THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 11 SEPTEMBER 1968

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005976351
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: September 11, 1968

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
- -
The President's Daily Brief
Top Secret II September 1968
23
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
THE PRESIDENT'S
DAILY BRIEF_
11 SEPTEMBER 1968
1. Czechoslovakia -
Soviet Union
Premier Cernik's trip to Moscow
lasted only seven hours, and his list
of accomplishments seems to have been
even shorter. 4i communiqu?ndicates
Cernik discussed the Moscow agreement
with Brezhnev,. Kosygin, and Podgorny,
but it sheds little further light on
the political side of the talks.
On economic questions, the Soviets
did promise to build another gas pipe.-.
line for.Czechoslovakia, but apparently
not much else. There seemed to be. no
meeting of minds on what the Czechoslo-
vaks were most interested in: repara-
tions for damages caused by the occupa-
tion or a Soviet hard currency, credit.
National Assembly President
Smrkovsky has told a steelworkers'
rally that every detail of the Moscow
agreement must be carried out. In the
next breath, however, he promised that
the Dubcek leadership would go on push-
ing internal reform and that there
would be no persecution of intellectuals.
Smrkovsky and other leaders in Prague
have been pressing this theme recently,
partly to persuade the many Czechoslo-
vaks abroad to come home.
The cabinet, meanwhile, met to dis-
cuss some of the liberal reforms Dubcek
proposed last April. Among other things,
it approved a bill which calls for the
continued subordination of all political
groups to the Communist-controlled
National Front. The bill does not rule
out, however, the addition of new poli-
tical organizations to the Front.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
2. Soviet Union
3. Communist China
Peking last week finally announced
the formation of revolutionary com-
mittees for Tibet and Sinkiang, thus
completing the process for,,all prov-
inces. The new committees both seem
to be patchwork jobs in which radical
and moderate elements are well repre-
sented. Their establishment has long
?been delayed, in part because local
military authorities were split over
?which rival Red Guard factions to sup-
port in each province.
The fact that the top leadership
in Peking was also unable to come down
in favor of one faction or the other
shows that divisions at the center per-
sist.
* * *
Authorities in Szechwan Province,
China's largest grain producer, have
called on the army to enforce collec-
tion of the fall harvest. This is the
first time since the dark years imme-
diately following collapse of the Great
Leap Forward in 1958 that the army has
had to be used to pry grain loose from
the peasants.
Last year the harvest was so boun-
tiful that food production held up
despite the Cultural Revolution. This
year deficit provinces will feel the
pinch because the crop is just average
and imports from abroad are lagging.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
50X1
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A00640009000x1
4. Congo
(Brazzaville)
5. Iraq
The fog appears to be lifting a
bit. Army strongman Ngouabi seems to
be gathering in the reins of power at
the expense of rival military leaders.
President Massamba-Debat is still
under heavy army guard at his palace
while Ngouabi works out an alliance
with ultraleftist civilians. So far,
however, the new government has only
made moderate-sounding pro-French pub-
lic noises.
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Top Secret
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
? :t
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Top Secret
FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
1.) Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
2.) North Vietnamese Reflections of U S
Political Attitudes
Top Secret
16
50X1
11 September 1968
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
50X1
Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
11 September 1968
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001,-.Lx1
* * *
Logistics: Severe weather has apparently dis-
rupted Communist supply movements in the Laos pan-
handle and coastal North Vietnam south of Vinh.
* * *
_Hanoi's Treatment of Premier's Speech: An authori-
tative commentary in Nhan Dan on 10 September is typical
of the twist the Communists have been giving Premier
Pham Van Dong's National Day speech on 2 September.
Dong's speech took a generally hard line and promised
nothing new in terms of substance, but he did offer
new semantic variations in the Communist formulations
on two sticky issues: the question of North Vietnamese
reciprocity for a US bombing halt and the role of the
Liberation Front in negotiations. These are the as-
pects which have been picked up in subsequent commen-
taries. The Communists clearly want Dong's words to
be taken as a significant modification in the North
Vietnamese position.
Dong said that a bombing halt would have a "posi-
tive effect on the seeking, step by step, of a politi-
cal settlement." This idea is not new, but it is a
more attractive casting than the usual Communist formu-
lation. The North Vietnamese have occasionally used
this kind of language privately, but this is the first
time an authoritative spokesman has done so publicly.
They may be hoping that this language will be inter-
preted as a commitment to respond appropriately to a
bombing halt, but that at the same time it will allow
them to avoid backtracking on the issue of reciprocity.
Dong's words also avoid binding North Vietnam to any
specific military course after the bombing stops.
In speaking of the Liberation Front, Dong did not
insist that the Front had to be recognized as the
"sole" or even the "genuine" representative of the
-2-
50X1
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
South Vietnamese. There was no talk of it having a
"decisive voice" in any settlement, nor any demand
that the settlement be in accord with its political
program. Dong said only, that the US must recognize
and talk with the Front on problems involving South
Vietnam. This language leaves a place for the Front
as the Communist representative on matters affecting
South Vietnam, but other parties are not excluded on
either side.
* * *
:North Vietnamese Economic Policy: Hanoi on
30 August broadcast the text of a long speech by
,Le Duan on economic policy. Le Duan seems to regard
regional industries as the main hope for satisfying
the demand for consumer goods as well as the "first
link" in the task of "economy building." In agricul-
ture, he set forth five tons of paddy rice per
hectare (about two and one-half acres), one laborer
per hectare, and two pigs per hectare as goals for
the near future, and specified that better organiza-
tion of labor--to eliminate lax discipline--and im-
proved farm implements are to be the keys to these
goals.
-3-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
50X1
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7 50X1
II. NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL ATTI?
TUDES ON THE WAR
-4-
50X1
50X1
50X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7
Top Secret
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A006400090001-7