CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A002000360001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 30, 2002
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 20, 1955
• Content Type: REPORT

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20 May 1955
Copy No.
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN
DOCUMENT NO. -`
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NO CHANGE IN CLASS.
C1 DECLASSIFIED
CLASS. CHANGED TO: TS S C
NEXT REVIEW DATE: ---
AUTH: HR 70-2
DATE: REVIEWER:
Office of Current Intelligence
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
State Dept. review completed
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SUMMARY
SOUTHEAST ASIA
2. Vietnam may seek closer relations with India (page 3).
4. Diem envoy asks conference at foreign minister level in Saigon
(page 5).
NEAR EAST AFRICA
5. Comment on latest Israeli -Egyptian border incident (page 5).
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SOUTHEAST ASIA
2. Vietnam may seek closer relations with India:
ietnamese government would like to
e India step into the role, now filled by
the French, of intermediary between Viet-
nam and the Viet Minh, 25X1
By such means Vietnam
hopes to rid itself of the colonial stigma and gain the support of
India and other Asian countries.
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The Vietnamese government also wants
to convince Nehru that Ho Chi Minh is primarily a Communist,
not a nationalist. . It would like a conference, at which Vietnam
would be truly represented, to discuss the Geneva accords,
Comment: India's tendency has been to
write off South Vietnam as zig within the Chinese sphere of in-
fluence. This tendency might be moderated by Vietnam's clear
emergence from colonial status, by Premier Diem's austerity and
patriotism, and by the disillusionment of the Indian nationals who
lived briefly in Hanoi following the Viet Minh takeover.
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4. Diem envoy asks conference at foreign minister level in Saigon:
Ngo Dinh Luyen, Diem's brother and
envoy in Europe, told the American
embassy in Paris that the proposed
conference of Vietnamese and Western
Big Three representatives in Saigon should be at the "highest
level possible.,, He said that he would like to see Secretary Dulles
attend for the United States and mentioned the possibility that the
presence of the foreign ministers in San Francisco in June might
enable them to proceed to Saigon.
Comment: The French government has
already indicated its preference that the conference be limited to
one between the Vietnamese and the Western powers' permanent
representatives in Saigon. One reason for Paris' opposition to a
high-level conference may be apprehension over the effect of such
a meeting on the North African situation.
NEAR EAST - AFRICA
. Comment on latest Israeli-Egyptian border incident:
Israel's blunt public labeling of its attack
on an Egyptian outpost near Gaza on
18 May as a "raid of retaliation" follows
Prime Minister Sharett's declaration of
the day before that Israel "must continue
its policy of military reprisals against
Egyptian and Jordanian attackers despite
UN censure.' This attack followed less than 36 hours after an
Egyptian land mine planted inside Israel destroyed an Israeli pa-
trol car.
Israeli frustration over international de-
velopments., as well as the government's desire to win the general
elections in July, is apparently responsible for the hardening of
the Israeli frontier policy, which has general public approval.
This hardening has become evident at a
.time when the Egyptian regime is particularly tense and suspicious
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and might be goaded into rash action if other serious e1i "re-
25X1 taliatory". raids occur.
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