CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN - 1955/02/27

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Current/Central Intelligence Bulletin Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 03174754
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: September 20, 2019
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2019
• Publication Date: February 27, 1955

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27 February 1955
Copy No,
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CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN
DOCUMENT NO,
35"
NO CHANGE IN CLASS. Pt
L-1 DECLASSIFIED
CLASS. CHANGED IS S C
NEXT REVIEW DATE: -4-0 I 0
AUTH: HR 70-2
DATE. 41 JVK- 116 REviEwtR:
Office of Current Intelligence
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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SUMMARY
SOUTHEAST ASIA
1. Viet Minh expected to formalize charges of Geneva agreement
violations (page 3).
2. Indonesian leaders admit elections will be delayed (page 3).
NEAR EAST - AFRICA
3. Britain calls for new look at Middle East defense planning (page 4).
4. Israel may resume work on Jordan water diversion project
(page 5).
LATE ITEM
5. Soviet ambassador Malik lauds President Eisenhower, condemns
Churchill (page 5).
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SOUTHEAST ASIA
I. Viet Minh expected to formalize charges of Geneva agreement
violations:
Viet Minh is likely to press charges of
violations of the Geneva agreements involving the United States.
expects General Giap to submit a formal
complaint that both the Manila pact and the operations of the Amer-
ican Military Assistance and Advisory Group violate the Geneva
accords.
the truce commission
would have to consider these charges if submitted in a formal man-
ner, rather than in the form of a propaganda blast such as Giap
unleashed last December. Copies of his December charges were
addressed to Molotov and Eden.
Comment:
dissuade the Indian chairman oi tne truce commission
from considering the charges made by Giap in December. If the
charges are submitted formally now, the chairman is likely to
insist on an exhaustive study of them, particularly since the com-
mission in some of its recent actions and reports has indicated a
mildly critical attitude toward the Viet Minh.
2. Indonesian leaders admit elections will be delayed:
President Sukarno, Vice President Hatta
and Prime Minister Ali have each admitted
separately to the American ambassador that
elections cannot be held in Indonesia by July
had been hoped. Ali said "perhaps" elec-
tions could be held by or during October.
Hatta continues to believe that the anti-
Communist Masjumi, the large Moslem party toward which he is
sympathetic, will win the elections. He told the ambassador that
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the National Party, which heads the cabinet, is now alarmed over
growing Communist strength, and hopes to speed up election plans.
Comment: Heretofore the National Party
has appeared to favor postponement of elections in the belief that
delay would give it further time to strengthen its own organization.
The Nationalists are apparently now aware that delay allows Com-
munist strength to grow at the expense of the National Party as
well as of the Ma,sjumi.
The lack of strong direction in both the
National Party and the cabinet indicates, however, that election
plans will continue to move at a slow pace.
NEAR EAST - AFRICA
3. Britain calls for new look at Middle East defense planning:
Top British officials believe that the
advent of new weapons, strategic air
capabilities, and the ability to interdict
supply routes with tactical atomic weap-
ons provide a basis for new planning which for the first time makes
Middle East defense problems "seem manageable." In conversation
with Secretary Dulles in Bangkok, Eden said he had told Egyptian
premier Nasr that defense of the Middle East ought to be based on
the Caucasus rather than Suez.
Eden and Sir John Harding, chief of the
Imperial General Staff, indicated satisfaction to Secretary Dulles
�with the progress thus far on specific aspects of the Middle East
defense problem, but said that moving ahead on the over-all prob-
lem was difficult without an agreed general strategy. The British
proposed bilateral talks with the United States aimed at reaching
agreement on a defense strategy based on American and British
capabilities. Other nations in the Middle East would be "tied in
solidly" when possible.
Comment: These remarks indicate that
Britain is thinking in terms of a fresh approach to the whole problem
of Middle East defense. Britain's emphasis on an atomic strategy
evidently reflects the recent reshaping of the United Kingdom's entire
defense strategy.
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Israel may resume work on Jordan water diversion project:
Prime Minister Sharett told Ambassador
Johnston on 22 February that Israel would
resume work on the Banat Yaakov canal
project prior to the Israeli national elec-
tions in July. This project to divert water
from the Jordan River would involve work
in the demilitarized zone between Israel
and Syria.
In anticipation of such Israeli action, UN
Truce Supervisor General Burns told Ambassador Lawson in Tel
Aviv that he would need the support of the United States, Britain,
and France as signatories of the 1950 Tripartite Agreement for any
strong stand against Lsrael. He observed that he had no army of his
own to occupy the demilitarized zone.
Comment: Resumption of work on the
diversion project in contravention of an existing UN resolution would
probably provoke armed retaliation by Syria. It would also further
undermine the Johnston plan for development of the Jordan valley.
In October 1953 Israel complied with a UN
request to suspend work in the demilitarized zone only after the
United States temporarily withheld economic aid.
LATE ITEM
5. Soviet ambassador Malik lauds President Eisenhower, condemns
Churchill:
In a conversation with Ambassador Lodge
on 25 February, Jacob Malik, Soviet
ambassador to Britain, expressed thank-
fulness that General Eisenhower was
President and commented to the effect that it would be "very bad
for the peace of the world if he stopped being President." Malik
appeared to agree with Lodge's assertion that there were no insolu-
ble problems dividing the United States and the USSR.
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The Soviet ambassador declared that the
"root of all our troubles� is British prime minister Churchill, who
"has done everything he could to keep the Soviet Union and the
United States apart." Malik claimed that Churchill, before his trip
to the United States in 1946 to deliver his speech at Fulton, Missouri,
had told him he was making this speech in order to try to "drive the
Soviet Union and the United States apart."
Malik said it was "inconsistent" to discuss
disarmament at the same time the West is planning to rearm West
Germany. He also complained that the USSR was blamed unjustly for
considerable so-called international Communist activity which, he
said, was not directed from Moscow.
Ambassador Lodge's evaluation of this
conversation is that the Soviet leaders sincerely believe (1) that
some accommodation with the United States is possible, (2) that the
United States is unreasonable about German rearmament, and (3)
that President Eisenhower wants peace.
Comment: Soviet spokesmen and propa-
ganda have never attacked President Eisenhower personally, but
have attacked Secretary of State Dulles and condemned American
foreign policy on all counts.
Malik's charges against Churchill appar-
ently were nothing more than a clumsy attempt to apply Molotov's
dictum that the task of Soviet diplomacy is to exploit the "consider-
able contradictions between separate capitalist countries." In his
foreign policy speech to the Supreme Soviet on 8 February, Molotov
did not refer to President Eisenhower, but termed Churchill "one of
the most outstanding ideologists of imperialism."
Soviet leaders have given many indications
that they are willing to make minor adjustments in their policies
which affect relations with the United States in order to lessen the
danger of general war. They have never, however, indicated a will-
ingness to make broad concessions on major East-West issues in an
effort to reach a general accommodation with the United States.
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