For the Record

■ Consternation within leader- ship of Italian Communist Party over recent banning of Christian Democrats in the Portuguese elections (if, indeed, they are held). The Italian CP has spent much of last two years in trying to edge its way into coalition with the dominant Christian Democratic Party. Christian Democratic leader Amintore Fanfani had ruled out such a step: the goals of the Christian Democrats and the Communists are not compatible, he said. . . . In France the far-left Le Nouvel Observateur reports that Alge- ria’s Houari Boumédienne (of all people) is urging the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement to go slow—strike a position between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. . . . On March 24, the Portuguese rulers were reported to have rejected suggestion raised in the Communist weekly Avante that all out- going press dispatches be censored; Communist employees in hotels are reported to be censoring outgoing telex messages on their own. . . . Some speculation that the ill-timed and thoroughly unprofessional attempted coup of March 11, which led to Gen. Spinola’s flight, might have been triggered by March 10 statement of President Fran- cisco da Costa Gomes: “I think that the dynamic action of the Portuguese Communist Party is indispensable for the building of Portugal.”

■ Lou Harris poll taken for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in December, but just released, points to swift rise of isolationist sentiment in the U.S. It finds that only 34 per cent of the people would favor use of American arms if Russia took over West Berlin, only 27 per cent if the Arabs were to defeat Israel in a future war. It was only in the event of an invasion of Canada that a majority would approve armed intervention by the U.S. . . . Another recent survey, by Yankelovich, Skelly, and Wright, indicates that 59 per cent of the people feel charges against the CIA have “been inflated out of all proportion”; only 29 per cent believe the Agency may have broken the law. . . . David Phillips, chief of CIA Latin American operations, is taking early retirement in order to head an organization of ex-employees that will defend the Agency against attack. “More and more of our agents and friends,” he says, “people who cooper- ate on the basis of ideology, are saying thanks but no thanks. The Marchettis and the Agees [authors of the two major anti-CIA books] have the stage and only a few challenge them.” . . . Ac- cording to the well informed “Book Business” column in Book World, Warner Paperback Library, which was about to buy the American rights to Agee’s book, CIA Diary: Inside the Company, has backed out of the deal “apparently because Warner’s insurance company would not cover the risks involved.”

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■ Consternation within leader- ship of Italian Communist Party over recent banning of Christian Democrats in the Portuguese elections (if, indeed, they are held). The Italian CP has spent much of last two years in trying to edge its way into coalition with the dominant Christian Democratic Party. Christian Democratic leader Amintore Fanfani had ruled out such a step: the goals of the Christian Democrats and the Communists are not compatible, he said. . . . In France the far-left Le Nouvel Observateur reports that Alge- ria’s Houari Boumédienne (of all people) is urging the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement to go slow—strike a position between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. . . . On March 24, the Portuguese rulers were reported to have rejected suggestion raised in the Communist weekly Avante that all out- going press dispatches be censored; Communist employees in hotels are reported to be censoring outgoing telex messages on their own. . . . Some speculation that the ill-timed and thoroughly unprofessional attempted coup of March 11, which led to Gen. Spinola’s flight, might have been triggered by March 10 statement of President Fran- cisco da Costa Gomes: “I think that the dynamic action of the Portuguese Communist Party is indispensable for the building of Portugal.”

■ Lou Harris poll taken for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in December, but just released, points to swift rise of isolationist sentiment in the U.S. It finds that only 34 per cent of the people would favor use of American arms if Russia took over West Berlin, only 27 per cent if the Arabs were to defeat Israel in a future war. It was only in the event of an invasion of Canada that a majority would approve armed intervention by the U.S. . . . Another recent survey, by Yankelovich, Skelly, and Wright, indicates that 59 per cent of the people feel charges against the CIA have “been inflated out of all proportion”; only 29 per cent believe the Agency may have broken the law. . . . David Phillips, chief of CIA Latin American operations, is taking early retirement in order to head an organization of ex-employees that will defend the Agency against attack. “More and more of our agents and friends,” he says, “people who cooper- ate on the basis of ideology, are saying thanks but no thanks. The Marchettis and the Agees [authors of the two major anti-CIA books] have the stage and only a few challenge them.” . . . Ac- cording to the well informed “Book Business” column in Book World, Warner Paperback Library, which was about to buy the American rights to Agee’s book, CIA Diary: Inside the Company, has backed out of the deal “apparently because Warner’s insurance company would not cover the risks involved.”