RIPPLE SALVO… #595… “THE VIETNAM DISSENT”… a house divided… Dr. Spock: “Johnson is the enemy.”…NYT: Posts a hand wringing sermon of empty gobbledegook that says: We need a strategy that could unite the nation, a strategy now nowhere to be seen… but first…

Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED NINETY-FIVE of another look at a brutal chapter of American and world history from the perspective of 50 years later…

22 October 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on great fall Sunday in New York City and in D.C. for a historic event…

Page 1: “NATIONAL GUARD REPULSES WAR PROTESTERS AT THE PENTAGON–6 BREAK THROUGH LINE INTO BUILDING–NORMAN MAILER AND DAVID DELINGER ARE ARRESTED–250 SEIZED IN CLASHES–Spock Tells Demonstrators at Lincoln Memorial That Johnson Is Real ‘Enemy’...”… “Thousands of demonstrators stormed the Pentagon Saturday after a calm rally and march by some 50,000 persons opposed to the war in Vietnam. The protesters twice breached the lines of deputy Federal marshalls backed by soldiers armed with bayonet-tipped rifles.”… Page 1: “1,000 At Vigil Here In New York Support GIs–Battery Park Rally Will Last 31-Hours–Motorists In City Turn On Headlights During Daylight To Show Support”… Page 58: “Thousands Abroad Score U.S. In Protests Over Vietnam War”… OpEds: Reston: “Everyone is a Loser”… Sulzberger: “The Mirror of Vietnam: The Myth and Reality of American Power.” New York Times Magazine: Page 22: Neil Sheehan: “You Don’t Know Where Johnson Ends and McNamara Begins”…

Page 1: “Egypt’s Missiles Sink a Destroyer of Israeli Navy–2500-Ton Elath Struck On Patrol Off Sinai–Appeal For Rescue Is Issued–Many Said to be Saved–Cairo Reports 2nd Ship Hit in Same Area But Israelis Deny Further Incident”... Page 1: “War Compromise Ruled Out By Giap–Hanoi General Says U.S. Bombers Won’t Force Talks”... “…any form of compromise with the United States in the Vietnam war was ruled out today by General Vo Nguyen Giap of North Vietnam.”…Page 3: “South Vietnamese Vote For Lower House–1200 Vying for 137 seats–Turnout Appears Light–South Vietnamese Vote For Fifth Time in 14-Months”… Page 1: “112 Major Corporations Would Build in Slums if Decay Is Halted”... “More than 100 of the nation’s 700 major corporations questioned by a leading consulting company have indicated a willingness to build new plants in or near slum areas. Page 30: “Detroit Race Forum Sees New Crisis”... “Apprehension and a sense of urgency were prominent today at a 2 and one half day symposium on race relations at Wayne University.”… NCAA Football: “Alabama, Purdue Upset, Tide Bows, 24-13–Loss to Tennessee Ends It’s 25-game Unbeaten String”… “Tennessee team led by third-string quarterback Bubba Wyche… Al Dorsey intercepted three of Alabama’s Ken Stabler passes in the final eight minutes.”…

22 OCTOBER 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (23 Oct reporting 22 Oct ops)… Page 1: “Enemy Naval Base Hit For the First time…after a four-day pause caused by weather…

“United States jet fighter-bombers, returning to the Haiphong area yesterday after a four-day pause enforced by weather, bombed the North Vietnamese Navy’s Nuidong base for the first time in the war, the American command reported today. the pilots reported destroying at least one torpedo boat at the base seven miles northeast of the city in raids that also hit railroad yards, a drydock, an oil dump and antiaircraft gun sites. Fires engulfed the city, the command said.

“The strikes were the first against Haiphong since last Wednesday, when Typhoon Carla struck the Red River Valley of north Vietnam and covered the Haiphong area with heavy clouds and rain. The United States command said Navy F-4 Phantom and F-8 Crusader jets took part in the missions yesterday. (So were dozens of A-4 Skyhawks, see Hobson below)

“The Nuidong navy base is a haven for torpedo boats that patrol the waters around the vital port, which is a major funnel for war supplies reaching North Vietnam from other Communist nations. The pilots reported heavy destruction at the base and at a fuel storage area nearby, which services the torpedo vessels. The Americans also bombed the main Haiphong railway yards, 1.7 miles from the point regarded as the center of the city. The pilots said they left the target covered with smoke that rose a mile high. The yards were first hit on September 12 in the intensifying campaign to isolate Haiphong. The United States command said bombs and rockets had destroyed three antiaircraft emplacements protecting Haiphong and heavily damaged four others.”

“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 22 October 1967...

(1) LTJG JAMES EDWARD DOOLEY was flying an A-4E of the VA-163 Saints embarked in USS Oriskany and participated in a major air wing strike on the Haiphong railway yard. LTJG DOOLEY was hit by antiaircraft fire in his attack and subsequently was observed streaming fuel as his aircraft made a gentle turning descent into the sea at the mouth of the Cua Cam River. There was no parachute or beeper, or rescue effort. It is presumed that the young warrior was incapacitated by the enemy fire and was killed in action carrying the fight to our nation’s enemy in their heartland. LTJG DOOLEY perished on the battlefield fifty years ago this day and rests where he fell, left behind–but not forgotten.  This was the 24th aircraft lost by CVW-16 on this deployment.

RIPPLE SALVO… #585… NEW YORK TIMES… 22 October 1967… Page 7E…  “THE VIETNAM DISSENT”…

“Yesterday’s peace demonstration in Washington and the reservations on Vietnam policy expressed at the National’s Governors Conference indicate the wide range of domestic dissent over America’s most divisive foreign war.

“Within the country, violent emotions are stirred by the activities of the peace movement–whose members are themselves divided, with some groups abstaining from the weekend convergence on the capital. Epithets such as ‘conspiracy,’ ‘human insects’ and ‘agents of death’ have been used in Congress this past week to condemn activities which, its argued, encourage North Vietnam and lengthen the war.

“In Hanoi, where officials are unlikely to exaggerate the importance of mass demonstrations as compared with top-level political maneuvering, this Politburo probably has been more impressed by the refusal of Republican Governors to repeat their past endorsement of Administration policy on Vietnam.

“For Americans, the question of whether or not dissent benefits Vietnam’s Communists is one that must-and can–be faced. Ambassador Goldberg, defending not only the right to dissent but of ‘orderly protest’ through demonstrations, stated the case eloquently last week.

” ‘National debate on Vietnam is inevitable, desirable and indeed essential. We are dealing with a great question of war and peace–a question which, in this nuclear age, can affect our very survival…If America’s enemies regard free debate in our midst as a sign of weakness, they must not have studied history–and they are very much mistaken. It is not a weakness; it is a great strength. And as history has amply demonstrated, such debate does not in the least prevent this great country from making effective decisions and bringing its power and influence to bear in support of them.’

“Hanoi’s strategy is probably influenced to some degree by the internal American debate, but to a much smaller extent than Washington tends to assert when it is pressing for more effusive public support. North Vietnam’s leaders know that no significant segment of the American people favors unilateral withdrawal. They undoubtedly are influenced far more by the military and political facts of life on the ground in South Vietnam–and by the failure of American bombers to curtail their war effort–than by the range of issues debated in the United States.

“The real issue is not whether there should be public debate in the United States, for, indeed, there is no way in which it can be avoided. Nor can the pollsters be stopped from sounding–and publishing–the opinions of those who make no public protest.

“Instead of injunctions against dissent, the challenge for the Administration is to shape a strategy for bringing the war to a horrible end, a strategy that could unite the nation in large part. In such a strategy, now nowhere to be seen,  the use of military force would be treated not as offering a route to an illusory victory, but as a subordinate instrument designed to aid achievement of a political solution in what is essentially a Vietnamese political conflict.

“There must be a willingness to reach accommodation that reflects the military and political realities in South Vietnam, rather than persistence toward the impossible goal of using arms to destroy the Vietcong as an organized political force. Such a strategy would unite the bulk of world opinion as well as domestic opinion behind American policy. It would place Hanoi and the Vietcong under maximum pressure to negotiate a settlement. And by this shift of emphasis from the military to the political challenge, it would offer greater hope for shortening the war.”

RTR QUOTE for 22 October: Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Taylor, 1798: “An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town-meeting or a vestry.”

Lest we forget….    Bear