RIPPLE SALVO… #219… “HALT THE BOMBING”… but first…

Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED NINETEEN remembering the courage and sacrifice of the warriors who fought the air war over North Vietnam…

6 OCTOBER 1966… “All the news that’s fit to print” says “The Gray Lady” (NYT)… A sunny and “quite cool” Thursday in New Yawk…

Page 1: “Thant Reported In Renewed Drive for Peace Talks”…”Secretary General U Thant is again playing an active role in promoting peace negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam…Premier Nguyen Cao Ky of South Vietnam told Mr. Thant that his government was ready to consider any initiative for peace that would preserve the independence of South Vietnam and its peoples right to choose their own way of life. The Premier promised that once what he termed North Vietnam’ aggression had ended his government would ask the United States and its allies to withdraw their forces from South Vietnam. Marshall Ky also sought an effective guarantee of South Vietnam’s future independence and liberty as a peace condition.”…Page 1: “Hurricane Buffets Cuba Again As It Heads For Mexico”…”Inez reached back and slapped Cuba again tonight as the far flung storm maintained a steady course toward the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Gail force winds and driving rain along Cuba’s northwest coast forced the evacuation of 18,000 persons from low lying areas around Havana…Forecasters, frustrated by the hurricane’s erratic turns, watched its new course for five hours before pronouncing an ‘all clear’ for Florida.”… Page 1: “$2.9 Billion In Aid Voted By Senate”…”The Senate voted $2.9 billion for foreign aid today after cutting $110 million from the amount recommended by the Appropriations Committee. The vote was 52 to22. The bill was passed only after an unusual three hour debate. The total is about $500 million less than the Administration had asked for the coming year and about$100 million less than voted in the House.”…

Page 1: “Orioles Beat Dodgers, 5-2, As The World Series Opens”…”The Baltimore Orioles upset the odds, Don Drysdale and the forbidding geography of cavernous Dodger Stadium today and defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-2, in the opening game of the 63rd World Series. The American League champions, 6-5 under-dogs for the first game, took the lead when Frank and Brooks Robinson hit successive home runs in the first ten minutes. Then they protected it in one of the great relief pitching performances in World Series history–6 2/3 innings– by Moe Drabowsky, a cast off from the Kansas City Athletics who allowed one single and struck out eleven batters.”…oohrah… Page 1: “Texas Court Voids Ruby Conviction In Oswald’s Death”…”The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed today the murder conviction of Jack Ruby, who was sentenced to death in 1964 for the slaying of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President Kennedy. In addition, the court ordered the case transferred out of Dallas County, where the shooting took place. Presiding Judge W.A. Morrison said Ruby should not have been tried there. The main opinion…said that the trial should not have allowed testimony that Ruby had told a Dallas police officer shortly after Oswald’s shooting that he had planned to kill Oswald if the chance arose.”…Page 2: “‘War Crimes’ Trial May Not Be Held In Paris”…”The planned Vietnam ‘war crimes’ trial of President Johnson has been running into trouble with French officialdom and may be shifted from Paris. At a meeting today with the group organized by Bertrand Russell, 94-year old British philosopher, it was suggested that the mock trial would be held in London in stead of Paris.”… Page 3: “The Number Of U.S. Troops In South Vietnam” rose to 321,500 with the arrival of a 4,000-man brigade of the Fourth Infantry Division at Nha Trang and the division at full strength (14,500). Air activity announced by briefing officers included a strike by B-57 Canberra bombers at North Vietnamese positions in the DMZ near Laos. Pilot stated that they had destroyed or damaged 25 structures.”…

Page 12: “North Korea Bids Reds Back Hanoi”…”Premier Kim Il-song of North Korea urged all socialist countries today to send volunteers to Vietnam to resist the United States. He made this remark in a speech to the opening session of the North Korean Communist Party conference in Pyongyang. The speech was monitored in Tokyo…

Kim Il-song: “In the light of the situation where the U.S. imperialists are expanding aggression against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam by bringing in troops of their subordinate countries and puppets, every socialist country should dispatch volunteers to Vietnam. We are preparing to send our volunteers to join the Vietnamese brothers and sisters in their battle whenever requested by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam…At present the countries of the socialist camp are not keeping step with each other in opposing U.S. aggression and aiding the Vietnamese people because of differences among themselves. This affects the fighting people of Vietnam and really saddens us communists.’…”

6 October 1966: The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized)… North Korea: In a “plague on both your houses” speech yesterday, Premier Kim Il-song rounded on the Soviet Union and Communist China. Implying they were equally guilty of sacrificing the interests of other Communist states in their feud, Kim hit the Russians for backsliding “weakness against imperialism” and the Chinese for pretensions to be “the center of world revolution.” For several years, Kim has maneuvered between the two Communist giants but this is his most striking bid yet to set North Korea on an independent course between Moscow and Peking.

6 October 1966…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT (no report)…

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson)… Three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 6 October 1966…

(1) LT R.D. LEACH was flying an F-8E of the VF-162 Hunters embarked in USS Oriskany escorting a VFP-63 photo reconnaissance aircraft on a mission that included the Hon Gay harbor. LT LEACH’s aircraft developed a fuel system problem that required he bingo immediately. The flight was 70 miles south of Hon Gay when the F-8 flamed out before LT LEACH could link up with a tanker. He ejected and was rescued by a Navy helicopter. The lost F-8 was the aircraft flown by Commander Hal Marr of VF-111 on 12 June 1966 when he shot down two MIGs… Deep six for a great potential museum aircraft…sigh…

(2) CAPTAIN G. D. RIPPEY and CAPTAIN LOUIS FRANK MAKOWSKI were flying a B-57B of the 8th TBS and 355th FW out of Danang and were awaiting a target assignment in the DMZ when hit by ground fire that resulted in a flaming empennage and immediate ejection. Both aviator made good landings in the DMZ. CAPTAIN RIPPEY was rescued by Jolly Green, but CAPTAIN MAKOWSKI landed amid enemy troops and was captured. He was returned from POW duty in Operation Homecoming in March 1973… (there is a good story in this happenstance)… Fate, always Fate…

(3) 1LT ROBERT MICHAEL GILCHRIST and 1LT EUGENE MATTHEW PABST were flying an F-4C of the 497th TFS and 8th TFW out of Ubon on a Night Owl mission north of Dong Hoi. Their aircraft was hit by ground fire recovering from a weapons delivery attack on a truck park 25 miles north west of Dong Hoi and crashed without either aviator ejecting. 1LTs GILCRIST and PABST were Killed in Action and gave their lives for their country fifty years ago on this date. Young. Gone. Remembered with sadness– Left behind??   

RIPPLE SALVO… #219… “THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR VICTORY”…OR IS THERE? … Your Humble Host presents an essay from the 4 October 1966 NYT Editorial Pages that is timeless. I am reminded of a poker axiom: “You gotta’ know when to hold ’em, and you gotta’ know when to fold ’em.” The United Stats spent most of 1966 desperately seeking a negotiated end of our participation in the Vietnam War. There just wasn’t any give on either side of the table. Hardball, both sides. Neither side could win, and both sides knew it–in 1966. At this point we had lost 5,000 good men in the undeclared war, and 53,000 more would die before we withdrew. What a painful lesson. A lesson that gave birth to one of the essential criteria to answer before you make the decision to go to war– declared or undeclared: HAVE AN EXIT PLAN…

I received a comment from a flight instructor in 1957 explaining two below average marks on a training flight: “BA, Air discipline –student talks to himself.”…”BA, Headwork– student doesn’t listen to himself.” That’s the case with our Presidents. They know from our nation’s experience that getting out of a war is a lot harder than getting in one, yet, here we are mired in Afghanistan and Iraq and setting new records for longest war in our history. Dubious honor. No exit plan going in equals: “President doesn’t listen to himself.”

October 1966 or October 2016… the great dilemma: how do we get out of this mess??? Here is the New York Times: I quote…

“A Halt To the Bombs”… Communist politics and the possibility–however slight–of approaching a negotiated end to the war in Vietnam suggest that this would be a good moment to have a long pause in the bombing of North Vietnam. But in the tough, primitive logic of war–crushing the enemy by superior force– this would be a good moment to escalate the bombing, says former Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis Lemay. And former President Eisenhower adds a shocking idea that he believes the United States should be willing to use “any means, including nuclear weapons,” to win this war.

Military leaders since the dawn of history, have employed a seemingly unanswerable logic: “There is no substitute for victory” — and the surest way to win is to destroy your enemy. Life and war are no longer so simple. Political factors can be– and in the case of Vietnam, they are– at least as important as military factors.

The two previous bombing pauses–five days in May 1965 and 37 days as 1965 ended and this year began– evoked no positive response from Hanoi whatsoever. But the climate has changed. World Communism is almost unanimously against Peking. The Chinese are in the midst of a great internal upheaval. Hanoi has an unusual degree of freedom of action at a time when Peking would be more than anxious to avoid war with the United States.

On its part, Washington has been emphasizing peaceful desires and not warlike intentions. President Johnson’s spokesman at the United Nations, Ambassador Goldberg showed how far the Administration is from the concept held in some quarters of seeking a purely military vicory and beating North Vietnam almost into insensibility so that it would crawl to the negotiating table. In pursuance of this American peace offensive at the United Nations a consideration of Hanoi’s position indicates that this is a time for Washington to exercise patience. North Vietnam cannot know what is going to come of Secretary McNamara’s trip to South Vietnam, or of the Manila Conference late this month, or the American elections. This is a baffling period for Ho Chi Minh and his associates. A halt in the bombing of the North would be the strongest possible proof in action, as distinct from words, that the United States is seeking an honorable peaceful settlement rather than a military victory.

As things are going now, the course of the war is steadily upward. General Eisenhower with his calmly terrible statement about nuclear bombs, showed how far up it could go if President Johnson does not take positive, unilateral action to reverse the present trend.   … unquote…

In October 1966 President Johnson had three choices: (1) escalate (2) steady as she goes or (3) pause it… He chose steady as she goes.  The same choices will face President Obama’s replacement in January with respect to our future courses in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the whole mid-east, NATO, and the South China Sea. The new executive will inherit a bad hand… Hold ’em, fold ’em, or bluff??? History is the teacher… I know what I would advise, but feel certain the new Prez won’t be coming to Utah to get a new set of steaming orders…

Lest we forget….      Bear           ………  –30–  ……….