THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 19 OCTOBER 1966

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005968585
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: October 19, 1966

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2015/07/24 : CIA-RDP79T00936A004800010001-3
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
THE PRESIDENT'S
DAILY BRIEF
19 OCTOBER 1966
-'TCYF3'-&EGIR-EZ
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DAILY BRIEF
19 OCTOBER 1966
1. South Vietnam
2. Communist China
Ky has his cabinet crisis under
the rug, but only for the time being.
Five of the seven dissident minis-
ters have agreed to stay on until after
the Manila Conference. One minister is
undecided and another, Minister of Eco-
nomics Au Truong Thanh, apparently re-
fused to go along with the others.
The ministers, who saw the confer-
ence as a chance to put pressure on Ky,
may reconsider when he leaves town. In
any event, he probably will be looking
apprehensively over his shoulder next
week.
More signs of serious political
tension are showing up in Peking.
The Red Guards, almost surely under
high-level direction, are turning on
new targets. Several of the party offi-
cials now under attack were active and,
from all appearances, in good repute as
recently as the first of this month.
The mass rally in Peking on Tues-
day was a most unusual affair. After
days of preparations, a crowd of more
than a million Red Guards and others
was kept waiting for about ten hours be-
fore Mao and other top leaders showed
up. When they did appear, they simply
drove by at about 20 miles an hour and
the crowd was told that the rally was
over. There were none of the customary
speeches.
This probably means that top party
leaders had been unable at the last
minute to agree on who was to speak or
what was to be said. It suggests that
some of the leaders under Red Guard at-
tack are strong enough to fight back.
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3. Laos
4. Soviet Union
General Kong Le, founder and chief
of the Laotian neutralist forces, has
apparently been eased out of his com-
mand.
The next move will probably await
Souvanna's return on 1 November, but it
does seem clear that a step has been
taken toward integration of the neutral-
ists into the regular military. This
in turn threatens to destroy what is
left of the tripartite facade of Sou-
vanna's government.
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The Soviets are preparing for one
or more space launches in the next few
days. The signs point to another moon
probe this weekend, but there may well
be some other launches before then for
the benefit of the Soviets' high-ranking
guests from Eastern Europe, Mongolia,
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The last Soviet moon probe, launched
in August, failed in its mission to pho-
tograph the moon's surface from orbit.
That may be the objective this time,
though we cannot rule out the possibility
of some kind of more spectacular effort.
We have no evidence to support press re-
ports that several men are to be put in
orbit.
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5. Lebanon Beirut's position as a world-impor-
tant financial center is jeopardized by
the government's continued refusal to
back Intra, the country's biggest bank,
in its present difficulties. The re-
gime's hesitancy stems from domestic po-
litical considerations and from avarice
among Intra's Lebanese competitors.
Stories of the Soviet Narodny
Bank's interest in buying out Intra
are believed to have been floated by
Intra interests trying to stampede the
US Government into helping the bank out.
Narodny took front page ads in Beirut
papers on Wednesday to deny these stories.
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6. Nigeria
Authorities in the Eastern Region
are fast becoming resigned to the pros-
pect of a formal breakup of the federa-
tion. They are preparing to stand on
their Own/
In what Ambassador Mathews described
as a "chilling" conversation, Eastern
Governor Ojukwu told him this week that
Nigeria is heading toward much more
serious violence than anything that has
yet occurred.
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TOP SECRET
TOP SECRET
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