THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 29 NOVEMBER 1976

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1969-1977
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0006466909
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: August 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2016
• Publication Date: November 29, 1976

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The President's Daily Brief
November 29, 1976
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Exempt from general
declassification scheduk of E 0 11652
exemption category 58( 1)121(3)
declassified only on approval of
the Director of Central Intelligence
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
November 29, 1976
Table of Contents
Palestinians-Lebanon: The policy statement issued in the name
of the 'Palestinian Command" Saturday appears to be an
effort to force Fatah chief Yasir Arafat to endorse more
aggressive policies. (Page 1)
Israel: The establishment of a new political party adds another
complication to efforts of the dominant Labor Party to win
a plurality in next fall's general election. (Page 2)
Mexico: President-elect Lopez Portillo will find his task of
trying to restore confidence in the economy made more
difficult by recent events in the northwestern agricultural
region. (Page 3)
USSR-France:
USSR: Signals from a Soviet over-the-horizon radar near Kiev
are disrupting radio communications in a large part of the
Northern Hemisphere. (Page 5)
Angola-Zaire:
higher concentration than
to President Neto. (Page
Note: USSR-China (Page 7)
At Annex, we discuss Egypt's search for arms from sources other
than the USSR.
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The new Angolan cabinet has a 25X1
its predecessor of persons loyal
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A
WEST"WBANKr"
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
PALESTINIANS-LEBANON:
The sharply worded pol-
icy statement issued in
the name of the "Pales-
tinian Command" in Bei-
rut Saturday appears to
have been drafted by
militant leaders of
Fatah in their effort
to force Fatah chief
Yasir Arafat to endorse
more aggressive poli-
cies.
These leaders have been critical
of Arafat's recent attempts to
reach accommodation with Syria and
his implied willingness to prepare
for wider Middle East peace nego-
tiations.
The policy statement attacks Syria
and Jordan, affirms the Palestin-
ians' determination to continue
their "struggle" against Israel
from southern Lebanon, calls for
"total" Palestinian national inde-
pendence, and rejects UN Security
Council Resolution 242--the basis
of Middle East settlement efforts.
Arafat, who was not in Lebanon
when the statement was approved,
faces a dilemma. He will not want
to disavow the declaration, as it
closely parallels the program ap-
proved by him and the Palestinian
parliament at its last meeting in
June 1974. At the same time, he
will be reluctant to approve the
declaration. It is a blow to his
rapprochement with Syria, and he
has backed away since 1974 from
some of the harsher planks of the
PLO's official line.
Arafat has recently visited sev-
eral Arab capitals, including Da-
mascus, apparently in an attempt
to shore up his own position and
perhaps to win general consensus
on a revised policy statement to
present to the Palestinian parlia-
ment within the next month or two.
--continued
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
Arafat's effort suffered
an important setback--
and his critics were
prompted to act--last
week when a Syrian news-
paper that is virtually
a government mouthpiece
suggested that the next
session of the Pales-
tinian parliament should
exclude representatives
of the fedayeen organi-
zations.
ISRAEL: The establish-
ment of a new political
party last week by
YigaeZ Yadin, a highly
respected former Is-
raeli chief of staff,
is likely to complicate
further the dominant
Labor Party's efforts
to win another plural-
ity in next fall's gen-
eral election.
The Palestinians also felt threat-
ened by suggestions in the Syrian
media that Syrian troops in Leba-
non plan to collect heavy weapons
from the fedayeen and establish
military control as far south as
Tyre, Nabatiyah, and Marj Uyun.
Actually Syrian units of the Arab
peacekeeping force have delayed
moving into these southern towns.
They do have a mechanized brigade
in the Sidon area and have sent
some tanks to Az Zahrani, presum-
ably to guard Lebanon's only oil
refinery. We have no reports of
Syrian forces south of Az Zahrani.
Yadin is the second prominent mili-
tary figure in the past two weeks
to declare his intention to head
an independent list of candidates
for the Knesset election. The con-
troversial and charismatic Major
General Ariel Sharon, who led the
Israeli armored attack across the
Suez Canal in the 1973 Arab-Israeli
war, broke last week with the con-
servative Likud opposition bloc to
establish his own group.
The emergence of these two chal-
lengers--neither of whom has had
much experience in Israeli party
politics--is symptomatic of the
popular dissatisfaction in Israel
with both the Rabin government and
the faction-ridden Likud.
Despite his personal appeal, Sharon
is likely to have a smaller impact
on the outcome of the election
than the less dynamic Yadin.
--continued
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UNITED
STATES
J.
Mexico
300 Kilometers
300 Miles
GULF OF ME X ICO
' PACIFIC OCEAN
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
With a hard election
fight in prospect,
Prime Minister Rabin
and other Labor Party
leaders are almost cer-
tain to urge the US not
to press Israel to en-
gage in serious nego-
tiations with the Arabs
until after the elec-
tion Zest they harm
Labor's chances of
staying in power.
MEXICO: President-elect
Lopez Portillo, who as-
sumes office on Wednes-
day, will find his task
of trying to restore
confidence in the econ-
omy made even more dif-
ficult by recent events
in the northwestern ag-
ricultural region.
The small independent Liberal
Party, with its four Knesset seats,
is apparently about to drop out of
the governing coalition. This
would leave the Labor Alignment--
senior member of the ruling coali-
tion and composed of the Labor
Party and the left-wing Mapam--
more dependent on its coalition
partner, the hardline National Re-
ligious Party, which controls 10
of the government's 63 remaining
seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Mapam, for its part, may leave the
Alignment to run an independent
slate of candidates next fall, al-
though it apparently would stay in
the present government.
Furthermore, Rabin faces challenges
to his leadership of the Labor
Party from former foreign minister
Abba Eban, a leading dove, and De-
fense Minister Peres, a hardliner.
He fears that if he bows to Mapam
demands, former defense minister
Moshe Dayan and some other Labor
Party hawks would bolt the party,
leaving Labor more divided and
disoriented than it is now.
The northwestern farm area, threat-
ened by violence last week between
peasants and landowners, is at
least temporarily quiet.
The Echeverria government on Fri-
day persuaded landowners in the
state of Sinaloa to cede about
30,000 acres of agricultural land
to peasants--about one third the
area the latter were demanding.
The government's expropriation on
November 19 of some 250,000 acres
of privately held land in neighbor-
ing Sonora state had prompted the
peasants to act.
--continued
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
The president-elect
will probably announce
his cabinet choices
tomorrow.
USSR-FRANCE:
Lopez Portillo will probably prom-
ise not to expropriate more private
lands and to offer to compensate
landowners already affected. He
has said he favors methods to make
agriculture more productive and
efficient rather than distributing
small plots.
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--continued
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UNITE
TATES
North Alla
Ocean
Pacific
Arctic"
Ocean-
Kiev
Nikolayev
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
USSR: Signals from a
Soviet over-the-hori-
zon radar near Kiev
are disrupting radio
communications in a
large part of the
Northern Hemisphere.
ANGOLA-ZAIRE:
When the radar becomes operational
next year it will be an important
part of the Soviet defense system.
We believe the radar is best
suited to detect aircraft approach-
ing Soviet borders; the Soviets
may also intend to use it for early
warning of ICBMs launched from
the continental United States.
Scandinavian and northern European
countries have been most severely
affected by interference from the
radar, but the US, Canada, Green-
land, and Iceland have experienced
some problems, as have airplanes
and ships crossing the North Atlan-
tic.
A similar over-the-horizon radar
near Komsomolsk, to be completed
about 1978, probably will cause
interference in an area which in
cludes the western US. Another
over-the-horizon radar at Niko-
layev, completed in 1973, could
be causing similar problems for
the Chinese and Japanese, but no
complaints have been noted.
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--continued
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The new Angolan cabinet
has a higher concentra-
tion than its predeces-
sor of persons ZoyaZ to
President Neto.
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Remaining as Prime Minister is
Lopo do Nascimento, long a sup-
porter of Neto. The new foreign
minister--Paulo Jorge, a white--
has served for some years as Neto's
right-hand man and has extensive
contacts in the Third World.
Absent from the cabinet is Nito
Alves, the former interior minis-
ter and an outspoken critic of
Neto. Since the civil war ended,
Nito has tried to build a personal
power base among black radicals in
the military and among unemployed
black Angolans.
* * *
--continued
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Sino-Soviet Border Area
I
Principal areas in dispute between China and
the Soviet Union over the last five years. Chinese
claim the Soviets hold islands in the Amur and
Ussuri and areas in the Pamirs which were not
given to Tsarist Russia even by the "unequal
treaties" of the 19th century
N
Pakistan
\ Lake
Ba/khash
Pamir tract
i-?-.-_, i
'Chinese.-,'
_
of Control ?'
India ---:?
./.. Inchan Claim
Big Ussuri /Hei-hsia-tzu Island
USSR
Boundary shown on
Chinese maps
--
Amur
a v
ciaar na
0?,$?
Boundary shown on
Russian maps
China
USSR
Khabarovsk
USSR I.
0 10 Miles
0 10 Kilometers
Mongolia
Big Ussuri/
Hei-hsia-tzu I.
Blagoveshchensk
haharovsk
Area of
inset
Tatung Island
300 Miles
300 Kilometers
China
Vladivostok
1
J
NORTH Sea of Japan
r.") .,,,---iKOREA`-i
*Peking 7'
) ['-'9 4--/ -',?,-,
r- ,-iSOUTH
"C.KOREA
C ,?"?-?:''' `',. ,,,t'
'
Jilt,Yellow Sea
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
The USSR's chief nego-
tiator at the stale-
mated Sino-Soviet bor-
der talks, Deputy For-
eign Minister Ilichev,
returned to China Sat-
urday.
NOTE
Ilichev had not participated in
the talks since May 1975, the
longest absence of a Soviet nego-
tiator since discussions began in
1969. The USSR has probably sent
him back as another move in its
effort to build a public record
of Soviet reasonableness in deal-
ing with Mao's successors.
It is unlikely that the Chinese
have given any sign that they are
willing to engage in serious nego-
tiations on the border problem.
Chinese propaganda attacks on the
Soviets continue to be as tough as
ever, and there is no indication
that the domestic situation in
China has stabilized enough for
the new Chinese leaders to take on
a problem as sensitive as Sino-
Soviet relations.
Ilichev, nevertheless, may have
brought new proposals for settle-
ment of the eastern border issue.
A previous offer--broached in
1973--was rejected by the Chinese.
* * *
--continued
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EGYPT-USSR
Egypt's rift with the USSR has seriously
reduced Cairo's military readiness and
has hastened its search for arms from
other sources.
Small quantities of military supplies from the USSR
have continued to trickle into Egypt, but the ship-
ments consist mostly of Egyptian equipment being
returned after servicing.
As an emergency measure, Egypt has turned to East
European and Chinese sources. Major tank deals ne-
gotiated last year with Poland and Czechoslovakia
have fallen through, however, presumably because
of Soviet pressure. (
//China is sup-
plying small quantities of unsophisticated equip-
ment and spare parts.
Egypt has approached US, British, and Italian firms
about refurbishing and retrofitting major Soviet
weapons and equipment, including tanks and MIG
fighters. Cairo also has tried to purchase arms
and equipment from various Western countries, but
its initiatives have been hampered by a lack of
financial resources and Arab reluctance to bankroll
indiscriminately such purchases.
The Arabs did begin to loosen their purse strings
last year. Saudi Arabia, the largest source of
Arab funds for Egypt, allocated $725 million in
1976 alone to cover Egyptian military equipment
purchases from France and the UK. Substantial de-
liveries of Western arms nonetheless are still a
long way off because of Europe's lack of large
arms inventories available for immediate export
and its relatively limited production capabilities.
Egypt hopes eventually to expand domestic military
output. The Arab Industrial Organization was es-
tablished last year by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
and the United Arab Emirates to encourage develop-
ment of an indigenous armaments industry in Egypt.
The current arms output in Egypt is limited to
light infantry weapons, ammunition, explosives,
and transport vehicles.
Al
--continued
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Although Egypt's defense industry outpaces that of
other Arab nations, it is small by Western or Is-
raeli standards. It will continue to provide only
a small portion of Egypt's defense requirements for
many years, even with Western assistance.
In the meantime, Egypt will be forced to continue
to seek assistance to maintain its Soviet equipment.
Unless such help is found, Egypt's armed forces will
experience increasing shortages over the next year,
which will further degrade its capabilities.
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Top Secret
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