THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 23 OCTOBER 1967

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005974078
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: October 23, 1967

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The President's Daily Brief
23 October 1967
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DAILY BRIEF
23 OCTOBER 1967
1. Middle East
2. South Vietnam
Communist China
Israel is under great pressure to
retaliate for the s1nking of its de-
stroyer on Saturday. It is already
taking a much harsher line against the
Arabs.
?The Israeli protest lodged with
the UN Security Council did not call
for an emergency meeting of that body.
This could mean that the Israelis plan
a counterstrike before the Council can
exercise a restraining influence. The
next Israeli move, sure to be a care-
fully calculated one, was almost cer-
tainly discussed at yesterday's cabinet
meeting.
The Egyptians are bracing for the
expected blow'
About 73 percent of the registered
voters cast ballots in yesterday's
lower house elections. This very satis-
fying turnout is only about ten percent
lower than that recorded in last month's
presidential and senatorial voting.
Viet Cong harassment, minimal
throughout the country, did not prevent
balloting at any polling place.
Peking has issued a nation-wide di-
rective ordering the immediate reopen-
ing of all schools from primary grades
through the universities. This is
another big step in the push toward mod-
eration and the return of normality.
Order has been re-established in
much of the country, though violence
still sputters in a few areas. The
army appears to be dealing quickly and
firmly with those Red Guard extremists
who still resist the reining in of the
Cultural Revolution,
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4. Soviet Union
5. Latin America
6. South Arabia
Moscow has slammed the door on
Japanese hopes that it might be will-
ing to talk soon about returning some
of the islands seized from Japan at
the end of World War II. A Soviet vice
foreign minister bluntly told the Japan-
ese ambassador recently that Japanese
press speculation on the issue has been
wide of the mark, that Moscow regards
the islands as Soviet territory and has
no intention of giving them back.
Reports are filtering in on the re-
action of Latin American radical left-
ists to "Che" Guevara's death. These
reinforce our view that Guevara's fate
was the sharpest psychological blow
ever suffered by Castro's guerrilla war-
fare program in the hemisphere. Ex-
tremists are disheartened and the-Mos-
cow-line parties now have effective new
ammunition for arguing against the Cas-
tro guerrilla warfare line.
The defeat in Bolivia comes at a
time when rebel groups in Venezuela,
Colombia, and Guatemala are also suf-
fering reverses at the hands of the
military. Nothing we have seen, how-
ever, suggests that Castro has any in-
tention of discontinuing his efforts
to export revolution.
The threat of new violence is rising
rapidly.
Much of the tension is being gener-
ated by the delay in reaching agreement
on a government by the two rival nation-
alist factions meeting in Cairo. The
talks drag on inconclusively as the fac-
tions continue jockeying for dominance
back home.
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FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
Top Secret
23 October 1967
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
23 October 1967
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
Giap on Soviet and Chinese Aid: The determina-
tion of the North Vietnamese to remain neutral in the
1 Sino-Soviet dispute is again evident in an article
on Soviet and Chinese aid to Vietnam written for the
1Soviet military newspaper Red Star by Hanoi's Defense
!Minister Vo Nguyen Giap. The full text of the article
is not yet available in Washington, but it appears
,from the press dispatches and limited Soviet broad-
cast excerpts that it was written in connection with
the upcoming anniversary celebrations of the Soviet
revolution.
,
,
According to the press, Giap thanked Moscow and
Peking equally for their assistance, describing the
backing of both as wholehearted. His decision to
underscore Hanoi's position on this question may be
related to apparent North Vietnamese fears that Sino-
Soviet enmity over each other's policy on the war
will again break into the open during the Soviet anni-
versary fetes, thus embarrassing the Vietnamese who
would like to see the two powers close ranks on Viet-
nam.
In his Red Star article, Giap made it clear that
the Vietnamese regard their war as the central foreign
policy issue for the Communist camp at present. "It
is through Vietnam," Giap asserted, "that the battle-
front of the struggle against-aggressive American im-
perialism...is passing today." This refrain has been
a standard-theme of the Vietnamese during the past few
years in their frequent efforts to enlist more support
from the Communist powers.
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Giap claimed that the support so far has rein-
forced Hanoi's determination to persist in the war
and "fulfill" its duty to the socialist camp. As
for allied opposition in the war, Giap reiterated
his past claims that the bombing has failed and that
it cannot stop the North Vietnamese from "supporting
their brothers" in the South. This generalized ad-
mission of North Vietnamese material backing for the
Viet Cong is standard terminology for the North Viet-
namese.
* * *
- A Soviet News Account of Haiphong Bombing: A
Soviet news dispatch goes on at length to describe
the "barbaric" US air raids on Haiphong designed
to "isolate the city from the rest of the country."
He quotes Haiphong city officials as claiming that
residential areas, schools, hospitals, industrial
enterprises, and transport services have been."wrecked"
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by the raids. ?Transportation is the "main problem,"
according to the dispatch, and the city is "mobili-
zing all its forces to solve it." .Thanks to this
great effort, the report goes on, communication:b0--
tween Haiphong and the rest of the country has never
been interrupted.
Czech Reporter on Conditions in Hanoi: A
Czech news dispatch from Hanoi described the capital
.as relatively quiet at present, braced for a resump-
tion of US air raids as soon as the weather clears.
.Thelpaul-Doumer Bridge is described as open to
limited traffic,. Cars must slow down in places along
the bridge where there are "uneven spot' in the road.
The dispatch claims that the bridge was repaired
? with relative speed because the bombing had been
foreseen and repair materials had been assembled in
. the vicinity prior to the bombing.
* * *
.Soviet Freighter Captain Claims US Harassment
Of his Ship: The master of the Soviet freighter
,Bakuriani, interviewed by an East German reporter
in Haiphong, talked of "continuing US provocations"
against Soviet merchant vessels in the Tonkin Gulf.
.He said helicopters of the US Seventh Fleet had
circled low over his ship taking photographs and
that US Warplanes had "constantly" flown over from
about 30 miles off Haiphong until the ship reached
port,
NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF U5 POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
:Hanoi on the US Antiwar Demonstrations: North
Vietnamese propaganda over the weekend containecla
steady flow of material designed to exploit the Ameri-
can antiwar protests. ? The tone of the commentary
, was set by a 20 October Hanoi broadcast containing
the remarks of:PremierTham Van Dong to a US antiwar
group which has been visiting Hanoi. Dong called ,
the American demonstrations part of the "common
Struggle" by the Vietnamese against US "aggression"
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in Vietnam and termed the protesters "comrades in
arms" with the Vietnamese.
Although the recent Hanoi commentary on the
demonstrations has been plentiful in volume, it
has.not been phrased in such a way as to suggest
that the North Vietnamese are changing their assess-
ment of the effectiveness Of the protests. The
evidence indicates strongly that they still regard
.antiwar sentiment in the US as important, but not
a determining influence on American policy. .US
strategy in Vietnam, Hanoi apparently estimates,
will.Continue to be shaped primarily by the develop-
ment of the military and political situations with-
in South Vietnam andby the balance of forces there
between the Communists and the allies.
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