THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 10 SEPTEMBER 1976

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1969-1977
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0006466842
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: August 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2016
• Publication Date: September 10, 1976

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The President's Daily Brief
J
September 10, 1976
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Exempt from general
declassification schedule of EQ 11652
exempuon category 58( I ).(2).(3)
declassified only on approval of
the Director of Central Intelligence
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
LATE ADDITION TO
JAPAN-USSR ITEM
Tokyo has apparently decided to turn control of the
Soviet MIG-25 aircraft over to the Japanese Defense Agency.
.Cabinet legal experts are said to be working out a rationale
for this action.
FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ON
CHINA: The Chinese
leadership has handled
the immediate problems
posed by Mao's death--
funeral arrangements
and mourning cere-
monies?quietly and ef-
ficiently. The larger
issue of a new leader-
ship alignment will
take much longer to re-
solve fully and may well
be an acrimonious proc-
ess.
Both of the principal
contending political
factions in the leader-
ship have been weakened
in the past year.
Hua Kuo-feng
Within hours after Mao's death
yesterday, Peking issued a lengthy
and carefully worded obituary no-
tice that mentioned the need to
continue Mao's revolutionary for-
eign policy line, a codeword for
the opening to the US.
The party Central Committee, which
apparently was meeting in late
August, will probably reconvene
after Mao's funeral for the first
round of political wrangling.
Peking has already shown signs of
sensitivity about revealing who
stands where in the hierarchy.
The funeral committee, announced
yesterday, listed the Politburo
in the Chinese equivalent of alpha-
betical order.
The more conservative of them,
with the loss of Chou En-lai and
Teng Hsiao-ping, lack a strong and
widely respected leader around
whom to rally. Defense Minister
Yeh Chien-ying, in his late 70s,
is now the leader of this group.
His age precludes his being a
strong contender for the party
leadership, but he will continue
to exercise a moderating influ-
ence as long as he lives.
Premier' Hua Kuo-feng is not a
charter member of this group, al-
though he seems to lean more to-
ward the conservatives than he does
toward the left. He has not had
time, in his brief tenure as pre-
mier and first vice chairman of the
party, to establish solid ties or
a wide base of support.
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--continued
FOR THE PRESIDENT ONI Y
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Chang Chun-chiao
Despite their respec-
tive weaknesses, both
Hua and Chang are likely
to make a run for the
party leadership.
Lacking a strong leader and with
Mao now out of the picture, the
moderates may be tempted to try
to bring Teng Hsiao-ping back into
the political picture. Such a
move would be strongly opposed by
the left and could well fail.
The current leftist leader, stand-
ing committee member Chang Chun-
chiao, because of his close iden-
tification with the leftist move
against Teng earlier this year, is
now probably less acceptable than
previously to centrists who may
have once found him less objec-
tionable than some of his unrecon-
structed leftist associates. He
seemed to be the main challenger
to Teng Hsiao-ping for the premier-
ship, but since neither he nor Teng
had the overwhelming endorsement of
the party needed to rule effec-
tively in the job, Hua Kuo-feng was
chosen as an apparent compromise.
Precisely because of their weak-
nesses, both men and any other ci-
vilian contenders will have to court
the military. In return for their
support, military men are in an ex-
cellent position to extract major
concessions from the civilians.
Although civilians of all stripes
are wary of allowing the army too
much political power, the divi-
sions among them could allow the
army to exploit those differences
for its own ends.
Civilians will be on guard against
a possible military coup attempt.
We believe an attempted military
coup is most unlikely.
--continued
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
The division of labor
among the leadership
is probably going to be
a difficult process
and subject to consid-
erable horse trading.
JAPAN-USSR: Friction
between Japan and the
USSR increased yester-
day over the handling
of the MIG-25 when the
Soviets delivered a
harshly worded protest.
Should Premier Hua end up as titu-
lar head of the party, for example,
he would be under pressure to re-
linquish the premiership. One of
the many problems the left had with
Teng Hsiao-ping was that he not
only acted for Chou En-lai as pre-
mier but seemed also to be in charge
of the party's day-to-day affairs.
There are enough ambitious men in
the leadership who have waited a
long time for their chance in the
sun that any attempt to consolidate
the party leadership and the pre-
miership into the hands of one per-
son would be strongly opposed.
Formal discussion of the parceling
out of the Maoist legacy will al-
most certainly be postponed until
after the memorial service on Sep-
tember 18. No decisions may in
fact be taken for some time, and
there are many factors, internal
and external, which drive the cur-
rent members of the Politburo to
attempt to work together. The
leadership is fundamentally too
divided and inherently unstable,
however, to remain in harness to-
gether indefinitely.
Ambassador Polyansky delivered a
written statement to Deputy For-
eign Minister Arita shortly be-
fore Soviet defector Belenko left
for the US. The protest:
--noted that Japan had not yet
replied to repeated Soviet de-
mands for prompt return of the
pilot and plane;
--continued
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
--termed Belenko's arrival in
Japan the result of an emergency
landing and his request for
asylum a Japanese fabrication;
--accused Japanese authorities
of forcibly moving Belenko to
Tokyo;
--alleged that denial of Soviet
access to Belenko violated bi-
lateral consular agreements;
--described these Japanese ac-
tions as unfriendly to the So-
viet Union; and
--warned Tokyo not to be influ-
enced by any third countries.
In response, Arita affirmed that
Belenko would be allowed to seek
asylum in the US; that a Soviet
official could see Belenko prior
to his departure (a meeting was
subsequently held); and "took
note" of Moscow's desire for an
early return of the plane. Arita
reminded Polyansky that Tokyo
wanted a satisfactory explanation
of the violation of Japan's ter-
ritorial airspace.
The Japanese press, coached by
Foreign Ministry sources, is
stressing the theme that in view
of the violation of Japanese air-
space, Moscow should take a con-
ciliatory attitude before nego-
tiations begin on return of the
plane. A Foreign Ministry spokes-
man has been quoted as saying that
once talks with the Soviets are
under way, the plane probably
could be returned in about a month.
Political infighting over Prime
Minister Miki's tenure in office
does not seem to have affected
Tokyo's handling of the MIG-25
incident.
--continued
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
The Soviets may be at-
tempting to use the in-
cident to put the Jap-
anese on the defensive
regarding relations
between the USSR and
Japan.
*
The incident, in fact, could con-
tribute to a continuation of the
political impasse. Miki had ear-
lier threatened to force a show-
down with his challengers at a
cabinet meeting today. The need
to address the Soviet problem,
however, and the inclination of
both Miki and his opponents to
avoid an irrevocable step in their
political competition should serve
to maintain the deadlock a while
longer.
The objective would be to make it
that much harder for Tokyo to move
ahead with peace treaty negotia-
tions with China or to renew pres-
sure on the northern territories
issue. Furthermore, the MIG-25
incident came at a time when the
Soviets had been making some
gestures toward breathing fresh
life into economic dealings with
Japan and will probably put these
efforts on the shelf for the time
being.
The Soviets evidently are putting
out phony stories in Europe that
Tokyo will be acting aberrantly if
it makes the MIG-25 available to
the US. Moscow apparently has
some hope of getting the plane
back and of persuading Japan to
limit its availability to the
US. Soviet "journalist" Victor
Louis has a story in a French
newspaper asserting that the normal
"usage" is to forgo passing such
equipment to US experts.
In trying to establish this "prin-
ciple" of proper behavior, the So-
viets may hope to salvage some-
thing out of the MIG-25 affair
that can be put to use in the
future.
*
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*
--continued
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FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
LEBANON-SYRIA: The
principal Lebanese
Christian leaders have
completed their talks
with President Asad.
We have no details as
yet on the substance
of the latest round of
talks.
USSR: We now estimate
1976 Soviet grain pro-
duction at 200 million
metric tons, up 5 mil-
lion tons from our early
August estimate. How-
ever, the size of the
final harvest remains
uncertain.
The two sides appear, however, to
have agreed to postpone any polit-
ical or military initiatives until
after the transfer of power to
president-elect Sarkis on Septem-
ber 23.
Shelling is continuing in all of
the usual trouble spots, but no
significant gains have been made
on any side.
A crop of 200 million tons would
exceed last year's by some 60 mil-
lion tons and would be second only
to the record Soviet crop of 222.5
million tons in 1973.
The Department of Agriculture cur-
rently estimates the Soviet crop
at 205 million tons.
Weather conditions during the bal-
ance of the harvest will play an
abnormally large role in determin-
ing the size and quality of the
crop, however. Cool, wet weather
in much of European Russia through-
out the summer has delayed harvest-
ing and has made a large share of
the cereal grains unsuitable for
flour milling.
If favorable grain crop prospects
hold, Soviet grain purchases should
not exceed 14 million tons, a lit-
tle more than half the amount
bought in 1975. Of this amount,
about 9 million tons will come
from the US and the remainder from
Canada, Australia, Brazil, and New
Zealand. Moscow is still obli-
gated to take 1.6 million tons of
US grain to meet the 6-million-ton
minimum stipulated under the first
year of the US-USSR grain agree-
ment.
--continued
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Soviet Union
FOR THE PRESIDENT ONLY
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Yugoslavia,
NOTES
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--continued
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