CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN - 1957/04/25

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Current/Central Intelligence Bulletin Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 03003294
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2019
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2019
• Publication Date: April 25, 1957

240.0.
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CURRENT
INTELLIGENCE
BULLETIN
3.3(h)(2)
25 April 1957
Copy No.
DOCUMENT NO
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134
3.5(c)
OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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CONTENTS
.EVELOPMENTS IN JORDAN
(page 3).
SAUDIS CON7RNED T1V AT,T,EaRn RGYPTIAN ARMS
SMUGGLING ) (page 5).
0 ENS NEW RESTRICTIONS ON BERLIN TRAVEL
(page 6).
0 BULGANIN'S LETTER TO MACMILLAN
(page 7).
1435. FORMER GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT ARBENZ ATTEMPT-
ING TO MOVE TO URUGUAY (page 8).
(44
6 6. LEFTIST CANDIDATE IN SY7TAN 1W-REFPTION RECEIV-
ING SOVIET FINANCIAL AID page 9).
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1. DEVELOPMFN'TN TN .TORT)AN (Ac nf 99M) 94 A nri 11
Comment on:
he reported resignation of Premier
alidits cabinet following demonstra-
ions and strikes on 24 April, and King
ussain's readiness to proclaim mar-
ial law and suspend parliamentary
overnment, mark the most critical
oint yet reached in the Jordanian
risis. Hussain reportedly plans to
eplace Khalidi with Samir Rifai, a
lose palace adviser. Jordan's strong
nti-Western groups would regard ap-
ointment of Rifai as a deliberate chal-
enge by the king, and the appointment
ould probably incite the "street" to
urther violence. At midnight on 24
pril, according to Jerusalem radio,
11 police and security forces were
laced under army command, and a
urfew was proclaimed in Amman,
rbid, Jerusalem and Ramallah--pos-
ibly in anticipation of new demonstra-
ions which have been called for 25
prilo
his situation has been brought about
y the determination of antimonarchical
ationalist groups, together with Egypt
d Syria, to press an all-out campaign
against King Hussain. hey apparently hope to develop a situa-
tion in which Hussain will be compelled to use force to main-
tain control--thus alienating him and his loyal Bedouin troops
from the majority of Jordan's population.
The leftist-dominated National Guidance
Committees in various towns in West Jordan, representing the
National Socialist, Baath, National Bloc (Communist), and Arab
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Nationalist Parties, have denounced "Western imperialist in-
trigue" in Jordan, and demanded resignation of the }Mandl, cab-
inet, reappointment of the Nabulsi cabinet, reinstatement of all
nationalist army officers, ousting of the American ambassa-
dor and army attach�and rejection of the American proposals
for the Middle East.
The outbreaks on 24 April forced the
king to move additional troops into Amman and to assemble
4,000 armed Bedouin tribesmen on the outskirts of the city.
the king had distributed large quantities of arms
to members of the militant right-wing Moslem Brotherhood,
which has accused Egypt and Syria of plotting against King
Hussain, and is prepared to support the king "in any dis-
turbances which the people may cause,"
klieapons were being smug-
gled into Jordan from Syria, and that "approximately 100 feda-
yeen under orders of Syrian G-2 entered Jordan and dispersed
throughout it." Cairo's decision to move forcefully against
Hussain is indicated
Egyptian-directed
fedayeen "sabotage organizations would be ready in five days
by which time they will have been supplied with explosives," At
least three groups were to operate in Jordan and another group
was being prepared in Lebanon.
As the situation grew more serious in
Jordan, the American army attach�n Tel Aviv on 24 April
reported signs of limited mobilization in Israel. According to a
press report, Israeli chief of staff Dayan cut short his vacation
in Europe to return to Israel on 25 April.
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2. SAUDIS CONCERNED BY ALLEGED EGYPTIAN
ARMS SMUGGLING
King Saud has asked Egyptian president
Nasr to send two officers to Saudi Arabia
to "discuss" the discovery by Saudi
authorities in Riyadh on 18 April of a
cache of weapons and explosives :They were lit the possession of a
Palestinian who said he had been given them by the first
secretary of the Egyptian embassy in Jidda. Nazi.% emis-
saries, his chief political adviser Ali Sabri and Anwar Sadat,
head of the Islamic congress, are to arrive in Jidda on 25
April.
The weapons found consisted of a number
of bombs, two machine guns, six pistols and ammunition. The
Palestinian, who is said to have participated in the assassina-
tion of Jordan's King Abdullah in 1951, claimed his instruc-
tions were to take the weapons to Iraq.
Two Egyptian teachers reportedly were
arrested in Riyadh, also on 18 April, for stating that the
Jordanian and other monarchies eventually would disappear.
Six other persons were arrested for distributing handbills
demanding that the Saudi government reform.
Comment
Nasr is planning to retaliate
for Saud's support of Jordan's King Hussain by fomenting
trouble among Palestinian elements in Saudi Arabia.
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Litia A 11.51:41 1'
3. USSR THREATENS NEW RESTRICTIONS ON
PIRPT TM TT? AV"'
Continued Soviet interference with West-
ern travel into Berlin may be reaching
a new stage, in the opinion of the US
embassy in Bonn. The Soviet deputy
commandant in Berlin has presented
Allied officials there with a demarche
calling for new restrictions on Allied
personnel traveling in Berlin by rail or
autobahn, effective 1 May. The proposed Soviet restrictions
are designed to give the Russians, and possibly later the East
Germans, substantial authority in deciding the categories of
Allied personnel which would be permitted to travel to Berlin.
One of the new requirements is that travel
orders must have German as well as Russian translations.
This demand has caused the American embassy to believe
that the USSR may be preparing to turn over to the East Ger-
mans authority over rail and autobahn checkpoints for Allied
travel and responsibility for processing Allied travel docu-
ments. In reply to a question regarding the German transla-
tions, the Soviet official stated that it would be in the Western
powers' interest to avoid difficulties with the German Dem-
ocratic Republic.
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4.. BULGANIN'S LETTER TO MACMILLAN
Comment on:
Bulganin's 20 April letter to Prime
�Minister Macmillan is intended to
further Moscow's efforts to rehabili-
tate the "Geneva spirit" and is a major
bid for an improvement of relations
with Great Britain. The letter implies that the Soviet
leaders strongly favor a top-level meeting with the British
or with all the Western leaders. Bulganin's insistence
that disarmament is closely linked with European security
suggests that Moscow may propose talks on both subjects
at a high level.
The letter is friendly and reasonable in
tone and is mainly a restatement of Soviet policy on the
Middle East, European security and disarmament--espe-
cially the banning of nuclear tests. Bulganin again held out
the prospect of increased trade and said the USSR might
purchase as much as one billion pounds worth of goods from
Great Britain over the next five years.
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5. FORMER GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT ARBENZ
ATTEMPTING TO MOVE TO URUGUAY
Comment on:
The director of Uruguayan immigration
has told the American embassy that
higher authorities have decided to ap-
prove the entry of former Guatemalan
president Jacobo Arbenz, who has applied for a residence
permit. His return to the western hemisphere would pro-
vide the Communists and other anti-American elements in
Latin America, who sympathized with Arbenz during the
1954 revolution in which his pro-Communist regime was
overthrown, with a new rallying point for attacks on the
United States. His admission to Uruguay would be a viola-
tion of the spirit of the anti-Communist resolution adopted
at the Tenth Inter-American Conference in Caracas in March
1954.
Ambassador Patterson commented on 23
April that the Guatemalan minister in Uruguay shows a marked
indifference to the troublemaking potentialities of Arbenz' res-
idence in Uruguay and intends to take no action with the Uru-
guayan authorities unless instructed by his government. The
ambassador believes that any formal United States approach
to the Uruguayan government on this problem would undoubt-
edly be unproductive.
Arbenz, who now lives in Europe, has
spent a year since 1954 in Soviet bloc countries, and two of
his children are reportedly attending school in Moscow.
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6. LEFTIST CANDIDATE IN SYRIAN BY-ELECTION
RECEIVING SOVIET FINANCIAL AID
The Communists and the Socialist Resur-
rection (Baath) Party are receiving finan-
cial support from the proceeds of the
showings of Soviet films and the sale of
Soviet bloc material exhibited at the 1956 Damascus Fair
These funds reporte y
are being used by mad Mallu, the Communist-Baathist candi-
date in the 4 May narliamentary by-election in Damascus.
Colonel Sarraj, the head of
Syrian army intelligenceding over large sums of money
for Malki.'s campaign.
Comment Syrian prime minister Sabri al-Asali has
told the American ambassador that much
pressure is being exerted by a number of countries, including
the USSR, in connection with the by-elections to fill the seats
of the four rightist deputies who were convicted of having plotted
with Iraq against Syria last year.
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