RIPPLE SALVO… #85…The Air Plan for the Summer of ’66…
Good Morning: Day EIGHTY-FIVE of a review of the “air war” over North Vietnam…
23 MAY 1966…ON THE HOME FRONT… (NYT)…A sunny Monday on the East Coast…
Page 1: “Dissidents Yield To Ky In Danang”…and surrender their arms–stacked them to make it easy. More than 600 civilian dissidents and not so loyal troops gave up without a fight when faced with determined Ky troops and eleven armored vehicles. The dissidents cleared the Buddhist pagoda where they had been resisting since March. More than 600 were taken prisoner…Meanwhile, an angry Buddhist mob in Saigon stopped and burned a government gas truck and the angry truck driver came out shooting and killed a South Vietnamese soldier…
Page 1: Neil Sheehan reporting from Danang wrote; “Leaders of the Buddhist and military opposition to the Ky regime in Hue, whose position is rapidly deteriorating, offered today to negotiate peace with Government commanders here if the United States would sponsor the talks.” The government junta declined to negotiate and pressed their call to the dissidents and officials to surrender by tomorrow or be considered deserters (in time of war, a capital punishment). However, by surrendering by the deadline they were promised no punishment. Marine General Lewis Walt offered to facilitate talks between Ky and the Buddhists, but was advised by the U.S. ambassador that there was to be no “American sponsorship.”…In the war 228 Vietcong were reported killed in to fire fights, one south of Danang and the other in the Delta. In the last eleven days the South Vietnamese troops have killed a total of 800 Vietcong in eight major battles.
Page 8: “Pope Paul Warns Of Marxist Peril”…Calls the ideology “a blindness for which man will atone.”…”The Roman Catholic Church does not and cannot support the blindness of atheistic Marxist ideology.” Reporters labeled the Pope’s remarks “a sharp attack on Communism.”
(Gee… cast ahead 50 years and the Pope of 2016 has another view of Communism)…
PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF…23 MAY 1966…CIA(TS sanitized) … South Vietnam: Anti-government resistance in DaNang has crumbled. Ky intends to put pressure on Hue. Ky told Lodge he would offer amnesty for those who surrender. Tri Quang, Buddhist leader of dissidents in I Corps, is upset with Counsel and is accusing Americans of being in full support of Ky and Thieu….Memorandum for The Record: ChiComs leaked that Soviet Military aid to NVN last year (1965) was 43,000 tons…Tri Quang has threatened ‘direct action’ against U.S. Consulate…Tabled a memo on MIG shootdown of 12 May…DCI requests staus of cahe of captured VC records for exploitation..(note: the MFRs were also TS sanitized in 2015)…
23 MAY 1966…ROLLING THUNDER OPERATIONS… (NYT 24 May reporting ops 23 May)…”the skies over North Vietnam cleared considerably yesterday and U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots flew 49 multi-sortie missions. Air Force F-105D pilots attacked a bridge and railroad yard at Thainguyen, 36 miles north of Hanoi… Two Navy aircraft lost on the day…
(1) ENSIGN K.W. LEUFFEN, flying an A-4C of the VA-36 Road Runners and USS Enterprise was hit by AAA as he rolled in on the railroad bridge at Dong Khe 23 miles north of Vinh. He continued his attack and on recovery his flight lead reported ENSIGN LEUFFEN’s A-4 was streaming fuel. He successfully refueled on the 230 mile return trip to Enterprise and commenced his emergency recovery. Unfortunately, the engine quit on final approach and he ejected at about 350-feet. He got a few swings in his parachute and was subsequently rescued to fight another day…. oohrah… (“I’m hit, but I am rolling in anyway.”) All Hail, the Ensign!!!!
(2) LT L.S. MILLER, flying an F-8E of VF-211 and USS Hancock was hit by ground fire on an armed reconnaissance mission seven miles north of Ha Tinh and immediately turned to toward the Gulf with his burning aircraft. He stayed with it until he was feet wet and about a mile off-shore ejected and was successfully rescued by a Navy SAR helicopter.
RIPPLE SALVO… The Rolling Thunder Plan for Summer 1966…”Meet the Press” on Sunday 22 May… 50-Years Ago …
The ink was hardly dry on the memorandum to the President reporting the results of two months of massaging the next Rolling Thunder program by scores of sworn secret keepers protecting the product of their labors in white noised and super secure spaces, when the Secretary of the Air Force showed up on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to say: ” The U.S. will continue to bar bombing in and near Hanoi.” Secretary Harold Brown said “the President has ruled out an expanded list of targets in the North. The argument has been resolved in favor of those who oppose expansion of the air war in NVN.” He said the large dangers and small benefits outweigh the value of attacking targets that up to now have been spared. NYT writer Richard Eger wrote: “The Joint Chiefs of Staff are reported to have pressed for the destruction of the fuel depots arguing that this would be an important check on the supplying of north Vietnamese forces in the South.” The NYT article (page 4 of May 23) went on: “…the bombing of the North had set an upper limit on the flow of men and material to the South but had not cut it off.”
Secretary Brown: “At the present, the decision, which is a decision of the Commander-in-Chief, is not to expand targets and the reason, I think, is very clear. It doesn’t do very much good to win one war and find yourself in a much bigger one.”
Did not matter… the Secretary of State was among the Principals who provided inputs (and outputs?) to the plans as they were developed.
Lest we forget… Bear