THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 10 AUGUST 1968

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005976297
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: August 10, 1968

--Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
. ?
The President's Daily Brief
10 August 1968
23
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5 50X1
THE PRESIDENT'S
DAILY BRIEF
10 AUGUST 1968
50X1
50X1
1. South Vietnam
2. Czechoslovakia -
Soviet Union
Communist military preparations
in at least three areas have now
reached the stage where an offensive
could be kicked off at any time, per-
haps even this weekend. Da Nang, Chu
Lai, and the provinces northwest of
Saigon are likely targets.
* * *
Czech conservatives are again be-
ing removed from party positions, news
media are showing little inclination
to heed Dubcek's call for restraint,
and the Czech populace gave Tito a
hero's welcome on his arrival yesterday
in Prague. None of this will sit well
in Moscow, although the Soviets and
their allies are showing restraint in
their public reaction.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
3. Jordan
4. Israel
5, Laos
In the wake of recent Israeli at-
tacks, more and more Jordanians are
criticizing their government's helpless-
ness. A good many are coming to regard
the terrorists as the only people who
are doing anything to hurt the Israelis.
This is the beginning of a vicious
circle: Israeli attacks weaken Husayn
domestically and make the terrorists
more popular; the terrorists, knowing
Husayn cannot touch them, grow bolder;
and their boldness stimulates more Is-
raeli attacks.
Government troops are making modest
gains in their cautious attempts to re-
take some of the territory lost to the
Communists during the dry season. We
suspect that most of the gains are com-
ing in fringe areas which the Communists
consider nonessential; the presence of a
good many North Vietnamese troops indi-
cates that for the most part the Commu-
nists intend to hold what they have.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
50X1
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5 5oxi
6. Greece
7, Communist China
Andreas Papandreou is beginning
to work more strenuously against the
new constitution as the plebiscite of
29 September approaches, His movement
and a Communist-instigated "Patriotic
Front" issued a joint statement early
this month on the need to coordinate
resistance to the Papadopoulos regime,
and he says he has put out feelers to
conservative former premier Karamanlis
as well.
The regime is publicizing the
joint statement as an example of Com-
munist efforts to undermine Greece's
"struggle for democracy" and is charg-
ing that Papandreou would cooperate
with "any enemy of Greece."
As part of their efforts to bring
the worst excesses of the Cultural Rev-
olution under control, the Chinese have
begun forming "worker peasant Mao-thought
propaganda teams." These teams have
been made the object of a propaganda
ballyhoo which seems unreal even by Pe-
king's standards.
We learn from the Chinese news
agency, for instance, that the team at
the university in Peking was recently
favored with a gift of mangoes from Mao.
Thereupon the members of the team
flocked to the campus, "tears of happi-
ness" in their eyes, to "touch and smell"
the mangoes. They finally decided at an
emergency meeting to embalm the fruit
and place it in a glass crypt, on the
theory that in this way Mao's mangoes
would be "emplanted in our hearts,"
The countryside as far away as Shanghai
is said to be reverberating with joy
over the incident.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5_0x1
_
8. Nigeria
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Top Secret
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Top Secret
FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
1.) Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
.) North Vietnamese Reflections of U S
Political Attitudes
Top Secret
16
10 August 1968
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-saix1
Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
10 August 1968
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
150X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5 50x1
* * *
Infiltration: North Vietnamese infiltration ac?
tivity appears to be proceeding at about the same rate
in August as in the past two months./
* * *
?2-
50X1
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-aix1
II. NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
There is nothing of significance to report today.
?3-
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001:5
Top Secret
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006300200001-5