CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN - 1955/03/16

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Current/Central Intelligence Bulletin Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02063767
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: September 20, 2019
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2019
• Publication Date: March 16, 1955

ffApproved for Release: 2019/09/17 CO2063767
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CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN
DOCUMENT NO *La.
NO CHANGE IN CLASS fig
[1 DECLASSiFIED
CLASS. CHANGED TO; IS S C
NEXT REVIEW DATE:
AUTH: HR 70-2
DATE: 6 \1?AN .8.14 *VIEWER;
I.
Office of Current Intelligence
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
-TOP-SECRET
16 March 1955
Copy No. 88
3.3(h)(2)
3.5(c)
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'Nor Noe
SUMMARY
FAR EAST
1. Japanese Foreign Ministry pessimistic over bargaining position
at forthcoming negotiations with USSR (page 3).
2. Sino-Japanese discord over fisheries casts doubt on Peiping's
"good faith" (page 3).
SOUTHEAST ASIA
3. Laotian government agrees to continue talks with Communists
(page 4).
EASTERN EUROPE �
4. Turkish premier's views on Yugoslav neutralism may threaten
Balkan alliance (page 6).
5. Unusual training of Polish naval personnel possibly foreshadows
receipt of Soviet warships (page 7).
WESTERN EUROPE
6. France critical of American instructions for Afro-Asian confer-
ence (page 8).
* * * *
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FAR EAST
1. Japanese Foreign Ministry pessimistic over bargaining position
at forthcoming negotiations with USSR:
apanese Foreign Ministry officials are
essimistic about prospects for a tough
apanese bargaining position in the forth-
oming Japan-USSR negotiations as a re-
sult of the designation of Arata Sugihara to head the Japanese
delegation. Nemoto, head of the Soviet desk, told Ambassador
Allison that he and his colleagues have been told that the ministry
"must trim its sails" since the Japanese people now expect an im-
mediate restoration of diplomatic relations with Moscow.
Nemoto said Sugihara has long advocated
the immediate establishment of relations, with the territorial and
other important issues to be settled later by treaty. As a result,
.Nemoto thinks Japan will end up by accepting only the return of un-
repatriated prisoners, a vague promise of fishing rights, and free
passage through the Nemuro Straits, between Hokkaido and the
Kurils.
Comment: Sugihara is the prime minis-
ter's personal foreign policy adviser, and it is doubtful that Foreign
Minister Shigemitsu, who has been far more cautious in dealing
with the Orbit than have Sugihara and Hatoyama, will be able to
restrain him.
Sugihara feels that relations with Moscow
and Peiping are a prerequisite to Japan's complete "independence"
from the United States. He apparently regards normalization of
relations with the USSR as merely the necessary forerunner to
diplomatic negotiations with Peiping and is prepared to pay a large
price for it, if necessary.
2. Sino-Japanese discord over fisheries casts doubt on Peiping's
"good faith":
16 Mar 55
Two members of a private Japanese
fisheries mission to Peiping who returned
temporarily to Tokyo for "consultation"
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN Page 3
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have informed the Japanese Foreign Ministry that the other mem-
bers of their group are being held virtually as hostages until they
sign an agreement. They complained that most of the delegates
wish to return home because of Peiping's unsatisfactory offers.
So far, the Chinese Communists have
only offered Japan fishing rights in the eastern half of the Yellow
Sea and have barred them from fishing within the two-hundred-mile
limit in the East China Sea (see map, p. 5). A Japanese official
told the American embassy that the delegation's experience should
prove enlightening to those Japanese who thought they could do
business with Peiping. (This item is based on the same cable as
item one above.)
Comment: The demarcation line in the
Yellow Sea area coincides with the Rhee Line and would have the
practical effect of limiting the Japanese to a relatively small area
off Kyushu and Okinawa.
The idea of closer relations with the Orbit
has become such a fetish in Japan that it will probably take a series
of similar experiences to shake popular confidence in this approach
to Tokyo's problems.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
3. Laotian government agrees to continue talks with Communists:
Later information on the "cease-fire
agreement" between the royal govern-
ment of Laos and the Communist-backed
Pathet Lao indicates that it provides
merely that each side shall henceforth refrain from hostile acts
against the other, and that a "mixed political committee" will be
formed. It is anticipated that the committee will hold talks in
Vientiane to fulfill the royal government's pledge at Geneva to re-
integrate the Pathets into the national community.
The American legation comments that
this agreement tends to freeze the unsatisfactory status quo in the
16 Mar 55 CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN Page 4
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