THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 4 NOVEMBER 1967

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005974103
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: November 4, 1967

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The President's Daily Brief
-7`qi?Se..Ke,L4 November 1967
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DAILY BRIEF
4 NOVEMBER 1967
1. Soviet Union
There was much 4th of July-type
oratory in the speech Brezhnev gave
yesterday. This is what the occasion
called for. .It was not his function
at such a time to generate turbulence,
but rather to depict the Soviet ship
of state sailing grandly through calm
waters. At several points, however,
Brezhnev felt obliged to climb down
from the level of platitude to give his
audience some idea of what preoccupies
Moscow now.
On China, he was direct in his
criticism of Mao's "nationalist aber-
rations" but he wound up on the note
that present events in China are tran-
sient and that "socialism" will
ultimately triumph. This is sancti-
monious guff at best. .Moscow's real
posture was expressed in a separate
passage on defense in which Brezhnev
asserted that the Soviet Union "will
not flinch if someone is mad enough to
make an attempt, from whatever direc-
tion--north or south, west or east...."
Brezhnev used the occasion to
renew the call for an international
Communist party conference. He laid it
on thick about strengthening Communist
unity, but nowhere did he deal tren-
chantly with the real causes of division
among the world's Communists. There
will probably be some serious talk
about a world conference in private
sessions with visiting Communist leaders.
On Vietnam, Brezhnev said about as
little as he could have under the cir-
cumstances, and nothing new.
The Soviet leader said nothing that
would qualify as an assessment of the
present climate of US-Soviet relations.
A nod of thanks to the World War II
allies, including the US, was more than
balanced by a condemnation of US
"aggression."
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2. Cuba
3. South Vietnam
4. Venezuela
Castro has failed to heed repeated
Soviet warnings that his revolutionary
policies in this hemisphere are damag-
ing to broader Communist interests.
Brezhnev was clearly
talking about Castro in that passage
of his speech yesterday in which he
declared that "Marxist-Leninists have
always understood that socialism cannot
be transplanted from one country to
another by means of armed force."
Our embassy was told yesterday by
South Vietnamese navy sources that an
eight-ship convoy had started up the
Mekong for Phnom Penh. This will be
good news for the Cambodians, who have
been hot under the collar ever since
Saigon halted their convoys in mid-
October.
President Leoni's big Democratic
Action Party is badly, perhap irrevo-
cably, split over who is to bathe
party's presidential candidate a year
from now. The struggle is between
party Secretary General Gonzalo Barrios,
who is favored by top party leaders,
and Luis Beltran Prieto who has a large
popular following, particularly among
the younger, more militant rank-and-file.
If the party breaks in two, which
seems likely at this point, Leoni will
lose his majority in Congress and be
reduced to the status of a lame duck.
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DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
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5. Congo
6. Nigeria
7. Tanzania
The mercenary group that moved
into Katanga Province night before last
has made some headway. At last word it
was near Kolwezi, about half way to the
provincial capital from its starting
point on the Angolan border.
The invaders are few in number and
we suspect their main purpose is diver-
sionary. The aim may be to take the
heat off Schramme's forces at Bukavu,
but this could be simply the opening
phase of a bigger operation yet to come.
In the meantime, the Congolese
army offensive in Bukavu seems to be
making progress/
The federal government, confronted
with major reconstruction costs, is now
weighing a renewed Soviet offer of $56
million in economic aid credits.
Whether or not the Nigerians snap up
the offer, they will likely use it to
pry more aid from Western sources.
President Nyerere will look darkly
on Stokely Carmichael's efforts to-set
up a permanent "Black Power" mission
in Tanzania when he hears some of
Carmichael's latest rantings. Car-
michael, in Tanzania this week on a
busy schedule arranged by the Cuban
embassy, told local reporters, among
other things: "Julius Nyerere is a
clown...African leaders disgust me..,
all this talk about African unity is a
joke.. .the Congolese are scum."
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Top Secret
FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
Top Secret
16
4 November 1967
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
4 November 1967
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
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* * *
* * *
Hanoi Turns Down Request of American News
Agen-ET:77
the North Vietnamese deny permis-
sion for an American Broadcasting Company news
staff correspondent and camera crew to visit North
Vietnam.
* * *
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* * *
More on Hanoi's Attitude: Xuan Thuy, former
North Vietnamese foreign minister and member of
the party central committee, recently expressed
Hanoi's usual hard line position on the war. His
remarks came in an interview with a Cuban corre-
spondent
on 2 November. The harsh tone of Thuy's
statements may have been dictated by this forum,
but it was in keeping with virtually every recent
North Vietnamese pronouncement on the war.
? Thuy concentrated on North Vietnam's demands
for a settlement. He said the US must "uncondition-
ally and finally" put an end to the bombings and
other activities against the North, it must with-
draw all its forces from the South, and it must
allow the Vietnamese people to resolve their prob-
lem for themselves. He said that "only in this
way can the problem of Vietnam be solved," and
added that any proposal for talks must be made by
"those mainly guilty of the aggression against
Vietnam."
Thuy declined to predict what actions the US
would take in the future, but said that although
the US is "bogged down" and "unable to find a way
out," it is not yet ready for a "reasonable
solution." He said that President Johnson insists
the US has been seeking peace for a long time, and
that Hanoi remains silent, while in fact, "Hanoi
opened the door to peace a year ago" when Foreign
Minister Trinh said talks could take place after
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an unconditional cessation of the bombings. The
US, he claimed, has "sought all kinds of pretexts
in order not to enter that door."
-Thuy ridiculed US talk about the 1954 Geneva
Agreements, saying the US is silent about the most
important part of the agreements referring to .the
independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity
of Vietnam. He accused the US of wanting to turn
the 17th parallel into a "state frontier between
the two countries."
He said that North Vietnam's position is that
if the US sincerely wants "talks which are con-
sistent with our position," then "let us talk,"
but that if the US wants to continue the war Hanoi
is prepared to "accept the challenge."
* * *
Brezhnev on Vietnam: Brezhnev's comments on
Vietnam in his keynote speech at the Soviet an-
niversary celebration were neither extensive nor
particularly striking. He condemned the crimes of
the US military, "which bring to memory the sinister
deeds of the fascist monsters," and lauded the
courage of the Vietnamese. He reasserted Moscow's
determination to keep assisting the Vietnamese,
called attention to the solidarity of socialist aid,
and then took the expected slap at Peking for
allegedly preventing the coordination of aid from
the socialist countries. He castigated this as an
action which is rendering the military successes
of the Vietnamese less effective.
Brezhnev obviously had no desire to make the
Vietnamese section of the speech a controversial
one. The delegation from Hanoi may have been some-
what discomfited at the charge that Chinese intran-
sigence was hindering the progress of the war, but
the charge was nothing new.
II. NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
Vietnamese Communists Thank American Anti-War
Groups: The Viet Cong's "Committee for Solidarity
With the American People" has sent messages to
groups of Americans living in France and Britain
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who are opposed to the war. According to a
2 November Hanoi International Service broadcast
in English, the Viet Cong committee thanked the
Americans for their "active participation" in the
21 October anti-war protest and called on the
American people to step up their activities to
compel the US government to end its "aggressive
war" in Vietnam.
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Top Secret
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