CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN - 1957/05/25

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Current/Central Intelligence Bulletin Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 03169421
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2019
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2019
• Publication Date: May 25, 1957

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CURRENT
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BULLETIN
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OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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1. RIOTS IN TAIPEI
CONTENTS
(page 3).
Itio 2. LIBYAN PRIME MINISTER RESIGNS
(page 4).
oil_ 3. MASJUMI LEADER ATTACKS INDONESIAN PRESIDENT
AND CABINET (page 5).
4. rYUGOS1V DEFENSE MINISTER TO VISIT MOSCOW
0/1_,
25 May 57
Current Intelligence Bulletin
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1. RIOTS IN TAIPEI
Comment on:
The mob violence in Taipei on 24 May
which resulted in the wrecking of the US
embassy and the US� Information Agency
building reveals strong and widespread
tanti-American sentiment on Taiwan. The
rioting lasted for 12 hours and eased only
after heavily armed Chinese troops occu-
pied the city.
The riots were inspired by inflammatory
articles in the local newspapers which bit-
terly assailed the US military court ac-
quittal of a MAAG sergeant who shot and
killed a Chinese "peeping Tom." �The Na-
tionalist government had protested the court
decision shortly before the disorders began.
National Youth Corps students appear to
have participated in the rioting in an organized manner. Am-
bassador Rankin, in a cable sent immediately after he returned
to Taipei from a trip to Hong Kong, reported "various, if
fragmentary, indications that the riots were organized in ad-
vance:'
Negotiations for a status-of-forces agree-
ment between the United States and the Nationalist government,
which have been stalled for some months, now may become even
more difficult.
Chinese Communist broadcasts have recently
taken the line that the United States is making a "colony" of
Taiwan. Pro-Communist newspapers in Hong Kong have al-
ready denounced the acquittal verdict and Peiping can be ex-
pected to exploit the riots with propaganda calling for "Chinese
unity" against American "imperialism."
25 May 57
Current Intelligence Bulletin Page 3
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2. LIBYAN PRIME MINISTER RESIGNS
The British financial adviser to King
Idriss of Libya has informed the Amer-
ican ambassador that the resignation of
Prime Minister Mustafa Ben Halim was
accepted on 24 May. Former deputy prime minister and
minister of foreign affairs Abdul Majid Kubaar has been
asked to form a new cabinet.
Ben Halim will be officially named as
an adviser to the new prime minister, as will Mahmud Mun-
tasser, former prime minister and present ambassador to
London. Ali Sahli and Muhyi al-Din Fikini, ministers of
communications and finance, respectively, have been ousted.
Defense Minister Abdul Qadir al-Allam will be in charge of
communications, and the defense post will be filled "for a
short while" by Saddiq Muntasser, former ambassador to
Egypt.
The new cabinet reportedly will be sworn
in on 26 May and is expected to retain the pro-Western orien-
tation of its predecessor. The changes are said to be com-
pletely satisfactory to Ben Halim.
Comment Ben Halim was strongly pro-Western dur-
ing the latter part of his three-year tenure
as prime minister. Prime Minister-designate Kubaar was
personally chosen last March by Ben Halim as his deputy be-
cause of his "loyalty and reliability." The new defense min-
ister, Saddiq Muntasser, is pro-Egyptian and a foe of Ben
Halim, but the ousting of Sahli and Fikini, who had been op-
posed to the policies of Ben Halim, would seem to support the
view that the new government will continue to pursue generally
pro-Western policies.
25 May 57
Current Intelligence Bulletin Page 4
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3. MASJUMI LEADER ATTACKS INDONESIAN PRESIDENT
AND CABINET
Former premier Harahap, the Masjumi
parliamentary leader, during debates on
the Indonesian cabinet's program on 21
May, charged that President Sukarno had
acted irresponsibly in declaring martial
law, had violated the constitution by appointing the cabinet
himself, and had demolished every form of democracy. He
also accused the cabinet of violating the constitution when
it created the "national advisory council" by an emergency
cabinet decree.
The spokesman of the Nandlatul Ulama
(NU) Party, however, stated that his party's position would
depend on future actions of the cabinet, and that the NU did
not reject the national council out of hand.
Comment The lack of unity between the two major
Moslem parties will keep parliament in-
effective as an instrument of opposition to Sukarno and the
cabinet. Parliament's influence over the government's pro-
gram has already been circumscribed by Prime Minister.
Djuanda's announcement that parliament could debate the
cabinet's program as much as it pleased, but would not be
asked for a vote of confidence in the government.
Harahap's attack on Sukarno, probably
the most violent public criticism of the president by an
Indonesian spokesman to date, is likely further to compli-
cate relations between Djakarta and the dissident provinces
which are Masjumi strongholds.
25 May 57
Current Intelligence Bulletin Page 5
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4. YUGOSLAV DEFENSE MINISTER TO VISIT MOSCOW
The trip of Yugoslav defense minister
Gosnjak to Moscow scheduled for June
is a "purely courtesy one," according
to a Yugoslav Foreign Ministry official,
Franc Kos. He told an American embassy official on 23
May that the trip had been arranged in principle at the time
of Tito's trip to Moscow last4ne. Kos, citing recent Soviet
expressions of hostility, stated that "relations between Bel-
grade and Moscow were hardly conducive to friendliness
and certainly not to obtaining anything concrete in the way
of military assistance P
Asked what Tito had in mind when he stated
early this week that relations are improving, Kos replied that
Tito undoubtedly had in mind not the USSR, but Poland, Rumania,
and even Czechoslovakia, whose Premier Siroky would proba-
bly visit Belgrade in June.
Comment Tito probably timed Gosnjak's trip to dem-
onstrate Yugoslavia's independence follow-
ing the publicly announced decision by the United States to re-
sume military aid deliveries. He probably now feels it useful
to demonstrate his willingness to call a truce in the ideologi-
cal war with Moscow. This will be the first high-level Yugoslav-
Soviet contact since October.
25 May 57
Current Intelligence Bulletin Page 6
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