AN OLD TRICK WITH NEW ANGLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000100130055-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 3, 2000
• Sequence Number: 55
• Publication Date: September 7, 1956
• Content Type: NSPR

CHARLOTTE (N.C.) sr P / 1956
OBSERV4 proved For Release 2000/08/24: CIA-RDP70-01
Circ.: m. 141,557
S. 154,498
Front Edit Othor
Pago Pago Paga
Date: SEP 7
W
, ,QId Trick With New Angles
The warning of the Central Intelli-
gence Akency that the net'a
tactitt are to gain control of a country
li' 1?amentary means comes a little
late.
The Communists have been working
from that angle for many years. In some
well-known cases, as in Czechoslovakia,
they have been successful. They have
been working hard on the French and
Italian parliaments ever since the war.
In the last French election, the Com-
munists won 150 seats in the French Na-
tional Assembly out of a total member-
ship of 600. That gives the non-Com-
munist parties a total majority of three
to one, but there are so many such
parties and they vote together so in-
frequently that the Communists hold a
strong balance-of-power position in the
Assembly.
So strong has that position become,
in fact, that the present government,
composed of the Radical Socialists, would
find it hard to take any important ac-
tion without the, support or the absti-
nence of the Communists.
In Italy the Communists elected 143
members out of a total of 590.
Until last week the Italian Commu-
nists could almost always count on the
solid support of Peitro Nenni's left-wing
Socialists. Nenni is now making over-
tures t erge his splinter with the right-
wing s alists led by Giuse.ppi Saragat.
Whether this will mean a victory for
he right or left wing will depend on
whether ' ne coalition is dr,mti sated by
Nenni or Saragat. If the whole Socialist
party turns to the right under Saragat,
the Communists will lose a strong allied
vote. If it turns left under Nenni, the
result might be the opposite.
Indonesia is. even more under the
shadow of a Communist domination of its
Parliament than France or Italy. The
Communists in that country polled six
million votes in the first and only elec-
tion it has ever had. They have 15 per
cent of the seats in the Assembly and
hold some strategic posts in the govern-
ment.
The state visit of Presid' nt Sukarno
to Russia is an indication of 'how much
he respects this Communist bloc. Few
other non-Communist heads of govern-
ment except Nehru ofd Nasser
of Egypt have made such formal visits
to Moscow.
The Asiatic countries, as the Central
Intelligence Agency says, are more sub-
ject to Communist influence through
such channels than Western countries
are, because the people are still new to
parliamentary government and have not
yet learned all the tricks of party poli-
tics. They are inclined to accept the
Communist party as just another politi-
cal party instead of the conspiracy that
it is.
France and Italy, being more exper-
ienced, know the danger they are in.
Indonesia does not. Hence, Sukarno's
visit to Moscow may have some unex-
pected reactions in Jakarta. 4'
Approved For Release 2000/08/24: CIA-RDP70-00058R000100130055-6