CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A028700010034-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 14, 2008
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: March 19, 1976
• Content Type: REPORT

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Top Secret
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NEON W- -a
NSA review completed
DIA and DOS review(s) completed.
National Intelligence
Bulletin
Top Secret
N2 699
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
CONTENTS
RHODESIA: Effects of Mozambique's embargo . . . . . . . . . . 1
CUBA-AFRICA: Cuba's intentions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
EGYPT: Cabinet reshuffle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
LEBANON: Politicians still seeking a
replacement for President Franjiyah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
CUBA - PUERTO RICO: Havana's campaign for
Puerto Rican independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
GREECE-TURKEY: Tension over Law
of the Sea Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
USSR-UK: Gromyko scheduled to meet
with Labor Party leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
USSR: Party ideologist defends
"proletarian internationalism" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
PORTUGAL: Aircraft procurement priority . . . . . . . . . . . 12
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Walvis Bay
(S. At.)
tirmb
Iuaaka
st A#rica _ ~~
yt TrefJfc
blocked
indhoak Botswana
n r i c
OHM Rail lines carrying inraign trade
traffic
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
Rhodesia's economic well-being, now that Mozambique has imposed its
embargo, depends on the rerouting of a large proportion of its foreign trade traffic
through South Africa.
Rhodesia probably will suffer only a temporary setback because even before
the embargo, at least 60 percent of Rhodesia's 5 million tons a year of exports and
imports were passing through South Africa. Most of these goods moved over the
direct Rhodesian - South African rail link completed in June 1974. The new
connection has been upgraded in recent months and apparently now can handle over
5 million tons annually.
The South African transport net will be able to handle most of the diverted
Rhodesian traffic. The increase above current levels represents less than 2 percent of
total freight moved by South African railroads. Because it is concentrated on one or
two lines, however, the new traffic will have to be gradually absorbed into the South
African rail system in order to avoid disrupting local traffic. South Africa should be
able to handle most of the traffic by the end of the year.
Through emergency traffic realignment measures, South Africa could handle all
Rhodesian goods almost immediately. Pretoria is likely, however, to opt for a more
gradual, less conspicuous absorption of Rhodesian traffic by letting the Rhodesian
goods take their turn in the normal commercial competition for the carriers. South
Africa is openly sensitive to its growing isolation in black-ruled Africa and is clearly
unwilling to become the sole obstacle to the ending of white rule in Rhodesia.
The transport restrictions will temporarily depress Rhodesia's healthy
economic growth. Export earnings, mainly from agriculture, mining, and mineral
processing, account for about 25 percent of the gross domestic product. These
receipts will fall as a result of the embargo, and political uncertainty will again slow
foreign lending and investing.
Rhodesia will not want to use much of its large inventories of oil and other key
imports. Tighter import rationing thus appears certain. Since the embargo, fuel
supplies to both industrial and private consumers already have been cut by 20
percent under a previously established rationing system. Cuts probably will have to
be made in imports of components for consumer industries such as automobile
manufacturing.
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
Only substantial aid inflows will keep the impact of the closure from being
greater on Mozambique than on Rhodesia. Mozambique will lose an estimated $30
to $40 million annually from Rhodesian port and rail fees, and possibly as much
more again if migrant laborers in Rhodesia are forced to return home. Together, the
losses equal about 10 to 15 percent of total foreign exchange income.
Job losses will be most severe in the port of Beira. Rhodesian trade as well as
traffic that transited Rhodesia to and from Botswana and Malawi accounted for
more than two thirds of the port's volume. Maputo will be less affected. Only one
quarter of its traffic volume moved via Rhodesia. For Mozambique as a whole,
unemployment of rail and port workers and of workers on jobs dependent on
transport activities will run in the thousands. Mozambique will also face temporary
food shortages. It traditionally has imported corn, beef, and poultry from Rhodesia.
Several months will be needed to shift to other suppliers.
Botswana and Malawi will also be adversely affected until adjustments can be
made in traffic patterns. Botswana had been shipping copper and nickel, its most
important exports, across Rhodesia to Mozambique ports. It will now have to
compete for cargo space on the South African transport network.
South Africa and Rhodesia have been Malawi's major sources of imports,
together supplying more than one third of the total. Fertilizer, machinery and
equipment, coal, and food have been the major imports. Almost all were shipped via
Rhodesia to Beira and transferred to the north-bound railroad to Malawi.
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
Fidel Castro has portrayed Cuba's immediate intentions in southern Africa as
limited to consolidating the victory in Angola. He warned South Africa, however,
that failure to withdraw its forces from southern Angola could lead to extended
fighting beyond the Angolan border.
In his speech in Conakry on Monday, Castro touched only briefly on the
situations in Rhodesia and Namibia and directed his harshest comments at the
remaining South African presence in Angola. While his criticism of continued South
African occupation of Angolan soil was couched in belligerent language, he
nevertheless appeared to be giving assurances that the African interests in the
Cunene dam would be protected if the troops were withdrawn. As the alternative to
unilateral withdrawal, he held up the specter of a military clash between the South
Africans and a multinational army-presumably of Cubans and Africans-which
might spill over into Namibia.
Castro stated that the purpose of the Conakry summit was to decide on the
strategy for the consolidation of Angola's independence, and despite the fervor of
the occasion, he was careful not to mention Rhodesia and Namibia as objects of
Cuba's liberation efforts. By focusing on the South African presence in southern
Angola, Castro stands to reap additional credit if the South Africans negotiate an
agreement on the Cunene dam which permits them to remove their troops.
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
The cabinet resigned yesterday, and President Sadat has asked Prime Minister
Salim to form a new government, which may be named today. The reorganization is
aimed chiefly at the economic ministries and will essentially be a palliative aimed at
giving the appearance of progress toward resolving economic grievances.
Although not an economist, Salim is an able administrator and, by sound
supervision of a slow-moving and over-staffed bureaucracy, has been largely
responsible for the recent modest acceleration in the government's economic
liberalization program.
Some of the ministers heading the seven separate economic departments
represented in the cabinet have been under attack for inefficiency; others, ironically,
for too much efficiency.
Salim particularly wanted to get rid of the minister of industry because he
believes the minister has obstructed foreign investment, one of the principal aspects
of economic liberalization. The minister of trade, on the other hand, has been
heavily criticized in the press and People's Assembly for pressing too vigorously for
private sector competition with the public sector. Although this is another key
aspect of the government's economic program, it is politically unpopular.
The government is beset with so many administrative and political problems
that the cabinet reorganization is unlikely either to improve efficiency or to
eliminate popular criticism for long. There is some indication that Salim will try to
pare the number of ministries, but this has been attempted unsuccessfully before,
and interministerial rivalries will make it equally difficult now.
The new cabinet is also unlikely to find a magic solution for the populace's
economic grievances-rising prices, the increasing disparity between rich and poor,
and the limited availability of imported consumer goods. The cabinet will be under
constant pressure from Egypt's Arab donors and other international leaders to
restrict consumer imports, to reduce price subsidies, and to speed economic
liberalization-a process that will create additional income disparity and add to the
economic burden of the poor before most workers begin to benefit.
President Sadat is already being criticized by labor leaders for a prediction in
his speech last Sunday that Egyptians will have to face five more years of austerity.
A labor union official has told the US embassy that workers had expected some
commitment from Sadat on price stabilization and wage increases. The new cabinet,
like the old one, is likely soon to come under fire on the same score.
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
Lebanese politicians, apparently confident that Syria can impose a political
solution in Beirut, yesterday intensified their debate on who should replace
President Franjiyah. Lebanon's president, who by custom is a Maronite Christian,
must be elected by parliament.
The strongest candidate appears to be Ilyas Sarkis, governor of the central
bank. Sarkis, who is not a member of parliament and has no personal political
following, is favored by the Syrians, the Christian Phalanges Party, and President
Franjiyah.
Another leading candidate is Raymond Edde, son of Lebanon's first president
and leader of the National Bloc, the country's third largest Christian political party.
Edde has a broad following in parliament-particularly among the two-thirds
majority that signed the petition calling for Franjiyah's resignation-and among
leftists and conservative Muslims generally. He is opposed by Damascus and by
conservative Christians.
Sarkis, in an attempt to overcome his greatest weakness, met with Socialist
leader Kamal Jumblatt on Wednesday, and announced that he is prepared to support
Jumblatt's reform program. Jumblatt is nevertheless believed to hold to his
long-time preference for still another, weaker Maronite leader.
Jumblatt controls few votes in parliament, but if a standoff develops between
the two leading candidates, he may be able to withhold his support and deny both
the required majority vote. This could prompt parliament to turn to any of several
weak compromise candidates who almost certainly would be less able to deal
effectively with Lebanon's problems.
25X1
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
Havana has continued its campaign on behalf of Puerto Rican independence
since the solidarity conference last September.
Both the weekly news magazine Bohemia, which is circulated abroad as well as
within Cuba, and the weekly English edition of Granma have been stressing the
impact of American "exploitation" on the faltering Puerto Rican economy, criticism
of the US "maneuver" to defuse third world concern by making Puerto Rico a "free
associated state," and growing "international solidarity" with the cause of Puerto
Rican independence.
Statements by Cuban leaders reaffirming support for the Puerto Rican
independence movement have continued in the vein of Fidel Castro's remarks to the
party congress in December: "We will never abandon our brother Puerto Ricans even
if there are a hundred years without relations with the US."
The reaction to Cuba's effort to arouse interest in Puerto Rico seems colored to
a considerable degree by international sentiment regarding Cuba''s interventionist
policy in Africa. If one of the purposes of the Castro government's Angola policy
was to reestablish its revolutionary bonafides, then it has succeeded. Radicals in the
third world have begun to show increased respect for Cuba.
Libya's President Qadhafi, who only two and a half years ago demonstrated his
contempt for Cuba's revolutionary credentials by walking out of a Castro speech at
the nonaligned conference in Algiers, resumed diplomatic relations with Cuba earlier
this month. The next step may well be Libyan support for the separatist Puerto
Rican Socialist Party.
In Latin American, however, even among those countries who are actually
members of the nonaligned movement, there has been little receptivity to the Cuban
campaign. When a Peruvian women's organization recently requested permission to
distribute a Cuban film entitled "Puerto Rico," the Foreign Ministry prevented its
showing.
Although Cuba has not yet raised the issue in the current session of the UN
Committee on Decolonization, it has reportedly been putting pressure on a number
of countries to change their vote on the resolution, first considered in the committee
last August, to grant UN recognition to a Puerto Rican "National Liberation
Movement."
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
In addition, it is likely that Cuba intends to support the reported plans of the
Puerto Rican Socialist Party to organize mass demonstrations this summer in several
Latin American and Caribbean countries as well as in Western Europe. Finally,
Havana is almost certain to try to put a discussion of Puerto Rico on the agenda for
the nonaligned conference scheduled for August in Sri Lanka.
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
The Law of the Sea Conference in New York this week is focusing Greek and
Turkish attention on the Aegean issue.
The weak coalition government in Ankara, in particular, is taking a tough line
out of concern that Turkish interests may be ignored at the conference and in
response to pressure from the political opposition. Prime Minister Demirel has been
attacked by Turkish opposition leader Ecevit, who has labeled the government's
Aegean policy "cowardly" and "incomprehensibly negligent." Pointing to his own
bold policy in 1974 when as Prime Minister he sent a ship to conduct exploration in
disputed waters, Ecevit has on several occasions challenged the government to begin
exploration for oil in the Aegean. Ecevit has also charged that the government's
failure to reach bilateral agreement with Greece before the start of the New York
meeting was a blunder that could have negative consequences for the Turkish case at
the conference.
In an effort to counter Ecevit's charges, the government was forced to
acknowledge in late February that a ship was in fact being outfitted to begin seismic
research in the Aegean-probably around mid-May. A statement by the Turkish
energy minister that seismic exploration would be followed by test drilling near the
Greek oil find off the island of Thasos in the northern Aegean was later disavowed
by the Demirel government.
At the same time, Prime Minister Demirel and other coalition party leaders
have stated repeatedly that any general agreements reached in New York must make
exceptions for the "special circumstances" in the Aegean. Ankara is particularly
worried over the possibility that the principle of a 12-mile territorial sea may be
approved at the conference. Turkish access to the Aegean would be severely
restricted if a 12-mile limit were applied to the Greek islands, and Turkish Foreign
Minister Caglayangil has warned that such a situation will not be tolerated.
The commentary on the Aegean issue in Ankara has drawn some sharp and
equally belligerent replies from a portion of the Greek press and some opposition
leaders. The Caramanlis government, however, which is in a much stronger political
position than its Turkish counterpart, has thus far largely refrained from such
rhetoric and appears to have prevailed on some of the opposition politicians and
press to follow suit. Athens did issue a demarche to the US earlier this week
conveying its growing concern about Turkish intentions in the Aegean.
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National Intelligence Bulletin March 19, 1976
There is no evidence to date that Prime Minister Wilson's resignation has
affected Foreign Minister Gromyko's scheduled visit to the UK next week. We
expect the trip to occur because Gromyko is scheduled to meet with Foreign
Secretary Callaghan and other Labor Party leaders from among whom the next
prime minister will likely be selected.
London reportedly does not expect much to come from these talks. The visit is
a follow-up to the protocol on periodic consultations that Prime Minister Wilson
signed during his trip to Moscow in February 1975.
Multilateral issues likely to be discussed include Middle East and
African-especially Rhodesian-developments, CSCE, and MBFR. Gromyko may
attempt to raise the subject of ties between the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance and the EC; the British, however, are reportedly not prepared to discuss
that matter at this time.
With respect to bilateral items, the talks will likely concern Soviet use of British
credits and a possible trip to the UK this year by General Secretary Brezhnev. He
was invited by Wilson when they met in Helsinki last August.
those talks were not productive due to insufficient time for substantive
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
Politburo member and senior ideologist Suslov, speaking before the Soviet
Academy of Sciences on the subject of "proletarian internationalism," has
responded sharply to recent attacks on Soviet doctrine by independent-minded
Western Communist parties. Suslov mentioned no names, but there will be no
mistaking that he was referring to the French, Italians, and the Spanish in
condemning "opportunists" whose "regional or national" versions of Marxism do
harm to the working class.
Suslov centered his speech on "proletarian internationalism" because it has
come to mean Soviet primacy in the international movement and support for it is a
benchmark of pro-Sovietism among foreign parties. During the Soviet party
congress, many of the independent-minded Western parties either ignored
"proletarian internationalism" or endorsed it only weakly.
Suslov's remarks will undoubtedly antagonize the independent parties and may
further complicate preparations for the European Communist party conference. A
new drafting session opened in East Berlin on Tuesday. If Suslov's tough words are
echoed by the Soviets and/or their loyal East European allies, Moscow runs the risk
of having the preparatory sessions fail.
The increasing independence of some Western parties confronts the Soviets
with a dilemma. They are distressed by these parties' gestures toward autonomy, but
they are apparently even more averse to open ideological splits that would serve to
strengthen the Chinese. The Soviets will therefore probably still be seeking an
accommodation with the recalcitrant European parties, even though the current
meeting may not reach agreement on a preliminary draft or on a date for the actual
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National Intelligence Bulletin
March 19, 1976
Portuguese air force officials have established a preliminary aircraft
procurement plan to modernize the air force and strengthen its role in NATO. Some
doubt, however, apparently remains in the armed forces as to the order of priorities
listed in the plan.
In a conversation with Ambassador Carlucci, air chief General Morais da Silva
identified fighter aircraft-especially the F-4-as the first procurement priority. The
new aircraft is envisioned supporting an extraterritorial function such as maritime
attack, possibly in conjunction with NATO. Acknowledging the impracticality of
obtaining F-4s in terms of cost and training, however, Morais da Silva described this
suggested acquisition as an "ideal" position and hinted that less advanced systems
such as the F-5 might be more feasible. Portugal would require large-scale external
financial and technical assistance even if a less expensive aircraft package is attained.
The second procurement priority, considered by some to be more important
than fighters, is for Lockheed C-130s to support the army's planned future NATO
commitment of one air-transportable infantry brigade. The air force is trying to sell
its two Boeing 707s to produce enough cash to purchase three transports with
associated equipment and training. Revolutionary Council approval of the
transaction is expected and military leaders desire to have the contracts signed
before the forthcoming elections, to avoid the danger of a new regime negating the
sale.
Morais da Silva said P-3 Orion aircraft are the third priority. These would
replace Portugal's obsolete P-2E Neptunes, which are inadequate for the air force's
NATO maritime patrol mission in the central North Atlantic.
The ambitious procurement list reflects the determination of air force officials
to modernize their service, adapt it to a more domestically oriented mission and at
the same time strengthen its ties to NATO.
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