THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 19 NOVEMBER 1965

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005968005
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: November 19, 1965

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
THE PRESIDENT'S
DAILY BRIEF
19 NOVEMBER 1965
TO-P-S-E&R-E-T_
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DAILY BRIEF
19 NOVEMBER 1965
1. Indonesia
2, Communist China
Our embassy in Djakarta believes
that Sukarno's meeting with military
commanders tomorrow will give some
clearer indication of who is on top at
the moment, although it is unlikely to
bring the situation to a climax.
At this point, Sukarno's position
does not seem much improved, despite a
constant round of talks with civilian
political leaders.(
The West Java military commander
announced yesterday that the Indonesian
Communist Party has been "dissolved,"
rather than merely "suspended" as in
the rest of the country. This sounds
at first like another army victory.
This particular commander, however, has
been lukewarm in pursuing the Communists,
and the announcement may be an effort to
smother anti-Communist activity with the
claim that the party no longer exists.
The Chinese Communist leaders have
absorbed a series of setbacks lately,
? both abroad and domestically, and there
are signs that tensions may be rising to
the surface.
While concern doubtless is high
over foreign policy reverses, the top
leaders are even more anxious about the
way things are going at home. One of
the chief sources of concern is the ap-
parent loss of revolutionary zeal among
the nation's youth and in lower party
levels. This is the subject of today's
Annex.
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3. South Vietnam
4. Soviet Union
US and South Vietnamese forces are
pressing the fight against some four regi-
ments of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
in western Pleiku Province.
The Communists have reportedly or-
dered in reinforcements, and the south-
ward truck convoys spotted recently mov-
ing through the Laos infiltration corri-
dors may be in support of the effort.
On the political side, student
leaders in Saigon today issued a scath-
ing attack on the Ky government. These
leaders have not managed to attract much
support, but there have been mutterings
against Ky from the Catholic camp re-
cently. There is an anti-US tinge to
some of this.
A survey taken in the provinces
points to a rise in popular anxiety over
the accelerating tempo of the war. The
feeling is still vague and localized,
with the majority accepting the war in
a passive or fatalistic way.
The Soviet ships which supported
the launchings of the Venus nrobes on
12 and 16 November
This suggests that another space
shot, possibly a third Venus probe, is
in the offing.
The two nrohps already pn
route
They
should arrive in the vicinity of Venus
early next March.
The follow-up probe--called Venus
3 since a Venus I was launched on an
abortive mission in 1961?seems to be
essentially a backup. Although the
Soviets have announced that Venus 3
carries somewhat different equipment
from Venus 2, the primary mission of
both probes most likely is to study the
Venus ian atmosphere.
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5. Cyprus
6. Congo
President Makarios is sending 133
Greek Cypriot technicians to Egypt to-
day to begin training on Soviet surface-
to-air missile equipment, according to
the Greek defense minister. The minis-
ter says his government is powerless to
prevent the move, and suggests that the
US try.
This development will further ex-
cite the Turks when they get wind of it,
although its importance at this time is
psychological. Ambassador Belcher in
Nicosia reports that a number of Maka-
rios' future missilemen have made it
clear that they are going on this mis-
sion reluctantly, and it will probably
take a year or more to train them.
Army chief Mobutu says President
Kasavubu and Premier Kimba are pressing
him to arrest Tshombe.
The charge against Tshombe would
be using "mercenary soldiers" without
government approval. This accusation
arises out of a recent incident in which
Belgian officers formerly assigned to
the Congo Army moved to form a bodyguard
for Tshombe.
Mobutu says he is in a quandary.
He has resisted the idea of arresting
Tshombe, but at the same time feels he
could never serve under Tshombe and evi-
dently does not want to seem to be sup-
porting him.
Tshombe's recent success in defeat-
ing Kasavubu and Kimba in parliament,
indicates he has considerable support
throughout the country as well as in
his native Katanga, and his arrest would
produce a new crisis.
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7. Rhodesia
8, Bolivia
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Prime Minister Wilson is sending
? Malcolm MacDonald, an experienced trouble-
shooter, to Zambia via Kenya./
According to our embassy in Lusaka,
British moves to re-establish confidence
there are essential. The Zambian leaders
feel that Britain's measures against Rho-
desia will be ineffective, and suspect
that London will let Zambia down as
well.
The Rhodesian authorities today re-
stored the guards around Governor Gibbs'
house, stating that he had been sent
threatening letters.
The curtain seems about to go up on
another act in Bolivia's presidential
play.
Co-President Barrientos says he is
going to Switzerland this month for medi-
cal treatment of an old bullet wound.
This looks like another of Barrientos'
maneuvers to leave his fellow co-Presi-
dent, Ovando, holding the bag while Bar-
rientos plumes himself to run for presi-
dent next year.
It remains to be seen whether Ovando
and the Bolivian politicos will follow
Barrientos' script.
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9. Dominican Republic
10. Uruguay
11. France
Ambassador Bunker's two meetings
with Garcia Godoy yesterday did not in-
dicate any new crises coming up. The
provisional president is still moving
very cautiously on his scheme to replace
leftists like Attorney General Morel
Cerda, Garcia Godoy claims that his re-
lations with the military chiefs have
improved.
Labor troubles continup in Monte-
video, and the Communists are reported
to have decided to try a general strike
if the government does not give in to
some of the unions' demands. So far,
the government is holding to a tough
line.
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ANNEX
Chinese Communist Revolution Slowing Down
Fitting the pieces together
into a coherent picture is an exacting, if not en-
tirely exact, science. However, over the past months
a picture of a worried top command in Peking has
emerged with unusual clarity.
Mao and his circle sense that their revolution
is losing momentum and that, when they are gone,
there may be no one left to keep the Chinese nose
to the revolutionary grindstone.
Specifically, the leadership fears that China's
youth and intelligentsia, despite years of insistent
party propaganda, do not entirely share their leaders'
ideals.
Party authorities suspect that the dry rot is
now infecting the lower levels of the party apparatus.
The urgent need, as they see it, is to reinstill in
these vital cogs a sense of revolutionary zeal and
purpose. Characteristically, the leadership is try-
ing to achieve this by ordering all involved to spend
even longer hours poring over the works of Chairman
Mao and expounding on them in the ubiquitous party
cell meetings. Local party organizations are being
shaken up, presumably to weed out those who no longer
are sufficiently receptive to pressures of this type.
Stronger measures--like fines, forced labor, or im-
prisonment--have been used before and surely will
be used again.
Repbrts from refugees)
/make plain that the authori-
ties are once again requiring large numbers of re-
cent high school graduates to work in rural areas.
Part of this is due to the fact that opportunities
for higher education, strictly limited, are reserved
for those the regime considers "politically reliable."
It is an item of faith that hard physical labor on
the farms will "steel" the others and make them more
malleable instruments of the party.
(Cont' d)
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ANNEX (Cont'd)
Practicing scientists have also come under the
lash. As a group the scientists had until recently
been largely exempt from such party-sponsored pres-
sures. Peking has now decided that the 'gentletreat-
ment has failed. Charges have been leveled that
Chinese scientists are still too admiring of "bour-
geois" Western science. This is wrong, the key party
journal thunders, and Chinese scientists must turn
instead to Mao's work for guidance.
A US-trained rocket specialist, Chien Hsueh-sen,
was forced recently to criticize himself in the pages
of the same journal for belittling the political side
of science. Peking evidently felt it necessary to
smash the image of Chien as a man who got to the top
despite being more expert than red. The tactic is
not apt to lift the quality of Chinese science.
Peking has been over most of this ground before.
In the present case, however, there seems to be a
special sense of urgency. This probably reflects
a recognition that returns from such efforts are
diminishing. It may also mean that China's aging
leaders are beginning to realize that time is run-
ning out for them.
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