POSSIBLE EFFECT OF A RUPTURE OF SINO-SOVIET STATE RELATIONS ON SOVIET AID TO NORTH VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00826A001600010057-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 2, 2006
• Sequence Number: 57
• Publication Date: February 10, 1967
• Content Type: IM

Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP79T00826A00"057-6
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Memorandum
POSSIBLE EFFECT OF A RUPTURE OF SINO-SOVIET
STATE RELATIONS ON SOVIET AID TO NORTH VIETNAM
Trip. Secret
24
10 February 1967
SC No. 01382/67
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
10 February 1967
Possible Effect of a Rupture of Sino-Soviet State
Relations on Soviet Aid to North Vietnam
Summary
Because of developments in China, the future use
by the Soviets of the trans-China route for shipping
the great bulk of their military aid to North Vietnam
is in doubt. It is possible that, even in the absence
of diplomatic relations, Soviet shipments overland
would continue, but the Soviets clearly anticipate
that they might not. They are now trying to build a
case to show that only the Chinese will be to blame
if Soviet aid to Hanoi is interrupted.
If this should happen, Moscow would be faced with
some difficult decisions, since alternative routes of
supply are either risky or logistically unsound. Moscow
might seek to temporize and improvise. This could mean
shipping some military aid by sea'to test the US re-
sponse and using aircraft, bypassing China, to supply
spares and replacements for weapons systems now in
North Vietnam. The Russians might hope in this way to
avoid more difficult choices: if the Soviets chose to
do more they would raise the level of risk for them-
selves; if they did less, they would be shown up as
timid. Faced with this dilemma they would, we believe,
take the safer course of limiting their aid.
NOTE: This memorandum was produced solely by CIA. It
was prepared by the Office of Current Intelligence
and coordinated with the Office of Research and
Reports and the Office of National Estimates.
No Foreign Dissem
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No Foreign Dissem
1. It is clear from their behavior during the past
two weeks that the Chinese would welcome a complete break
in state relations with the Russians, provided the Rus-
sians can be provoked into taking the initiative. We
think that the Russians have been trying to hang on as
long as possible because, among other reasons, they fore-
see that a break might make the transit through China of
their military aid to North Vietnam even more difficult
than it has been. The Soviets must anticipate that the
Chinese,. in their present mood, would go so far as to in-
terrupt completely the flow of supplies across China.
This development would, at a minimum, oblige Moscow to
seek alternative routes of supply, and good ones would
not be easy to find. At most, the Russians would have
to face up to some painful choices concerning its commit-
ment to Hanoi: whether to refuse to extend this commit-
and to urge a political solution to the war on the North
Vietnamese; or to seek to sustain North Vietnam and run
the risk of confrontation with the US.
2. For overland access to North Vietnam from the
USSR, there is no good substitute for China. Possible air
routes to Hanoi other than over China (overflying Afghani-
stan, Pakistan, India, Burma, and Laos, for example, or
direct from Vladivostok) are somewhat hazardous and, in
any event, unfeasible as primary routes of military supply,
either for diplomatic or logistical reasons. Nothing short
of a 'massive airlift'of'unprecedented size could come close
to handling the Russian military equipment which now tran-
sits China by rail. Even then, various technical and lo-
gistics problems would make virtually impossible air ship-
ment of a good portion of this aid. Shipment of arms aid
by sea remains the cheapest and easiest method of delivery.
3. A total diplomatic break with the USSR might seem
to the Chinese a credible pretext for refusing to allow
Moscow to make aid deliveries through China. If the Chi-
nese succeeded in provoking the Russians into severing re-
lations, they would have some grounds for charging that
Moscow was responsible for the consequences, including an
inability to negotiate transit rights with China. Conceiv-
ably, this consideration accounts in part for the unpre-
cedented virulence of Peking's crusade against the USSR.
Such a line of argument would, however, not be likely to
carry much conviction outside China and especially in
embattled Hanoi.
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No Foreign Dissem
4. Peking obviously begrudges the Soviets such in-
fluence in Hanoi as they have achieved with their aid and
would prefer to reduce or eliminate the flow if possible.
At the same time, the Chinese are vitally interested in
seeing Hanoi continue the war and would be in no position
to offer to take up the slack. Peking almost certainly
realizes that the blocking of the Soviet aid shipments
might put a serious strain on Sino-Vietnamese relations
and weaken Hanoi's resistance to a political solution.
On any rational calculation of its best interests, Peking
would probably choose not to run this risk.
5. Even after a complete Sino-Soviet diplomatic
break, purely technical contacts could be maintained and
existing transit arrangements left virtually intact, for
instance, by the North Vietnamese taking delivery at the
Sino-Soviet border. Thus, a total rupture of Sino-Soviet
relations would not necessarily bring an end to the de-
livery of Russian military supplies by rail through China,
although it would make this possibility more likely and,
in any case, give the Chinese better opportunities for
harassment.
6. Moscow already seems, though, to be preparing
for the worst, and is carefully documenting the record so
that the blame can be laid squarely at Peking's door if
there is any decline in Russian assistance to Hanoi. On
6 February, Izvestia quoted "the American bourgeois press"
to the effect that the Chinese upheaval would probably
reduce Hanoi's defensive capability "as a result of
obstacles to the transport of Soviet military aid and
specialists across the territory of China." 25X1
Soviet commentary has a so exploited inese
harassment last week of Russian experts going by plane
to North Vietnam. Russian propaganda has called this
"a double provocation directed against both the Soviet
and Vietnamese peoples," and a vivid illustration of how
the "anti-Sovietism of the Chinese leaders is turning
against the Vietnamese people."
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No Foreign Dissem
7, It is doubtful, however, that the Soviets could
successfully defend their political and propaganda po-
sitions simply by throwing discredit on the Chinese.
It would be apparent--not to the Chinese alone--that the
USSR has the option of shipping its war materiel to
North Vietnam by sea, So far, the evidence shows Mos-
cow has refrained from doing so, and this can only have
been in order to avoid the risk of a Soviet-US confronta-
tion on the high seas, If this remained Moscow's policy
after the Chinese route was closed, however, the USSR
would find itself open to charges of cowardice, and of
using the Chinese as a red herring to conceal Moscow's
reluctance to face up to the US,
8. Although there has been congestion there from
time to time, Haiphong could handle a substantial volume
of military shipments without reducing commercial im-
ports. As long as the Soviet role remained mainly one
of supporting North Vietnam's military effort with ammu-
nition and spare parts, seaborne delivery could be ac-
complished without cutting heavily into other types of
supply--transport and construction equipment, machinery
and food--which also play a vital role in sustaining
the war effort. The problem might be complicated if the
USSR wished to introduce new weapons systems or to in-
crease substantially the number of MIGs or SAM installa-
tions, The delivery of these bulky systems would require
an increase in shipping and a more intensive use of port
facilities in Haiphong, Almost certainly there would
be additional congestion in Haiphong.
9. The Soviets would be under mounting pressure to
take the sea route, and they would have to re-examine
their policy. We think the Soviet instinct would be to
try to improvise rather than meet the problem head on.
They might, in these circumstances, attempt to fill the
supply gap by shipping military spares by air, over
routes which bypass China, and using sea routes for bulk-
ier materials, If this were to be anything more than a
token effort, however, the Soviets would need to know
very soon whether their use of the sea route for major
military shipments was to be challenged. They -could be
expected to make some tentative probes in order to gauge
the US reaction. A sharp reaction would present the
Russians with a painful choice: on the one hand, a course
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No Foreign Dissem
full of political and military hazards for them which
could only play into Chinese hands, and, on the other,
continued prudence which, in the changed circumstances,
would be seen as timidity. Faced with such a clear-
cut dilemma, Moscow's leaders might in the end elect
to modify their present policy and raise the level of
risk. On balance, however, we think they would be more
likely to choose the cautious course, to forgo the use
of the sea route as the major means of military supply,
and to seek to persuade Hanoi that Soviet hands were
tied.
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