THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF - 1968/01/30

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Tet Declassified
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05974251
• Document Creation Date: July 27, 2018

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The President's Daily Brief
cret 30 January 1968
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DAILY BRIEF
30 JANUARY 1968
2. South Vietnam Sharp fighting reportedly con-
(as of 5:30 AM tinues in the cities of Pleiku, Kon-
EST) tum, Da Nang, and Nha Trang. Informa-
tion is still sketchy on what is hap-
pening around the other cities and
bases hit by the well-coordinated and
unprecedented Communist offensive.
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Designed for maximum psychological
impact, the Communists concentrated on
showing they could shoot their way into
major populated areas, particularly pro-
vincial capitals.
Hanoi is already trying to shift
the blame for these blatant truce vio-
lations onto the allies. A broadcast
this morning charged the US and South
Vietnam had cancelled the cease-fire
and then launched heavy attacks on the
civilian populace.
So far, there are no new reports
of fighting in the area around Khe
Sanh.
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FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY
Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
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30 January 1968
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Special Daily Report on North Vietnam
for the President's Eyes Only
30 January 1968
I.' NOTES ON THE SITUATION
Hanoi Continues to Manage News Stories Sent
Abroad: North Vietnam is continuing its efforts to
ensure that stories filed by resident foreign corre-
spondents in Hanoi stick to official guidelines when
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discussing regime policy toward talks with the
United States.
A recent dispatch by Joseph Cabanes, the
French news agency correspondent in Hanoi, com-
menting that the US had not yet responded to
Foreign Minister Trinh's statement, was inspired
and cleared by the North Vietnamese, according
to the French Foreign Office. Cabanes was told by
North Vietnamese officials that no story which has
come out of Hanoi since the Trinh statement should
be interpreted as a hardening of Hanoi's position.
The officials also requested that he delete a refer-
ence to a recent statement on the question of talks
by the North Vietnamese representative in Rangoon
because it might be erroneously interpreted as a �
hardening of Hanoi's position.
Hanoitg sensitivity to interpretation of the
Trinh statement, which has also affected the Czech
correspondent there, may be partially responsible
for the regime's refusal during the last several
weeks to allow any new correspondents into the
country. Even Wilfred Burchett, a frequent apolo-
gist for Hanoi, and often a vehicle for Communist
propaganda, has been unsuccessful in a recent at-
tempt to get into North Vietnam to obtain material
on the issue of talks with the US. Other Western
correspondents who have sought visas or information
about the Trinh statement have been referred to the
29 December formulation or to a 16 January state-
ment by the North Vietnamese mission in Paris, both
of which Hanoi has authorized as official.
* * *
Liberation Front Comments on Pueblo: In a
broadcast on 26 January the Liberation Front offered
its initial comment on the seizure of the Pueblo.
The broadcast praised the North Koreans for striking
"punitive blows against the US" in defending their
sovereignty. In keeping with Hanoi propaganda, the
broadcast claimed that the Pueblo incident was only
the latest in a series of US violations of North Ko-
rean territory and voiced the Front's full support
for the Korean position. The broadcast also stated
that the Front and the North Koreatis share the same
battlefront againstthe "US imperialists." It claimed
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that the "US imperialists will be completely defeated
more rapidly in Vietnam if they dare lay a hand on
North Korea" but made no direct connection between
the Pueblo incident and the US involvement in Vietnam.
* * *
II. .NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL
ATTITUDES ON THE WAR
Hanoi Asks US Peace Activist to Receive Freed US
Pilots: Dave Dellinger, editor of the magazine,Libera�
TURT�issued a statement in Boston yesterday saTTET--
he had been asked by Hanoi to send .a representative to
North Vietnam for "discussion and reception" of the
three pilots the North Vietnamese claimed on 27 Janu-
ary would be released. Dellinger, who has been in-
volved in antiwar activity in the US and who has twice
traveled to North Vietnam, was involved in the release
of three US prisoners by the Viet Cong in Cambodia
last November. This is the first indication that
Hanoi has taken any steps toward arranging the actual
release of the three pilots. There has been no addi-
tional information on when and where they will be
freed.
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