CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A001800600001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 1, 2003
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 9, 1955
• Content Type: REPORT

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MO~ REVIEW
9 January 1955
Copy No.
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN
DOCUMENT NO. 91
NO CHANGE IN CLASS.
i. ! DECLASSIFIED
CLASS. CHANGED TO: TS S C
NEXT REVIEW DATE:._ L
AUTH: HR 70-2
DATE: ~z /id L REVIEWER: -I
Office of Current Intelligence
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
79
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GENERAL
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1. Pakistan's prime minister wants large anti-Communist turn-out
a Asian-African conference:
by Indian neutralism or by fear of the Communist bloc. He told
Ambassador Hildreth on 7 January that if all the anti-Communist
nations attend, they can "clobber" Chou En-lai and "any neutral
efforts of Nehru:'
the first opportunity to show that Asian nations are not dominated
Pakistan's prime minister Mohammad All
is eager to have all the invited anti-
Communist nations attend the proposed
Asian-African conference because it is
The ambassador believes that Mohammad
Ali's abilities may not equal his spirit.
Comment: At the preparatory conference
held by the inviting powers at Bogor last month, the Pakistani dele-
gation headed by Mohammad Ali had no positive program to present.
The Indian delegation, on the other hand, was able to get 1.3 of its
17 prepared points accepted.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
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3. Viet Minh agrees to withdraw truce officials from southern Laos:
The Viet Minh, faced with the combined
pressure of the Laotians, the French, and
the International Control Commission,
agreed on 6 January to withdraw its truce
officials from southern Laos on 7 and 8 January. The decision
was finally made at the insistence of the royal government of Laos,
which has taken the position that the presence of Viet Minh truce
officials in Laos no longer has any justification under the terms of
the Geneva agreement.
Comment: The Viet Minh will probably
offer much stronger resistance to withdrawal of its truce officials
from the northwestern provinces, which are partly under the con-
trol of the Viet Minh-backed Pathet Lao
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WESTERN EUROPE
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6. Ehrenburg issues strong blast at Mendes-France in Pravda-
Pravda on 6 January carried an article
by the-well-known Soviet publicist, .
Ilya Ehrenburg, which the American
embassy described as the most vicious
personal attack yet on Mendes-France.
Ehrenburg said the French premier had
."won the confidence of American rulers
but lost the confidence of France." He said that it had taken Mendes-
France only six months to "renounce everything he had professed
before."
Ehrenburg charged that Mendes- France
had lost his ohort-lived interest in parallel negotiations, and was
now misleading some naive Frenchmen into believing that the
vigorous goose-stepping of restored German divisions" will facili-
tate talks on Germany. He warned that ratification of the Paris
agreements would make negotiations on Germany meaningless.
Comment. Soviet press treatment of
Mendes-France has become increasingly critical in recent months,
but this attack is .distinctly stronger and more personal than any
heretofore. The USSR probably believes that Mendes-France is
currently vulnerable to the charge of being the chief French archi-
tect of German rearmament, and that an all-out attack on him will
help to overthrow him and thereby damage the prospects for full
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7. French reported proposing that Bonn promise Moscow delay on
rearmament:
9 Jan 55
ccording to West German state secre-
tary Blankenhorn, Jean Soutou, personal
spokesman on foreign affairs for Mendes-
France, has proposed that Bonn approach
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Moscow after ratification of the Paris accords and offer not to
put into effect the military clauses of the treaty pending some set-
tlement of the question of German reunification.. Blankenhorn said
that Chancellor Adenauer "quickly rej ected" Soutou's proposal. He
doubts that Mendes-France will bring up the matter again in the
14 January meeting with Adenauer.
Comment: Blankenhorn in the past has
not always been a reliable reporter of French-German negotiations.
Soutou has seemed obsessed recently by
the idea that definite assurances of further four-power negotiations
on German and European security problems are necessary to guar-
antee a favorable vote on the Paris accords in the Council of the
Republic. He has admitted, however, that Mendes-France has
"no illusions whatever" about obtaining anything from the Russians
at a possible four-power meeting early next summer except in the
unlikely event of a change in the basic Soviet position on Germany.
It is hardly likely that the government
would have underestimated the reaction of Chancellor Adenauer to
such a proposal. Even if Bonn agreed to such a plan, its necessar-
ily secret character and the time element would make its political
exploitation in France difficult.
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8. French minister for Associated States favors return of Bao Dai
to Vietnam:
Minister for Associated States Guy
La Chambre told Ambassador Dillon in
Paris that he is convinced that the imme-
diate return of Bao Dai is the only work-
able so u. ion for Sou Vietnam. He said the French were think-
ing in terms of Tran Van Huu as premier and Nguyen Van Tam as
interior minister.
La Chambre pointed to evidence of a
lack of enthusiasm among the Viet Minh rank and file for the Com-
munist pattern now unfolding in the north and argued the urgency
of getting a "strong, effective" government in the south to demon-
strate that life under a non-Communist regime is better,
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Comment: La Chambre's apparent
design is to get a government in the south that can come to terms
with the Viet Minh.
Tran Van Huu met with Viet Minh offi-
cials at Geneva last year with a view to establishing a coalition
government.
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Last September French officials agreed
that Tam was unacceptable as a candidate for high office because
of his close identification with the French. Neither he nor Huu
commands any popular support and Bao Dai's prestige in Vietnam
is at an all-time low.
LATIN AMERICA
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9. Comment on Costa Rican appeal to Organization of American States:
affair to an investigative body.
The 8 January Costa Rican appeal for emer-
gency action by the Organization of American
States (OAS) to prevent aggression by Nica-
ragua springs from the recent intensification
of Nicaragua and Venezuela's nine-month--
old "war of nerves" against the Figueres
administration in Costa Rica. The Council
of the OAS, which meets on 10 January to
consider the appeal, is likely to refer the
Last April the Council refused a Costa
Rican request to investigate the dispute with Nicaragua until normal
diplomatic means had been exhausted, but Costa Rica has since made
important concessions in an attempt to settle the dispute, Nicaragua,
however, has rebuffed them, and in mid-December Nicaraguan pres-
ident Somoza told a Costa Rican emissary that he would never enter
into a rapprochement with Figueres.
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The Nicaraguan and Venezuelan govern-
ments are unlikely to resort to overt aggression against Costa
Rica. They are probably giving clandestine assistance to Costa
Rican revolutionary groups, however, and any move against
Figueres will probably be made to appear a purely domestic up-
rising.
The incident apparently prompting.Costa
Rica's appeal to the OAS was an unannounced flight of seven Venezuelan
C-47's to Nicaragua on 6 January. These planes may have carried
arms for Costa Rican revolutionaries there. The Venezuelan foreign
minister was extremely evasive about the planes in discussing the
situation with Ambassador Warren on 8 January, and remarked that
Venezuela would recognize "within two hours" any new government
following the overthrow of. Figueres.
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