THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 9 FEBRUARY 1976

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1969-1977
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0006015025
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: August 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2016
• Publication Date: February 9, 1976

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The President's Daily Brief
February 9, 1976
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Exempt from general
declasnfication schedule of E.O. 11652
exemption category 51311
declassified only on approval of
the Director of Central Intelligence
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L., I
February 9, 1976
Table of Contents
Angola:
Lebanon: Syria has promised to guarantee Palestin-
ian respect for existing agreements restrict-
ing fedayeen freedoms in Lebanon. (Page 2)
Morocco-Algeria: Egyptian Vice President Mubarak
was apparently unsuccessful in his effort last
week to mediate the dispute between Morocco
and Algeria over Spanish Sahara. (Page 3)
Note: USSR (Page 4)
At Annex we examine the appointment of Hua Kuo-feng
as China's acting premier.
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ANGOLA
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LEBANON
Syrian President Asad affirmed, in a
communique following Lebanese President
Franjiyah's visit to Damascus on Saturday,
that Syria will guarantee Palestinian re-
spect for existing agreements restricting
fedayeen freedoms in Lebanon.
Asad's promise to control the fedayeen may lead
to an early announcement of political agreement be-
tween Lebanese Christians and Muslims. The Chris-
tians, who have been demanding that the Palestinian
question be settled before any political reforms
are implemented, now have little excuse for delay.
A Lebanese newspaper reported yesterday that
on Saturday Franjiyah and Asad signed a wide-ranging
secret agreement that will be made public after ap-
proval by the Lebanese cabinet this week. The ac-
cord reportedly provides for:
--A revised and written national charter to
replace the existing unwritten national cove-
nant.
--The scheduled withdrawal of Palestine Liber-
ation Army troops from Lebanon.
--The formation of a new cabinet under Prime
Minister Karami.
Franjiyah presumably will use the agreement
on the Palestinian question in a final attempt to
get the backing of all Christian factions for a
comprehensive political settlement. Leaders of
some ultraconservative Maronite groups reportedly
are demanding a more detailed agreement that would
better protect the Christians' remaining political
prerogatives.
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MOROCCO-ALGERIA
Egyptian Vice President Mubarak was
apparently unsuccessful in his effort
last week to mediate the dispute between
Morocco and Algeria over Spanish Sahara.
Neither Rabat nor Algiers was willing to make
concessions. A senior Moroccan foreign ministry
official stated that Rabat will resist any effort
to allow Algiers a substantive role in the Saharan
issue. As conditions for negotiations, the Moroc-
cans have insisted on recognition of their sover-
eignty over the territory and the withdrawal from
the area of Algerian forces, presumably including
the Polisario guerrillas.
Algeria apparently was equally inflexible in
the proposals it offered.
Morocco's decision to continue its military
sweep in Spanish Sahara while Egyptian mediation
efforts were still going on contributed to Mubarak's
lack of success. Rabat announced that Moroccan
forces occupied the Saharan town of Tifariti--near
the Mauritanian border--without opposition on Febru-
ary 4.
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NOTE
the Intelligence Community on
Saturday reviewed Soviet developments since mid-Jan-
uary.
Soviet military activity in
other areas, including the Chinese border, appears
generally normal.
There are no signs of unusual activities by the
Soviet leadership. Soviet leaders appear busy with
preparations for the party congress, which is sched-
uled to open on February 24.
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CHINA
CHINA
Beyond a brief and almost casual
acknowledgment of the appointment of
Hua Kuo-feng as acting premier, the
Chinese have thus far made no attempt
to explain the move. The appointment
was almost certainly decided at a lead-
ership meeting that began after Chou
En-lairs funeral last month and appar-
ently lasted about two weeks.
The appointment of Hua is obviously a major
setback for First Deputy Premier Teng Hsiao-ping,
who acted for Chou En-lai for over a year. Nearly
all Chinese officials in and out of China had long
predicted that Teng would succeed Chou; these pre-
dictions were continuing after Chou's death and up
through last week.
Tang's rapid rise to prominence over the past three
years from the powerless obscurity of a purged vic-
tim of the Cultural Revolution attested to the care-
ful planning that had gone into the succession ar-
rangements. Each step in Teng's return to power had
the full endorsement of Chairman Mao Tse-tung.
Teng has not appeared in public since he deliv-
ered the eulogy at Chou's funeral on January 15.
The delay in naming him premier suggested that the
appointment had run into trouble. A vicious and only
thinly veiled attack on Teng appearing in last Fri-
day's People's Daily indicated that the trouble was
serious.
The tone of this attack, which was reminiscent
of the polemics that characterized the Cultural Rev-
olution, strongly suggests that the party's left
wing, which was responsible for Teng's initial purge
and which has clearly resented his return to prom-
inence, retains something of a veto over major ap-
pointments--at least when persons of the symbolic
importance of Teng are involved. There is no indi-
cation, however, that Teng has again been purged.
Chinese officials abroad are apparently claiming
that Teng remains first deputy premier, and he pre-
sumably retains his posts as armed forces chief of
staff, as a member of the Politburo standing commit-
tee, and as vice chairman of the party.
(continued)
Al
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The designation of Hua Kuo-feng as "acting"
premier indicates that the problem of the succession
to Chou is by no means fully settled. It is still
possible that Teng might eventually get the post
when the National People's Conference meets next.
As it is now constituted, the body is relatively
conservative. The odds against Teng's appointment,
however, are now quite long. It may be some time,
moreover, before the National People's Conference
convenes. Prior to January 1975, the conference
had not met for a decade, largely because of deep-
seated quarrels within the party.
It is evident that these quarrels, in large
measure a legacy of the Cultural Revolution, have
not been resolved. The residual power of the party's
left wing, in slow decline since 1969, had appeared
to have been broken in the course of the anti-Confu-
cius campaign of 1974, which in large measure was
designed to pave the way for Teng's succession to
the premiership. The leftists, however, appear to
have seized on the issue of proposed changes in the
educational system in the weeks immediately preced-
ing Chou's death to reopen debate on a series of
basic issues, including the question of the succes-
sion itself.
Mao undoubtedly endorsed Hua's appointment as
acting premier. This point was made explicitly in
the Hong Kong newspaper story that broke the news of
the appointment. The Chairman may never have been
fully comfortable with Teng, with whom he had major
differences in the early 1960s. Mao's explicit back-
ing of Teng at each step in his return to power,
nevertheless, closely associated the Chairman with
the deputy premier, and Mao's image will be further
tarnished. If Teng does not recoup, he would be the
latest in the long string of "wrong horses" the
Chairman has backed in China's drawn-out succession
struggle.
Although the left will doubtless take comfort
in the current setback to Teng, the appointment of
Hua is far from a leftist "victory." Hua entered
high-level politics in Peking in the wake of the
fall of former defense minister Lin Piao--a moment
when the left was reeling--and he was denounced in
the anti-Confucius campaign for "suppressing the
masses." He was given formal authority in internal
(continued)
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security matters through his appointment in January
1975 as minister of security. Hua is capable and
affable, but lacks the wide experience of Teng
Hsiao-ping, much less that of Chou En-lai. He has
no background in foreign affairs, although foreign-
ers who have held discussions with him have found
him generally conversant with major international
issues.
Hua ranks with Second Vice Premier Chang Chun-
chiao as the most important of the "middle genera-
tion" of China's leaders due to succeed the old
guard who are now dying off. He rose to power as
an important provincial figure during the Cultural
Revolution. He is therefore probably more acceptable
to the leftists than the old-line party bosses of
whom Teng is the primary symbol. His current poli-
tics and the fact that he is not associated with the
excesses of the Cultural Revolution make him accept-
able to the more conservative party members. He is
thus obviously a "compromise candidate," and his
position in the middle of the political spectrum
presumably was the primary recommendation for his
appointment.
Hua's accession as acting premier is not likely
to result in major changes in China's domestic pol-
icies, although presumably the proposed changes in
educational practices are now in abeyance. Hua has
been closely associated with the recent efforts to
upgrade China's agricultural output in preparation
for further modernization of the country's indus-
trial plant; he will doubtless continue to press
this program, which was also closely associated with
Teng Hsiao-ping.
Hua is also unlikely to initiate any major
changes in China's foreign policy, particularly
while the succession issue remains in doubt. For-
eign policy issues nevertheless may well have played
a part--albeit subordinate--in the struggle that led
to his appointment. The announcement of former
President Nixon's impending visit to China came
only one day before disclosure of Hua's appointment,
suggesting that the issue of relations with Washing-
ton was discussed in the meetings that followed
Chou's funeral. The unusual handling of the release
of the Soviet helicopter crew late in December may
also have been an outgrowth of the backstage maneu-
vering over the premiership.
(continued)
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Although immediate changes in domestic and for-
eign policies are probably not in the cards, China's
party members are likely to be unsettled by Hua's
sudden and unexpected appointment. This new evi-
dence of instability and division in the upper ranks
of the party will almost certainly have an adverse
effect on morale. Indeed, the fact that Chou's ar-
rangements for the succession to the office he held
for so long did not hold up for even a month sug-
gests that Mao's arrangements for his own succession
are likely to be fragile at best.
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