THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF 21 MARCH 1968

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: President's Daily Brief 1961-1969
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005974339
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: September 16, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2015
• Publication Date: March 21, 1968

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The President's Daily Brief
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? PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF
21 MARCH 1968
Israel-Jordan
LATE ITEM
Information as of 0400 EST indi-
cates that fighting is still going on
north of the Dead Sea, where the Jor-
danians apparently are resisting
strongly.
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DAILY BRIEF
21 MARCH 1968
1. Jordan-Israel
2. Vietnam
The Israelis moved into Jordan
early today. Their troops, supported
by tanks, crossed the cease-fire line
at several points. There were at
least two helicopter-borne incursions,
and Israeli fighters have been flying
supporting missions.
Tel Aviv claims its aim is to
wipe out terrorist bases near the
cease-fire line, and it says that once
this has been accomplished, its troops
will return home. Even if
they
do,
the Israeli action has made
King
Husayn's
position even more tenuous
than
it was
before.
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3. Poland
4. North Korea -
South Korea
5. Guatemala
We have some more on the atmos-
pherics surrounding Gomulka's speech
to party functionaries on Tuesday.
They provide a good index of the cross-
currents now operating in Poland.
The audience was in a light-hearted
mood to begin with, but Gomulka was very
serious and finally told his listeners
to pay attention. His attack on "Zion-
ists" got loud applause--so loud that
Gomulka had trouble restoring order.
By contrast, his hour-long hymn of praise
for Polish-Soviet ties met with stony
silence. He did get a good reaction
when he implied that some of the leaders
of the demonstrations would be punished.
Gomulka tried to gloss over the
depth of student opposition--a ploy
which does not seem to be attracting
many students back to the fold. He was
harsh with the university faculty and
with several liberal writers. Interest-
ingly, although he flailed away hard at
antiregime Poles abroad, he played down
his attack on Radio Free Europe. This
probably reflects RFE's current popu-
larity inside Poland.
Yesterday's blast that North Korea
had been attacked by "imperialist ag-
gressor troops" may have been stimulated
by an actual incursion on 19 March by a
South Korean raiding party. Pyongyang,
which would probably be stepping up the
southward infiltration of agents anyway
at this time of year, may use the raid
as an excuse for even greater activity.
The archbishop who was kidnaped
last Saturday--apparently by army right-
ists--turned up safe and sound yester-
day in an outlying Guatemalan city.
There is still no information on what
the kidnapers were trying to accomplish.
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6. Cuba
7. India
In a series of austerity measures
last week, Castro decreed the expropri-
ation of all remaining private businesses
(mostly lunch counters and the like),
closed all bars and cabarets, and sus-
pended the national lottery. The impetus
for these moves seems to have come as
much from Castro's peculiar brand of
puritanism as from Cuba's current eco-
nomic problems. Castro said, for in-
stance, that the lottery was an example
of "material incentives" which "stimu-
late greed." He even mused about banish-
ing money--"that instrument of evil."
The bar closures may also be an ef-
fort to shut off criticism of the gov-
ernment. Castro earlier inveighed
against "coffee house pundits," and he
apparently doesn't like barroom philoso-
phers either.
Another state government in north-
ern India collapsed on 18 March, and
still another is in the midst of a de-
bilitating parliamentary crisis. Di-
rect rule from New Delhi may be the
only answer for both of them. If this
happened, it would mean that a total
of five of India's most populous states
had fallen into political paralysis.
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Top Secret
FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
Top Secret
16
21 March 1968
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
21 March 1968
I. NOTES ON THE SITUATION
Hanoi Again Rejects San Antonio Formula: North
Vietnam has issued another point-by-point rejection
of the US position on a bombing halt and negotiations.
An article in the 11 March issue of the Hanoi weekly
Vietnam Courier entitled "True Nature of Johnsonism"
again sums up what is now the stock North Vietnamese
response to President Johnson's San Antonio formula.
The article asserts that despite repeated protesta-
tions of good intentions by the President and Secre-
tary Rusk, US sincerity is "seriously questioned"
both at home and abroad. It underscores once again
that North Vietnam categorically rejects the principle
of reciprocity no matter how US spokesmen choose to
phrase it. The San Antonio formula, according to
the Communists, is simply "diplomatic jargon" designed
to "ward off criticisms and cover up fresh escalations."
Like other recent North Vietnamese pronouncements
on this subject, the new Courier article describes the
series of statements by Foreign Minister Trinh and
Paris representative Mai Van Bo as steps intended to
answer US objections to a bombing halt. As Hanoi did
at the time each of these statements was issued, the
article tries to convey the impression that the DRV
has modified its position and that the next step is
for the US to halt the bombing without asking for ad-
ditional "concessions."
* * *
Hanoi on Khe Sanh: Hanoi is continuing to grind
out propaganda commentaries characterizing the US po-
sition at Khe Sanh as all but hopeless. In a broad-
cast of 20 March, the "critical situation" at Khe
Sanh was held up as a reflection of the over-all po-
sition of "defense and failure of the US in South
Vietnam." The broadcast listed a long series of stra-
tegic factors favorable to the Communist forces in the
area and noted that "like a punctured balloon" US of-
ficials have stopped "clamoring for defending Khe Sanh
at all costs and have begun talking of withdrawal."
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Next ICC Flight from Vientiane Delayed: The
ICC flight scheduled to make its normal run from
Vientiane to Hanoi on 22 March has been cancelled.
The next flight is now set for the 29th. The delay
will give the US Embassy in Vientiane time to try to
straighten out bureaucratic difficulties with the
ICC over the release of the three North Vietnamese
rural POWs. As the case stands now, the ICC is still
boggling on the issue of allowing the POWs to ride
on the ICC flight without official assurances from
Hanoi that they will be accepted. The Commission
has reportedly requested authorization from Hanoi
but has not yet received a reply.
Walter Cronkite had also
been invited to make this flight.
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II. NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
Hanoi on US Elections: North Vietnamese propa-
ganda coverage of the US elections is picking up,
but the regime is still feeling its way on the issue.
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In the past week, there was one mild commentary on
the New Hampshire primaries but the treatment was
studiously restrained. On 20 March, however, the
party daily, Nhan Dan, for the first time took note
of Senator Robert rahedy's candidacy, which it
said has "really rendered the race.. .wonderfully
hard and fierce." New Hampshire showed that "the
majority" of Americans are "very disgusted with the
war" and that because of its costs in men and ma-
terial wealth, the Johnson administration's "influ-
ence has seriously decreased among common US people."
The New Hampshire election, said Nhan Dan, is a
"severe warning" to the President?Mita?Nis "maneuver
of intensifying and extending the war."
More on Senate Hearings: Hanoi continued its
coverage of Secretary Rusk's appearances before the
Fulbright committee with a radio commentary on 16
March in which the two-day session was said to have
produced "unprecedentedly acute wranglings." Rusk's
testimony, said the radio, showed that despite "de-
feats" on the Vietnamese battlefield, the US is
"still persevering in its aggressive will." It at-
tributed the vigor of the debates to the "heavy set-
back" the US has recently received in Vietnam, and
claimed that developments since the Tet offensive
have pushed the US military into a "perilous predica-
ment." Because of this, the antiwar movement in the
US is "mounting every day."
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