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Current Intelligence Weekly Summary

Central Intelligence Agency · 1962-03-23 · 42 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is the Central Intelligence Agency's Current Intelligence Weekly Summary of 23 March 1962, a secret digest from the Office of Current Intelligence covering world events. It reviews Soviet foreign policy on Berlin, the Berlin air corridors, disarmament and a nuclear test ban. It also covers Algeria, Argentina's elections, the Congo, Laos, South Vietnam, Guatemala, food rationing in Cuba and Middle East tensions. Special articles assess Brazil under Goulart and Turkey's economic prospects. It contains no UFO material.

  • p. 8 …The sharp increase in telephonic communi- cations between Soviet repre- sentatives in BASC and their headquarters…
Approved for Release: 2026/03/06 C03176167 ,5
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CURRENT INTELLIGENCE WEEKLY SUMMARY
of its movement across the
Helmstedt-Berlin Autobahn and
lacked personnel to complete
the processing. The same day,
the Soviet controllers at Marien
born, at the opposite end of the
autobahn, cleared an inbound con
voy of the same size after an
hour's delay, with the warning
that in the future they would
insist on advance written noti-
fication.
The practice of notifying
the Soviets of Western military
movements was begun on an ad hoc
basis last August to facilitate
the transfer of a special US
Army battle group from West
Germany to West Berlin. Since
that time, local US military
authorities have continued to
alert Soviet officials to the
movement of convoys of eight or
more vehicles. The Soviets ap-
parently are seeking to extend
this practice to all military
movements on the autobahn.
Disarmament and Test Ban
In his 15 March speech at
the Geneva disarmament confer-
ence Gromyko tabled a plan for
general and complete disarma-
ment in the form of a draft
treaty. The plan is largely
a rehash of the September 1960
Soviet proposals presented to
the UN by Khrushchev. The only
significant new element is the
point that there should be no
veto in the control organiza-
tion. Soviet leaders probably
calculate that their ostensible
renunciation of the veto will
have a favorable impact, par-
ticularly on the nonaligned
powers.
Gromyko also formally ex-
pressed Soviet willingness to
discuss the USSR's 26 Septem-
ber "partial" disarmament meas-
ures, implementation of which
allegedly would decrease inter-
national tensions, strengthen
confidence between states, and
promote final agreement on gen-
eral and complete disarmament.
He singled out the "partial"
proposals calling for creation
of a nuclear free zone in Cen-
tral Europe and a nonaggression
treaty between the NATO and
Warsaw Pact powers——proposals
more related to the German and
European security issues than
to disarmament.
In a 20 March private con-
versation with a US delegate,
a prominent member of the Soviet
delegation said that the "main
areas of possible agreement" at
the conference are on these is-
sues: nontransfer of nuclear
weapons, a NATO - Warsaw Pact
nonaggression treaty, an Afri-
can nuclear-free zone, a test
ban, and outer space.
The Soviet press has given
little publicity to Secretary
Rusk's presentation of the US
disarmament program. A 19 March
Pravda article, however, dis-
torted the US proposal for a
30-percent reduction in the
number of vehicles capable of
delivering nuclear weapons and
of major conventional armaments
in the first three years.
Pravda claimed that it was ac-
companied by a demand for cre-
ation of a 100-percent far—flung
system of international control.
The Soviet press line has been
that while the USSR presented
concrete proposals to achieve
general and complete disarma-
ment, the US advanced "only"
an unclear outline.
Jasmin?
23 Mar 62 WEEKLY REVIEW Page 3 of 22
Approved for Release: 2026/03/06 C03176167

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 42 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.