THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 15 JANUARY 1969

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005976563
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: January 15, 1969

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The President's Daily Brief
7lopS-e.64ce,15 January 1969
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THE PRESIDENT'S
DAILY BRIEF
15 JANUARY 1969
1. South Vietnam
2. France -
Middle East
The French are making it clear
that De Gaulle's promise of "total sup-
port" for Lebanon means almost nothing
at all in concrete terms. There is no
French commitment to send troops in,
and Paris is even unwilling to make any
more public or private statements of
support. De Gaulle did offer to send
the French fleet to Beirut for .a visit,
but the Lebanese begged off.
President Hilu has passed the word
to Ambassador Porter that he now sees
the US as Lebanon's only source of real
help.
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3. France
4. Communist China
Our embassy in Paris has new evi-
dence of De Gaulle's preoccupation with
questions of war and peace in general
and the Middle East in particular, The
embassy's sources report the following:
--De Gaulle is convinced the Is-
raelis are planning more raids against
their Arab neighbors. His arms embargo
was designed to cause second thoughts
in Tel Aviv and to hearten those such
as Nasir and Husayn who want to control
the terrorists.
--He thinks Israel is still moving
toward war, however, and he believes
neither the US nor the Soviet Union will
apply enough pressure to Israel and the
Arabs to ward off hostilities. France,
he thinks, has little leverage of its
own.
--De Gaulle says he has reason to
think the Soviets will respond to his
embargo by reducing their own arms ship-
ments to the Middle East. (De Gaulle
is talking through his hat. There are
currently seven Soviet ships on their
way to the Middle East with war materiel,
and none shows any sign of turning
around.)
Our embassy notes: "De Gaulle seems
to be in one of his more frequently re-
curring moods of despondency. There is
an important element ?of pique at the
world's rejection of his wise counsel
which enters into this despondency."
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5. Soviet Union
6. Peru
Soyuz 5 lifted off early this morn-
ing as expected.
that it has achieved a rendezvous with
Soyuz 4. Docking has not been attempted
yet.
With three men in Soyuz 5 and only
one in Soyuz 4, it seems plausible that
an attempt will be made to transfer per-
sonnel from one spacecraft to the other.
We do not anticipate Velasco's
political demise in the near future,
although our embassy believes he is
becoming more and more isolated from
the mainstream of Peruvian opinion.
As long as he is in power, more anti-
US sound and fury is likely to be heard
from Lima./
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FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
.) Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
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- 16
15 January 1969
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
15 January 1969
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
More on Infiltration: Hanoi is continuing to
insert infiltration groups into the pipeline
Several of the new packets are headed for central
South Vietnam, while most of the others are destined
for the III Corps area. The Communists are undoubt-
edly counting on the new manpower to bolster their
position on the battlefield should they decide to
mount a new offensive during the next few months.
/ The bulk
of these are headed for South Vietnam's northern
provinces or the area around Saigon.
* * *
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Ammunition Factories Increasing Production:
A 12 January Hanoi broadcast claims that gorth Viet-
nam's "arms and ammunition factories" overfulfilled
the 1968 plan, while reducing costs by ten percent.
The January plan is said to call for a still further
increase. North Vietnam's armaments industry is not
extensive, although it does produce 60-mm. mortars,
military radios, grenades, and probably some ammuni-
tions.
* * *
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Annex
The President's Daily Brief
Soviet Military Pressure on Rumania
and Yugoslavia
15 January 1969
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ANNEX
SOVIET MILITARY PRESSURES ON RUMANIA AND YUGOSLAVIA
SIGNIFICANCE: Uncertainty about Soviet military intentions
is likely to rise again in Eastern Europe in 1969 when the
military forces of the Warsaw Pact conduct a combined exer-
cise in Rumania, something Bucharest had been able to fend
off since 1962. The Soviets are using the Warsaw Pact as a
lever to exact greater cooperation from the Rumanians and,
indirectly, from non-Pact member Yugoslavia. The Rumanians
and the Yugoslays no longer fear, however, that the Soviets
are prepared to go as far as outright military intervention.
They are probably right. Even so, the anxieties aroused in
Eastern Europe will be felt in Western Europe, and there
will be renewed concern in NATO about the security of its
southern flank.
* * *
Soviet Military Pressures
In the wake of its decision to stamp out reformism in
Czechoslovakia, Moscow has set out to force the Rumanians
to reduce their awkward defiance of Soviet authority. The
Soviets also hope to insulate Eastern Europe from the
insidious influence of Yugoslav "revisionism."
As a member of the Warsaw Pact, Rumania is more suscep-
tible to Soviet pressures applied through that organization
than is Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, in the aftermath
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of Czechoslovakia, with its demonstration of Soviet readiness
to use military force for political purposes in Eastern Europe,
and Moscow's declaration concerning the limitations on the
sovereignty of members of the "socialist commonwealth," Soviet
pressures on Rumania will be felt keenly in Yugoslavia.
Rumanian Participation in the Warsaw Pact
In recent years Rumania has reduced its participation in
Pact affairs, coming last spring very nearly to the point of
having a "vacant chair" at Pact gatherings.
Since the invasion of Czechoslovakia, their own discretion
and, no doubt, a good measure of "comradely persuasion" from
Moscow have recommended a more accommodating policy to the
Rumanians. Top-ranking Rumanian and Soviet military officers
have exchanged visits, among these a visit to Bucharest by the
Soviet commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact forces. It was
not by chance that Bucharest was the site of the annual meeting
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of the chiefs-of-staff of the Pact countries convened late last
year.
In the offing early this year is a meeting of the Pact's
Political Consultative Committee, which will be, in effect, a
summit meeting of the party, government and military chiefs '
of the seven member states. It can be expected that pressure
will mount at that time on Rumania to make concessions--
potentially damaging to Rumania's claims to national sovereign-
ty--in the name of strengthening the Warsaw Pact vis-a-vis NATO.
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The Soviets might revert, for example, to earlier demands that
Rumania expand its own armed forces or agree to increased
standardization of military equipment within the Pact. The
Rumanians are also apprehensive about a possible attempt to
give the Pact command tighter control over national forces.
The Rumanian Response
The Rumanian position is delicate. Bucharest will
have to give some ground--as it already has in agreeing to
combined exercises--but will struggle hard against being
drawn more tightly into the Warsaw Pact net. In negotiating
with the Russians on the timing and scope of the exercises,
the Rumanians will seek to obtain hard-and-fast assurances
that foreign forces will withdraw at a specific time.
Soviet Intentions
There is no reason to think that Moscow considers
either Rumania or Yugoslavia a real and present danger to
its security position. The chances of extreme military
action against either are not great. But even while apply-
ing lesser pressures, Moscow will arouse sharp new anxieties
in Bucharest and Belgrade. If the Pact forces are slow to
withdraw from Rumanian soil, as they may be, the atmosphere
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of tension that prevailed last summer will begin to settle
again over Eastern Europe. If the Russians were to go a
step further and leave their forces in Rumania for a pro-
tracted period, there would be real concern within NATO
that the Soviets had set out to fasten their hold on all
of Eastern Europe including Yugoslavia. A Yugoslav request
for economic and military assistance from NATO countries
would be sure to follow. The US would be pressed, on the
one hand, to issue warnings to Moscow and, on the other,
to avoid taking a stance which might seem to challenge the
USSR.
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