CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN - 1955/01/09

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Current/Central Intelligence Bulletin Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02027255
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: September 20, 2019
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2019
• Publication Date: January 9, 1955

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3.3(h)(2)
9 January 1955
Copy No,
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN
DOCUMENT NO. g
NO CHANGE IN CLASS.
) DECLASSIFIED
CLASS. CHANGED TO: TS S C
NEXT REVIEW DATE'
AUTH: HFI, 70-2
DATE: 77.e/e5W REVIEWER:
Office of Current Intelligence
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
79
3.5(c)
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GENERAL
1. Pakistan's prime minister wants large anti-Communist turn-out
at Asian-African conference:
Pakistan's prime minister Mohammad All
is eager to have all the invited anti-
Communist nations attend the proposed
Asian-African conference because it is
n-st oppor uni y to show that Asian nations are not dominated
by Indian neutralism or by fear of the Communist bloc. He told
Ambaspaclor Hildreth on 7 January that if all the anti-Communist
nations attend, they can "clobber" Chou En-lai and "any neutral
efforts of Nehru."
The ambassador believes that Mohammad
Ali's abilities may not equal his spirit.
Comment: At the preparatory conference
held by the inviting powers at Bogor last month, the Pakistani dele-
gation headed by Mohammad Ali had no positive program to present.
The Indian delegation, on the other hand, was able to get 13 of its
17 prepared points accepted.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
2. Chinese and Vietnam railroads to have differer0 gauges:
Plans for building transloading facilities
at the change-of-gauge point on the Sino-
Vietnam railroad under construction
Initially, a
Lransier station is being considered at Pinghsiang, ten miles in-
side the Chinese border. Later another station is to be built at
Dong Dang, three miles south of the border. Three parallel
tracks--two of meter gauge (3'3") and one of the 4'8-1/2" gauge
standard in China�will eventually connect Dong Dang and Pingh-
siang.
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Comment: The North Vietnam rail
system is apparently being restored to its old meter gauge, in-
stead of to the larger Chinese gauge, in order to speed up recon-
struction. It would seem to have been in the long-range economic
and strategic interests of both countries to reconstruct Vietnam
railroads to the Chinese gauge, thus permitting easy interchange
of rolling stock and eliminating trans loading at the border.
(Concurred in by OAR)
3. Viet Minh agrees to withdraw truce officials from southern Laos:
The Viet Minh, faced with the combined
pressure of the Laotians, the French, and
the International Control Commission,
agreed on 6 January to withdraw its truce
officials from southern Laos on 7 and 8 January. The decision
was finally made at the insistence of the royal government of Laos,
which has taken the position that the presence of Viet Minh truce
officials in Laos no longer has any justification under the terms of
the Geneva agreement.
Comment: The Viet Minh will probably
offer much stronger resistance to withdrawal of its truce officials
from the northwestern provinces, which are partly under the con-
trol of the Viet Minh-backed Pathet Lao,
The Viet Minh is currently attempting to
establish its influence within the royal government by way of con-
versations now taking place between the government and Pathet
Lao officials. During these conversations, the question of the
integration of Pathet Lao troops into the royal army has been di
cussed, but no decision has been reached.
Burmese premier to make no further efforts to obtain invitation
to visit US:
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Comment: Nu, Nu, during and after his early
December trip to Communist China, publicly committed himself
to an attempt to arrange a Sino-American rapprochement.
5. Soviet interest in Burmese rice reported:
the Soviet Union
might buy "large quantities" if it can be persuaded to waive its
usual policy and permit offsetting Burmese imports of Soviet
goods to be spread over a period longer than one year.
Comment: This evidence of Soviet
interest in rice probably hastened Rangoon's decision to send
a trade mission to Moscow. One arrived there in late December.
Rangoon to date has commitments for a maximum of about
800,000 tons of its estimated 1955 exportable surplus of
1,500,000 tons of rice. Since India, traditionally its biggest
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customer, has indicated it plans no rice purchases this year,
Burma will be under considerable pressure to conclude a deal.
with Moscow.
WESTERN EUROPE
6. Ehrenburg issues strong blast at Mendes-France in Pravda:
Pravda on 6 January carried an article
by the well-known Soviet publicist,
Ilya Ehrenburg, which the American
embassy described as the most vicious
personal attack yet on Mendes-France.
Ehrenburg said the French premier had
"won the confidence of American rulers
but lost the confidence of France." He said that it had taken Mendes-
France only six months to "renounce everything he had professed
before."
Ehrenburg charged that Mendes- France
had lost his ghort-lived interest in parallel negotiations, and was
now misleading some naive Frenchmen into believing that "the
vigorous goose-stepping of restored German divisions" will facili-
tate talks on Germany. He warned that ratification of the Paris
agreements would make negotiations on Germany meaningless.
Comment: Soviet press treatment of
Mendes-France has become increasingly critical in recent months,
but this attack is distinctly stronger and more personal than any
heretofore. The USSR probably believes that Mendes-France is
currently vulnerable to the charge of being the chief French archi-
tect of German rearmament, and that an all-out attack on him will
help to overthrow him and thereby damage the prospects for full
ratification of the Paris accords.
7. French reported proposing that Bonn promise Moscow delay on
rearmament:
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According to West German state secre-
tary Blankenhorn, Jean Soutou, personal
spokesman on foreign affairs for Mendes-
France, has proposed that Bonn approach
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Moscow after ratification of the Paris accords and offer not to
put into effect the military clauses of the treaty pending some set-
tlement of the question of German reunification. Blankenhorn said
that Chancellor Adenauer "quickly rejected" Soutou's proposal. He
doubts that Mendes-France will bring up the matter again in the
14 January meeting with Adenauer.
Comment: Blankenhorn in the past has
not always been a reliable reporter of French-German negotiations.
Soutou has seemed obsessed recently by
the idea that definite assurances of further four-power negotiations
on German and European security problems are necessary to guar-
antee a favorable vote on the Paris accords in the Council of the
Republic. He has admitted, however, that Mendes-France has
"no illusions whatever" about obtaining anything from the Russians
at a possible four-power meeting early next summer except in the
unlikely event of a change in the basic Soviet position on Germany.
It is hardly likely that the government
would have underestimated the reaction of Chancellor Adenauer to
such a proposal. Even if Bonn agreed to such a plan, its necessar-
ily secret character and the time element would make its political
exploitation in France difficult.
8. French minister for Associated States favors return of Bao Dai
to Vietnam:
Minister for Associated States Guy
La Chambre told Ambassador Dillon in
Paris that he is convinced that the imme-
diate return of Bao Dal is the only work-
able kaution for South Vietnam. He said the French were think-
ing in terms of Tran Van Huu as premier and Nguyen Van Tam as
interior minister.
La Chambre pointed to evidence of a
lack of enthusiasm among the Viet Minh rank and file for the Com-
munist pattern now unfolding in the north and argued the urgency
of getting a "strong, effective" government in the south to demon-
strate that life under a non-Communist regime is better.
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affair to an investigative body.
Comment: La Chambre's apparent
design is to get a government in the south that can come to terms
with the Viet Minh.
Tran Van Huu met with Viet Minh offi-
cials at Geneva last year with a view to establishing a coalition
government
Last September French officials agreed
that Tam was unacceptable as a candidate for high office because
of his close identification with the French. Neither he nor Huu
commands any popular support and Bao Dal's prestige in Vietnam
is at an all-time low.
LATIN AMERICA
9. Comment on Costa Rican appeal to Organization of American States:
The 8 January Costa Rican appeal for emer-
gency action by the Organization of American
States (OAS) to prevent aggression by Nica-
ragua springs from the recent intensification
of Nicaragua and Venezuela's nine-month--
old "war of nerves" against the Figueres
administration in Costa Rica, The Council
of the OAS, which meets on 10 January to
consider the appeal, is likely to refer the
Last April the Council refused a Costa
Rican request to investigate the dispute with Nicaragua until normal
diplomatic means had been exhausted, bid Costa Rica has since made
important concessions in an attempt to settle the dispute. Nicaragua,
however, has rebuffed them, and in mid-December Nicaraguan pres-
ident Somoza told a Costa Rican emissary that he would never enter
into a rapprochement with Figueres.
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The Nicaraguan and Venezuelan govern-
ments are unlikely to resort to overt aggression against Costa
Rica. They are probably giving clandestine assistance to Costa
Rican revolutionary groups, however, and any move against
Figueres will probably be made to appear a purely domestic up-
rising.
The incident apparently prompting Costa
Rica's appeal to the OAS was an unannounced flight of seven Venezuelan
C-47's to Nicaragua on 6 January. These planes may have carried
arms for Costa Rican revolutionaries there. The Venezuelan foreign
minister was extremely evasive about the planes in discussing the
situation with Ambassador Warren on 8 January, and remarked that
Venezuela would recognize "within two hours" any new government
following the overthrow of Figueres.
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