RIPPLE SALVO… #593… “PARATROOPERS AND PEACE”… A short piece from the Editorial page of the NYT on Saturday morning, 21 October 1967, the day of the largest antiwar demonstration in the history of our country…

“Arrival in Washington of the 82nd Airborne Division which in another generation valiantly parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, to guard the Pentagon against anti-Vietnam war demonstrators is a sad, ironic footnote to our times. The Federal Government, of course, has a basic obligation to see that the permit for lawful protest is not violated, that properly is protected.

“But both sides–demonstrating students and civilians under arms–must be acutely aware that neither is the enemy. It will be totally unnecessary for paratroopers or police or demonstrators to provoke each other, in the exercise either of duty or of self-expression today–and it will be tragic it they do.

“The demonstrators will be betraying their own ideals if they follow those extremists who would deliberately turn this rally into a field of violence. And for paratroopers and police, restrain is equally essential, in the interests of both democracy and peace.”…

Ripple Salvo #593 will expand on the limits of dissent, which is a right in a free society. But when civil disobedience becomes uncivil–when the resistance takes the form of violence and lawlessness–the Government must stand firm against the uncivil disobedience… but first…

Good Morning. Day FIVE HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE of a 1,000 day (Blog) return to the years of Operation Rolling Thunder…

Page 1:”Troops Flown In For Capital Rally–Will Enforce Terms of The Antiwar Protest Permit”... “The U.S. Government today issued a permit for the planned antiwar protest demonstration here in Washington this weekend and began flying paratroop units of the 82nd Airborne Division into Washington to enforce the permit’s terms… About 120 troops landed in the first transport from Fort Bragg.”… Page 1: (NYT, 21 Oct)…”Thousands Reach Capital to Protest Vietnam War”…”In brisk fall sunshine, thousands of demonstrators against the war in Vietnam began moving into the nation’s capital today while the Administration set in motion elaborated plans to prevent and confine any violence. The demonstrations–mostly young and of draft age, but many in middle life arrived in chartered buses and trains by driving or by hitchhiking. The sponsoring ‘National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam’–a coalition of roughly 150 organizations ranging from church groups to the Peking-oriented Progressive Labor party, could give no accurate estimate of how many thousands would demonstrate. Neither could the D.C. police.”... Page 1: “Pentagon Focus of Mass Protest–Demonstration Leaders Say Many Participants Nay Go Beyond Approved Limits”… Page 1: “Leaders of SANE Split On Leftists–14 Members of Board Ready to Quit Over Radical Link–Dr. Spock Assailed”… “The National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy is split by a dispute over whether to cooperate with extreme left-wing groups in its campaign against the war in Vietnam.”…Page 1: “Brooklyn Students Battle Police in Peace Protest–40 Arrested On Campus–Boycott at Madison, Wisconsin (University of Wisconsin)”...”A pushing, shoving, club swinging clash between students and the police erupted on the Brooklyn College campus yesterday during a demonstration to protest the appearance of two Navy recruiting officers… at its peak about 1,000 students and 200 policemen were involved in the battle on the normally tranquil Federal-style campus today after a riot yesterday when police attempted to break up demonstrations over job recruiters from Dow Chemical Company, manufacturer of Napalm in use in Vietnam.”... Page 4: “18 Seized In Chicago”... “Helmeted policemen clashed with about 100 chanting antiwar demonstrators today at Chicago’s military induction center. Eighteen youths, seven of them girls, were arrested.”…

Page 1: “WHITE HOUSE ASKS SENATE TO BLOCK CURB ON SPENDING–BUDGET DIRECTOR TELLS SENATE PANEL HOUSE MOVE COULD KILL OR CRIPPLE SOME NEW DEFENSE PROGRAMS–$8-BILLION IMPACT SEEN–MANSFIELD SAYS GROUP MAY SHELVE OR DILUTE MEASURE FORCING CUTS ON JOHNSON BUDGET”... The Johnson Administration is shaken by Congressional economy move, pleased today with the Senate to reverse a House action that could force Federal spending cutbacks of up to $8-billion.”… Page 1: “Mariner Five Passes Venus and Finds Magnetic Traces–Data Appears To Be In Conflict With Soviet Information–Full Report on Monday”… Information appears to contradict findings by Soviet Union capsule that landed on Venus yesterday.”…

20 October 1967 …Operation Rolling Thunder… New York Times (21 Oct reporting 20 Oct ops) Page 1: “Bad weather lingering after Typhoon Carla moved into China limited United States air strikes on North Vietnam to 51 missions, the lowest daily total since April. All were flown against targets in the southern section of North Vietnam.”….

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 20 October 1967…

RIPPLE SALVO… #593… In November 1967 The New York Times Magazine published a compendium of a essays from a dozen distinguished educators, scholars and writers who responded to the following questions: What  justifies an act of civil disobedience? What are, or should be, the limits of civil disobedience? Is civil disobedience justified in the case of Vietnam? The collection was published in the 26 November 1967 NYT. Humble Host will post several of these thoughtful responses on slow days of Rolling Thunder. 20 October was not only a slow day, but it was the eve of a historic day of civil disobedience as more than 40,000 (?) anti-Vietnam war demonstrators spent a weekend being seen and heard in the nation’s capital. The first in this series is by Professor of Philosophy, Doctor Sidney Hook of New York University (in 1967). The title of his response:

“A RIGHT WAY TO REMEDY A WRONG, A WRONG WAY TO SECURE A RIGHT”… (As valid in 2017 as it was in 1967)

“The right of dissent is integral to a free society, otherwise it lapses into tyranny. But there must be limits to dissent when it takes the form of action, otherwise the result is anarchy. Actions are civilly disobedient when they openly defy on grounds of conscience laws that have been sustained by the supreme legal authorities. To a democrat, resort to civil disobedience is never politically legitimate where methods of due process are available to remedy evils. If these remedies are unavailing and the issue appears of transcendental importance, a democrat may on moral or religious grounds resort to civil disobedience in the hope that he will open the minds of his fellow  citizens to second thoughts. In that case he must willingly accept his punishment. Otherwise he has abandoned his faith in democracy, and in effect acts as if he were at war against the democratic community. In that event the community has the duty to protect itself against him, and to constrain him if he resorts to warlike actions instead of argument.

“The limits of civil disobedience in a democracy begin when it becomes uncivil, when resistance to law, passive or active, takes the form of violence or has consequences leading to social chaos. This is the aim of those critics of American Vietnam policy who urge ‘resistance’ rather than ‘dissent.’ They often rationalize their resistance by denying that we live in a democratic society. Having failed to influence policy by rational means within the law, they seek to coerce the community by obstructive techniques outside the law. They scoff at majority rule which is necessary but not a sufficient condition of our Bill of Rights democracy.

“A free society can recognize and respect the scruples of a conscientious objector to war who civilly disobeys the law and accepts his punishment. But if he forcibly tries to prevent others from fulfilling their duty to their country he is neither a genuine pacifist nor a democrat.

“Some who have already gone beyond dissent to ‘resistance’ have shown by their actions that they nolonger believe in the democratic process. Whenever they have the power to do so, they deny to those who disagree with them the right to be heard, they disrupt meetings, threaten bodily harm to speakers, trespass and takeover public places and act more like Storm Troopers of the Communist squads that used to break up Socialist meetings.

“The law is not always wrong and the voice of conscience is not always right–especially when consciences conflict. If the dictate of a man’s conscience cannot withstand rational analysis and criticism by those who disagree with him, this is presumptive evidence of the unwisdom of acting on it. I don’t believe that civil disobedience with respect to American Vietnam policy, if one is opposed to it, is justified. The issues are not black and white, but large and complex, about which intelligent men of goodwill and character may differ. There are no easy solutions. All out escalation or scuttle and run are not the only alternatives to present policy.

“Those who practice resistance are encouraging the Hanoi regime to persist in its intransigent refuse to negotiate the issues. This is not the only factor, but it may be crucial in certain situations. The  practice of ‘resistance’ is self-defeating and therefore politically unintelligent. Public revulsion at its excesses will strengthen the hawks and build up popular support for them. It will also harden the resolution of present policy-makers.

“Resort to resistance creates a precedent which will have a pernicious effect on the quality of future public debate. The appeal to the streets and violent mass action will take the place of the appeal to evidence, good sense and common interest, on which a healthy democracy depends.

“By inspiring a backlash of reaction, resistance will make dissent more difficult, and tempt those who are sickened by civil disorder to support extreme measures of repression. Democracy in the long run is not visible unless its citizens recognize that there is a right way to remedy a wrong and a wrong way to secure a right.”

Humble Host offers the following from the 19 Oct 1967 President’s Daily Brief (PDB) as clear evidence of the linkage of the growing dissent and diminishing support for the war in the United States and the North Vietnam strategy for the conduct of the war. The war was a contest of wills. Rolling Thunder was the instrument selected to change the North Vietnamese behavior and deflate their will to resist, to win. Ho Chi Minh’s strategy was to wait for America to tire–for our will to fade. His barometer was the Gallup poll and the rising antiwar forces within the United States.

PDB (TS, President’s Eyes Only) North Vietnamese Reflections of US Political Attitudes On The War: Hanoi Reports Antiwar Activities of US Negroes: A Hanoi Vietnamese language broadcast of 15 October cites a US news article stating that the antiwar movement by US Negroes is developing on an “unprecedented scale.” The article asserts that “progressive” Negroes in the US have strengthened their relations with patriots in the US and the world, and that anti-draft movement among Negroes has caused draft officials to ignore hundreds of cases of refusal to submit to medical examinations for military service. In addition, the morale of Negroes serving in Vietnam is said to be very low. ….In the same PDB: Hanoi Comments on US Antiwar Pressures: Mai Van Bo, Hanoi’s man in Paris whose comments were summarized earlier in this paper, also had something to say about antiwar pressures in the US and free world. He said the war is less and less popular in the US and pointed to recent speeches in the United Nations as proof of “many countries demanding peace.” These factors, Bo went on, “create disquiet in the American electorate and lead to the conclusion that “some day Washington will give up.” Bo said the main Communist hope for eventual victory, however, lies in frustrating the military effort and in waiting “perhaps for a long to me,” for a political victory….

Lest we forget…    Bear