CURRENT COMMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000400120002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 26, 1966
• Content Type: PREL

~~~~t'e0~1 ? FOIAb3b 5
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China Hands
Heard From .. .
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As the day of the China exper
dawned on Capitol Hill, there w.
inrt thr a1ngm in thr Q.W
of Sen. J. W. Fulbright and Sen. Wayne Morse. Happ
anticipation, however, was short-lived. For Prof. A
Doak Barnett, of Columbia University, and Prof. Job
K. Fairbank, of Harvard University, ended up by givin
the Johnson Administration's Vietnam policy the strong
est support it had yet received from the intellectual corn
munity. No amount of prodding by Senators Fulbrigh
and Morse could elicit disapproval of our actions in Viet
nam from these two recognized "China hands."
Columbia's A. Doak Barnett appeared before th
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 8. O
the issue of Vietnam, Prof. Barnett expressed his firn
support of our military effort in defense of the indepen
dence of South Vietnam. "If we begin to back off ou
policy," he stated, "we would tend to confirm the Viet
cong and Chinese approach, and this would not induc
them to consider optional policies. It might well confirn
them in the course in which they are now embarked." O
the matter of "neutralizing" Southeast Asia-a catch
word that seems to have caught the fancy of Senator Ful
bright-Prof. Barnett was equally firm. "There need
to be a stable power balance [there]," he said, "tha
in the long run we and China can accept."
Harvard's John K. Fairbank argued two days later i
the same vein. The United States, he insisted, shoul
"hold the line" militarily on the Korean border, in the
Taiwan Strait and "somehow in Vietnam." South Viet
nam has become a "focus of power politics" and "per-
haps power has to be used in smaller wars if we are t
avoid bigger wars." The underlying issue in Vietnam
Prof. Fairbank recognized, is "nation-building." "Th
real test," he pointed out, "is not whether we can fight
but whether we can be more constructive than destruc-
tive while we are fighting." (Emphasis added)
All in all, March 8 and 10 were not very encouraging
days for the various "peace" movements.
GP*RGI IT
e Miter ,
MMM
ere none too happy over the tra-
States toward Red China. The beast may need cuffing in
Southeast Asia, they admitted. At the same time, it may
be the wise thing, they suggested, to attempt to draw Red
China out of its isolation from the world community.
Prof. Fairbank drew the picture of a psychotic Red
China whose persecution complex causes it to flail out
at its imaginary enemies. Psychotics, it appears, are best
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treated with a certain amount of deliberate indulgence
Significantly, the Administration seems to have bough
the Barnett-Fairbank thesis. On NBC's "Meet the Press,"
Vice President Humphrey suggested on March 12 that
U. S. policy toward Red China should be one of "con-
tainment without necessarily isolation"-a formula that
echoed A. Doak Barnett word for word.
Don't be surprised, then, if the United States assume
a passive attitude when the question of seating Red
China next comes up before the UN General Assembly.
Don't be surprised, either, if Red China rejects the peace
offer.
Malta's Elections
and the Church
letter of March 13, Malta's Arch
bishop Michael Gonzi did wha
reporter Carlo Cardona, in his article on p. 412 of this
issue, half expected the Maltese hierarchy might do-
and half hoped it wouldn't. The Archbishop's pastoral
put the Church squarely in the middle of that island's
current election campaigns.
In fairness, it should be stressed that the archbishop
did not specifically tell his flock for whom they should
vote. His letter, also signed by Bishop Joseph Pace of
Gozo, simply exhorted Catholics to exercise their voting
franchise as good citizens. "No one," it said in part,
"should remain neutral and abstain from voting for can-
didates from whom religion and the Church have nothing
to fear." The trouble was that, by explicit references to
Dom Mintoff's Labor party, the letter also made it clear
that Labor's candidates did not exactly fit those require-
ments.
At this remove, second-guessing the archbishop's let-
ter and the whole situation in Malta is a risky business.
Cordona's analysis, however, and the still painful mem-
ories of flaps caused by similar pastorals in Puerto Rico
in 1960 and in Malta itself in 1962, cannot help raising
the question of whether the archbishop has chosen the
wisest course. That question, it seems to us, becomes
oubly pertinent in view of the fact that this pastoral
vas written hard on the heels of the Second Vatican
ouncil's Declaration on Religious Liberty.
Cuban Nerves
Are on Edge
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a siege of the jitters. Early in
plotting to kill Fidel Castro went on trial amid great pub
licity. Two of them, as majors, held the highest rank i
the Cuban military. All seven had fought at Castro's sid
a ainst Batista. In the incredible fashion of Communis
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 Approved For Release 2000/05/24: CIA-RDP75-00149R000400120002-6
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rials, the principal defendant, Maj. Rolando Cubela, ad-
itted his guilt and pleaded: "Send me to the wall. Ex-
cution, that's what I want." At Castro's own request,
iowever, he was given 30 years in jail.
On March 12, Lawrence K. Hunt, a former U. S. Air
Force captain who has lived in Cuba since 1956, re-
eived a similar 30-year sentence, for spying. As in most
of these trials, the CIA was made out to be the villain.
o was Manuel Artime, one of the three leaders of the
ay of Pigs invasion, who now lives in exile and figures
in many of Castro's tirades as the typical anti-revolu-
tionary "worm."
Those who seem to know claim that Castro made
serious blunder when he promised that any Cuban with
relatives abroad (and who in Cuba doesn't have them?)
could leave the country. Now everyone is asking himself:
"Why don't I go to Miami?" By opening up this possi-
bility, Castro has unsettled people more than he realized
Even the police and soldiery are jumpy. In recent weeks
three civilian members of foreign embassies have been
fired at and wounded-by mistake.
From Sukarno
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Old revolutionaries never die; they
simply fade away. If Sukarno is
n Indonesia, his thoughts may well be running a ong
uch lines. Though his name may still possess a certain
agic throughout Indonesia, real power has passed out
f the hands of the President into those of the military.
fter taking over the government on March 12, Indo-
esia's new strong man, Lt. Gen. Suharto, moved to
urge Sukarno's Cabinet of its pro-Communist element
notably Foreign Minister Subandrio-and ordered his
egional commanders to wipe out the last vestiges of the
Indonesian Communist party. It has been suggested that
he moves never would have been made were it not for
the strong stance being taken by the United States against
ommunism elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Sukarno had taken his stand against his restive generals
on the issue of communism. No Communist himself, he
believed that the ideology was a force that had to be
accepted in Indonesian society. The military and, i
would seem, a good proportion of the Indonesian people
disagreed. They felt there was only one way to half the
corrosive drift to the extreme left. The Army took over.
It was as simple as that.
The problems Suharto has inherited, however, arc
anything but simple. There are many centrifugal force
at work in this sprawling island republic. Potentially th
richest nation in Asia Indonesia is after almost tw
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decades of Sukarno 's rule, virtually bankrupt. morcover,
the Communist apparatus may prove just as dangerous
under as above ground. For the moment, at any rate,
Indonesia has been snatched from a precipice. The dan-
ger of a Peiping-Jakarta pincers aimed at Southeast Asia
has lessened.
Could They
Bend the Ear?
LPYK( H I
When two ot our e i ors were
Moscow earlier this year, the Len-
losed. So they were disappointed in their hope of seeing
he mummified body of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, who died
anuary 21, 1924 at the age of 54.
Recently, a book was published in London that makes
is wonder whether they. missed anything after all. Its
I uthor, Dr. Stefan Possony, concludes that "the odds
In overwhelming that an unnamed practitioner of Mme.
ussaud's art modeled Lenin's hands and head from
ax." According to Possony, there were apparently three
eparate attempts to embalm Lenin's body between 1924
nd 1928. The first took place soon after his death, but
`the body deteriorated within six weeks." A second at-
empt seemed to be more successful but lasted less than
we months. Ghoulish as it sounds, the Russians claimed
hey used a new technique and were so successful that
hey could "bend the corpse's ear; the cheeks felt soft
nd cool; and when one lifted an arm, it fell back with-
ut stiffness." This was apparently done by immersing
he body in water, then in a mixture of water and weakly
oncentrated acetic acid, and finally in peroxide of
ydrogen.
The book claims, however, that the body had clearly
eteriorated by 1928 and that the remains were disposed
f and a dummy substituted. It states that observers of
he body, visiting the mausoleum in the early 1930's,
oted that Lenin's head had more hair than he had at
he age of 30. Hence "visitors who looked at photographs
If f the old and the dead Lenin wondered whether death
night have cured his baldness."
The Negro Soldier
in Vietnam
The figures do catch the eye. At
the end of 1965, the Army in Viet-
nam was 14.8 per cent Negro, the
Marine Corps 8.9 per cent Negro. Between an
1965, the Negro death rate in the Army was 18.3 per
cent. In the Marine Corps, the Negro death rate was 11.3
per cent.
The suspicion that inevitably arises from such statisti-
cal discrepancy was expressed at the closed hearings in
Washington on new military appropriations for Vietnam.
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