SOVIET AUTO PLANT DEAL OK WITH CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP69B00369R000100240025-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 13, 2004
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: March 1, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 2004/05/05 : CIA-RDP69B00369R000100240025-2
Soviet Auto Plant Deal OK With CIA
By BERNARD GWERTZMAN
Star Staff Writer
The C e n t r a l Intelligence
Agency, in a report made public
today, says that despite an in-
crease in auto production, the
Soviet Union still will be in the
horse and buggy era by 1975.
Output of cars probably could
increase from 200,000 yearly in
1966 to 1.1 million in,1975, the
CIA says, but this would only
give the Soviet Union "an auto-
mobile stock roughly equal to
that of the United States in
1917, and on a per capita basis,
about five percent of the current
U.S. inventory."
The CIA's findings are in-
cluded in a study issued by a
House subcommittee that made
an extensive investigation into
Wheeler, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, that a loan that
would induce the Soviet Union
to devote greater resources to
the production of consumer
goods at the expense of apply-
ing those resources to military
purposes is in our national in-
terest."
The CIA report was completed
last July and made available
to the committee, headed by
Thomas L. Ashley, D-Ohio.
The commit ee ma e i p
stating that it agreed with "the
accuracy of many of the con-
clusions and forecasts reached."
Ashley's committee stugied
the plans of Fiat to build an
auto plant in the town of Togli-
atti in the Soviet Union that will
produce about 600,000 cars a
year. The Russians have agreed !
to pay about $800 million to Fiat
for the plant.
Fiat hopes to import about
$50 million worth of U.S. ma-
chine tools for the plant, as well
as additional millions of dollars
worth of equipment of European
machines made under U.S.
license.
The Ashley committee found
no indication that the equip-
ment to be sold would be stra-
tegic. The group concluded,
moreover, that the sale of ma-i
chine tools might contribute
"toward a shift of resources"
into the consumer sector that
"is fraught with pressure for
still greater outlays to come."
Soviet auto production. The
group endorsed President John-
son's decision to let the Export-
Import Bank back the projected
sale of $50 million worth of U.S.
machine tools to Italy for use
in a Fiat auto plant that is being
built in Russia.
The Subcommittee on Interna-
tional Trade of the Banking and
Currency Committee also dis-
closed that the State and De-
fense Departments both sup-
ported the sale of machine tools.
The committee report said
Secretary of State Dean Rusk
asserted that "it is the judgment
of the Defense Department,
shared by Gen. Earle, G.
Approved For Release 2004/05/05 : CIA-RDP69B00369R000100240025-2