Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #184… UNDERSTANDING McNAMARA… but first..
Good Morning: Day ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-FOUR of remembering the events of the air war over North Vietnam…
1 SEPTEMBER 1966… THE FRONT PAGE ON THE HOME FRONT…NYT… A fair and warm Thursday on Wall Street…
Page 1: “Johnson Favors Ending 7% Credit For Investment”…”President Johnson has made an almost final decision to include a temporary repeal of the special tax credit on business investment if he seeks any kind of tax increase this year…Officials who have not been involved in the intense policy decisions of recent days on the whole tax question say that the President has ordered the Treasury department to proceed with drafting legislation that would suspend the 7 per cent investment credit, on the assumption that it would be included in any tax increase bill…any tax increase would be aimed at restraining inflation and the current high and rising level of interest rates.”… Page 1: “Conferees Agree On Minimum Wage”…”Senate and House Conferees agreed today on a minimum wage bills that the Administration described as ‘highly satisfactory.’ The conference committee meeting to adjust differences in bills passed by the Senate and the House gave the Administration victories on all major issues in dispute. One involved the effective date for an increase to $1.60 per hour in the minimum wage, which is now $1.25. The conferees approved February 1, 1968, the date proposed by the President and accepted by the Senate. The House had voted for an effective date of February 1, 1969.”…
Page 1: “British Airlines With 117 Crashes In Yugoslavia Field”…”A Britannia airliner carrying 110 vacationing British and a crew of seven crashed as it approached Ljubljana airport in Northern Yugoslavia last night…The turboprop airlines is owned by Britannia Airways…First reports said 92 persons were believed killed but as later report said as many as 40 survived. The plane crashed two miles from the airport.”… Page 1: “DeGaulle Terms U.S. Pullout Key To Vietnam Peace”…”President DeGaulle said today that the United States must agree to withdraw its forces from Vietnam before a negotiated settlement of the war is possible. Speaking before 60,000 Cambodians in the Phnom Penh stadium, the French President said: ‘The possibilities, and even more, the opening of such a vast and different negotiations (to end the war) would obviously depend on the decisions and the commitment that enter into, to repatriate its forces in an appropriate and fixed period of its forces in an appropriate and fixed period of time.’… President DeGaulle met with a North Vietnamese diplomat yesterday and sounded him out on Hanoi’s view of the war. But President DeGaulle gave no indication in his speech whether his call for the United States to agree on a withdrawal timetable was based on anything the North Vietnamese told him. Previously Hanoi has insisted hat the United States withdraw its troops from South Vietnam before negotiations can begin. DeGaulle said: ‘No matter how long the war goes on, France is certain that it will meet with no military solution. Short of the universe rolling over toward catastrophe, a political agreement alone can bring back peace.’…”
Page 1: “The Warren Report Is Banned In Soviet”…”The Soviet Government has ordered the United States Embassy in Moscow to halt distribution of a Russian language edition of the Warren Commission Report…The Soviet action, together with recent hints suggested the Kremlin was mounting a campaign to challenge the reports veracity, and by innuendo, to implicate President Johnson in the assassination of President Kennedy.”... Page 3: “House Panel Votes Curb On War Foes”…”The House Rules Committee approved a bill today aimed at the activities of some anti-war groups that have tried to block United States troop trains and ship blood and medical supplies to the Vietcong…Chairman of the House Un-American activities said the bill was aimed ‘at overt acts against our government and has nothing to do with the right of protest, the right of free speech, the right to remonstrate, and the right to demonstrate.’…”
Page 6: “Nixon Tells American Legion Convention Vietnam War May Last 5 Years”…”Richard M. Nixon told the 48th annual American Legion Convention today that those who predict the Vietnam War will end in 2 or 3 years are smoking opium or taking LSD. The former Vice President said that the bombing of Hanoi and other important targets would not end the war and could possibly widen it. He described the war as the most unpopular war in American history.”…
1 September 1966…The President’s Daily Briefing… CIA (TS sanitized)…United Nations…U Thant’s decision not to seed a new term as secretary general leaves a wide-open field for possible successors since no strong candidate has emerged. Several Latin Americans have been mentioned, and there is some sentiment among African delegations to press for an African candidate. Close associates of U Thant testify to the sincerity of his desire to withdraw from his post. However, he may be willing to serve ad interim until a successor can be found. That search could be long and arduous….South Vietnam…South Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Do was so hopping mad over DeGaulle’s Phnom Phen speech that he called in foreign correspondents to give them the benefit of “a few choice thoughts.” Among other things, he defended the US presence in Vietnam and noted acidly that it had been France–not the US–that had sought to re-impose colonial domination after World War II.
1 SEPTEMBER 1966…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT… Page 3: “In the air United States planes hammered targets in both North and South Vietnam. B-52 bombers again bombed suspected infiltration routes through the six mile wide demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam. The raid by the eight engine jets was their fifth there since July 30. Detailed accounts of the days operations, delayed as usual for one day, showed that the United States lost two planes, a two seated Air Force F-4 jet and the Navy RF-8 Crusader (Tucker) announced yesterday. The Phantom was a 349th plane officially listed as destroyed over the North. It crashed northwest of Dong Hoi, not far from an ammunition depot that was raided. The two crew are listed as missing.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) Page 72: Three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 1 September 1966…
(1) MAJOR NORMAN SCHMIDT was flying an F-104C of the 435th TFS and 8th TFW out of Udorn on an armed reconnaissance mission 25 miles northwest of Dong Hoi. MAJOR SCHMIDT was hit by AAA pulling off a strafing attack on a truck park and he was able to keep the aircraft flying another ten miles to the west before he had to eject. A major rescue effort failed to locate MAJOR SCHMIDT, who was captured and interned in the infamous Hoa Lo prison, the Hilton Hanoi, where he perished as a consequence of harsh interrogation by his guards (August 1967?). In March 1974 his remains were returned to the United States. MAJOR SCHMIDT was Killed in Action and he died defying the enemy. What an honorable warrior was this brave officer…
(2) and (3)…MAJOR HUBERT CAMPBELL NICHOLS and CAPTAIN A. l. MINNICK were flying A-1Es of the 602nd ACS and 14th ACW out of Udorn but operating on this date out of Nakhon Phanom and were responding to the search and rescue effort for MAJOR SCHMIDT. After a period of holding east of the search area they were cleared in under a low overcast to continue a thus far fruitless search. Both aircraft were hit by intense ground fire. CAPTAIN MINNICK lost sight ot MAJOR NICHOLS as he turned toward NKP. His aircraft became uncontrollable short of NKP and he bailed out and was rescued. A subsequent SAR effort for MAJOR NICHOLS sighted the wreckage of his aircraft but with no contact with the downed aviator, the search was suspended. Apparently, MAJOR NICHOLS was Killed in Action and perished in the crash, however the record doesn’t reflect any recovery of his remains…Left behind???…
RIPPLE SALVO… #184… “THE FOG OF WAR”… is the title of a film of Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara’s nine years in the Pentagon. The documentary is a 107-minute interview with Mr. McNamara that won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2003. I watched it again today. Mr. McNamara looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and spent. But his candor is extremely useful in a search for lessons learned from the Vietnam catastrophe that cost our nation the lives of 58,000 warriors and the lives of more than three million Vietnamese people. When film critics Ebert and Roeper viewed this film back in 2002 they gave it “two thumbs up” and commented that they hoped “someone in the White House looks at this film now.” To which I say: both of the Presidential candidates need to take a couple hours to listen to McNamara’s “voice of experience.” In addition, one or more of the network moderators at one of the Clinton-Trump debates would do well to use the Vietnam experience to compose and fire some direct darts at the candidates that test their knowledge of one of the saddest and darkest chapters in American history. In “Fog of War” Mr. McNamara shares eleven lessons he learned during his term as SecDef. He says this film is “an appeal to learn from mistakes–including mine.” He zeros in on several of the contentious decisions he made in Vietnam and identifies the errors of his ways. He admits the fallacy of thought behind some of his decisions, and the President’s as well. The 58,000 courageous men who gave their lives for their country in Vietnam deserve a few hours of our next President’s attention and I don’t believe there is a better place to make their ultimate sacrifice mean something than to absorb the candor of Mr. McNamara in “Fog of War.” Then go for a slow solo walk in Arlington National Cemetery and let the eleven lessons sink in…
Lest we forget…. Bear ……… –30– ……….
Bear:
Great comment. Those who have seen war know the bravery and the horror.
Fred