely to be felt in Oman, where in recent
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years revolt in Dhofar province staged from South Yemen and supported
by the USSR was put down with the aid of Iranian troops that will
almost certainly not be available again.
4. Turning to Romania, analysts noted that the Soviets had not
yet found an effective response to Ceausescu's spectacular acts of
public defiance discussed in the last Warning Report. The consensus
was that by publicly airing sensitive questions of Warsaw Pact expendi-
tures and command and control, Ceausescu had gone beyond previously
established limits of his challenge to Soviet authority and this time
approached more closely the threshold of Soviet tolerance. We believe
that he went as far as he did in November in publicizing the Warsaw
Pact demands largely because he saw those demands as an effort to
constrict his area of autonomy and saw an opportunity to preempt
further such Soviet efforts. For the time being, he appears to have
gotten away with it, in the sense that we have no evidence that the
Soviets have yet decided to risk the costs associated with measures
drastic enough to bring Ceausescu to heel. The initial flurry of mutual
polemics has now diminished. Although Romania has issued a statement
critical of Vietnam's conquest of Kampuchea this apparently was an
ur_avoidable,minimal, perhaps one-time gesture, and Ceausescu is unlikely
to wish to provoke the USSR seriously again in the near future. But
while we have no evidence yet of any Soviet planned reprisals other
than exclusion of Romania from some of the more sensitive Warsaw Pact
planning, our flow of evidence could easily be lagging behind events.
Hungarian officials, for example, are said to believe that the Romanians
still anticipate economic sanctions from the Warsaw Pact countries.
There is therefore a continued need for a close community watch for
Soviet efforts to organize any such pressures.
5. Regarding Poland, the economic dilemma and growing malaise cited
in the last Warning Report have now been strongly underlined in recent
spoke of a very bad food situation and increasingly irritated
consumers who are becoming angry over shortages of meat, vegetables, and
other goods. He suggested that one eventual outcome could be widescale
rioting, possibly leadin even to Soviet intervention. While this pessimistic
outlook is supported it is not the view of
all observers; Embassy Warsaw, while recognizing the seriousness of the 25X1
Polish economic position, has concluded that the outlook is far from 25X1
desperate.
(real wages have been falling, contributing to fears o
worker -and consumer unrest. The upshot is a requirement for intensified
community information-gathering on these subjects -- with a view toward
better assessing the economic facts, the popular mood, and the progress of
the internal debate in the Polish regime.
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/'Y17"
mold L. Horelick
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S oLU i ?
NFAC #0377-79
23 January 1979
SUBJECT: Monthly Warning Assessment: USSR-Eastern Europe
Distribution:
1 - DCI
1 DDCI
1 -
1 - Exec. Reg.
1 - DD/NFA
1 - NIO/Warning
1 - NFAC Reg.
2 - NI0/USSR-EE
A/NIO/USSR-EE
(23Jan79)
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