Memorandum from Rear Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter to President Harry S. Truman

ER 400 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY Copy 1042 WASHINGTON 25, D. C. 31 March 1948 MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT US Army authorities in Japan have recently acquired through a "reliable" source a document which purports to be a Japanese Com- munist Party order, dated 17 February 1948 and entitled "Important Directive Concerning Present World Conditions." This document sum- marizes a "directive recently issued by the Far East Cominform" and reports that the various national Communist parties of the Far East have been directed to coordinate and intensify their activities in order to divert US interest from Europe to the Far East and thereby aid the Soviet Union in frustrating the European recovery program. The national parties are enjoined to plan for this intensification of activities in the Far East, using for the present the Communist "problems" in China and Korea as a focus. The document adds that the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party is now analyz- ing possible methods of implementing the program. This document is probably authentic because--in addition to the reliability of its source-its information conforms to the circumstances of the situation in the Far East. It is logical that the activities of the Far East Communist parties should be put under the direction of some form of centralized coordinating committee, and several reports of a conference held by Far East Communist parties in Harbin (Manchuria) in January indicate that this has been done. Moreover, the issuance of directives to the various Far East Communist parties would very likely be one of the first actions to be taken following the holding of such a conference. The reported Communist directive is regarded as highly significant and supports the following conclusions: (1) a Far East Communist organization is already in existence and has the task of directing and coordinating the efforts of indigenous Far East Communist parties in accordance with Soviet objectives; (2) the USSR will attempt to divert US attention from the implementation of the European recovery program by intensified aggravation of the political instability in the Far East. DECLASSIFIED TRUMAN S. Authority NLT-77-55 SERVICE" By HC NLT Date 10-20-77