THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 12 APRIL 1968

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005974377
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: April 12, 1968

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The President's Daily Brief
-75-rftrrrt--12 April 1968
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DAILY BRIEF
12 APRIL 1968
1. South Vietnam
2. France-Israel
More signs are appearing that Com-
munist main force units in several
parts of the country are pulling back
from areas that had until recently
been of high tactical interest. In the
Khe Sanh area, small-scale enemy rear
guard actions seem designed to cover
withdrawal of major North Vietnamese
combat units.
Communications intelligence also
points to withdrawals farther south in
I Corps.
It is too soon to know whether
these movements are aimed at creating
the impression of Communist military
restraint. They could be responses to
pressure from allied operations or, in
some cases, simply to a need for re-
supplying and reinforcing the units in-
volved.
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3. Egypt-Jordan
4. West Berlin
5. Poland
The shooting of a militant stu-
dent leader yesterday will further in-
flame the city's leftist students.
They had already been organizing anti-
US demonstrations for Easter weekend.
If these come off as planned, the sit-
uation could become ugly.
Gomulka may have won the first
round in the struggle against the hard-
liners around Interior Minister Moczar.
This is our tentative assessment of the
government changes announced yesterday.
The turmoil inside the party is still
far from being under control, however,
and Gomulka has yet to respond to the
demands of the younger, reform-minded
elements in the party.
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6. Turkey
7. Rhodesia
8. Netherlands
High government officials are
urging postponement of the US naval
visits scheduled for later this month.
They are afraid the visits may be
marred by demonstrations set off by
the growing leftist campaign against
Turkey's participation in NATO.
Ian Smith's special commission has
come up with a new draft of constitu-
tional proposals. This is the worst
yet from the British point of view. If
this document is adopted, it will be
generations before the country's blacks
could legally obtain even political
parity with the whites.
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S.
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
12 April 1968
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
12 April 1968
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
Hanoi Criticises US Refusal of Phnom Penh as
Site for "Contacts": The US was accused of "finding
illegitimate pretexts" for refusing to meet in the
Cambodian capital. The blast was transmitted early
today on Hanoi radio's international service in
English. The broadcast claimed to be a translation
of a commentary in today's issue of the party daily,
Nhan Dan.
The commentary reviewed Hanoi's 3 April state-
ment agreeing to "contacts" with the US and claimed
that this had met with "approval and support from
broad public opinion in the world and even in the
US." The commentary then recalled Trinh's interview
with Charles Collingwood when Phnom Penh, "or an-
other place mutually to be agreed upon," was sug-
gested. The commentary noted that Collingwood had
been told that "in the course of this contact, the
American side will specify the date when the uncon-
ditional cessation of the US bombing raids...will
become effective, then the two sides will reach
agreement on the procedure of the formal talks."
The commentary then went on at length to de-
scribe Sihanouk's initial approval of Phnom Penh as
the site for "contacts" and his subsequent criticism
of the US for turning it down. Sihanouk was quoted
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as "demanding" that the US halt the bombing of North
Vietnam and accept "a dialogue" with the National
Liberation Front which, Sihanouk said, "the Americans
should recognize as the only authentic representa-
tive of the South Vietnamese people."
The commentary concluded by stating that Presi-
dent Johnson had more than once declared that the
US would go anywhere and at any time to meet North
Vietnamese representatives. The US refusal to meet
in Phnom Penh, it claimed, "shows that its acts do
not match its words."
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First Quarter Shipping Report: A preliminary
review of shipping to North Vietnam during the first
quarter of 1968 shows an 18 percent increase in car-
go deliveries over the same period last year. The
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increase can be accounted for by the continuing rise
in food and petroleum products.
Soviet deliveries to North Vietnam declined
slightly in the first quarter compared to the cor-
responding period last year. Although food and
petroleum deliveries out of Soviet Far Eastern ports
increased, deliveries of fertilizer and miscellaneous
cargoes normally shipped out of Black Sea ports de-
creased sharply. The decrease in shipping from
Black Sea ports may be due largely to the closure of
the Suez Canal.
Cargo deliveries to North Vietnam aboard East
European ships doubled over the same period in 1967.
It is likely that much of this increase reflects
agreements reached between the East European coun-
tries and Hanoi in the fall of 1967 for increased
economic aid.F
Deliveries of cargo from Communist China rose
significantly. However, the tonnage carried by
Chinese ships dropped, while that carried by Chinese-
chartered Free World ships increased. As a result,
total deliveries by Free World ships to North Viet-
nam were considerably higher in the first quarter of
1968 than in the first quarter of 1967. Most of
these originated ?in Communist China. Cargoes from
China consisted mainly of food, petroleum, and mis-
cellaneous cargoes.
The upward trend in deliveries is expected to
continue throughout 1968, and it is likely that an
increasing portion of deliveries will be carried
aboard Soviet ships. It is unlikely, however, that
the rate of increase noted during the first quarter
will be maintained because of limitations on the
discharge capacity of the port of Haiphong.
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II. NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
Hanoi on US Riots: North Vietnam has praised
the outbreak of riots in many cities in the wake
of Dr. King's death as a struggle against the racist
system in the US. In a lengthy editorial in the
party daily Nhan Dan broadcast on 11 April, Hanoi
claimed that the 1/7-6-volt" of the black people in
the US demonstrated the "loathsome nature of the
US capitalist regime." The editorial pointed out
that American Negroes now realize that freedom can
not be begged for, but that it must be achieved
through revolutionary violence. It said that the
US is conducting a war against the Negro race and
is sending great numbers of Negroes to die in Viet-
nam. Vietnam, the paper continued, is the first
front in the resistance to US imperialism. The
second front is right in the US and is composed
of the black people's struggle, the American people's
protest movement against "the US aggressive war in
Vietnam," and the working class struggle against
oppression and exploitation.
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