RIPPLE SALVO… #343… A 50-YARD LINE SEAT FOR A FOGGY BOTTOM FUMBLE...but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED FORTY-THREE of a treasure hunt for the truth about OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… and finding nuggets, or is it fool’s gold?
11 FEBRUARY 1967… HEAD LINES and notes from The New York Times on a cloudy Saturday with snow a-comin’…
Page 1: “U.S. Seeks to Shift Soviet Pressure on Talks To Hanoi”...”The Johnson Administration tightened the definition of its negotiation position on Vietnam this week because it wished to deflect the diplomatic pressures of the Soviet Union, Britain and other potential negotiators back toward Hanoi. That intention was explicitly reflected in official appraisals here of the worldwide diplomatic activity on Vietnam over the last two months and of the discussions in London between Prime Minister Wilson and Premier Aleksei Kosygin. President Johnson and his advisors are said to have concluded that the Soviet leaders had not revived their interest in helping to arrange a settlement. But the American officials also concluded that the Russians had not yet fully tested their influence in Hanoi, apparently because they were misjudging the United States terms for an end of the bombing of North Vietnam. In other words, the U.S. will not be moved until North Vietnam promises a reciprocal military reduction.”…
Page 1: “Goldberg Decries Hanoi Ambiguity”... “Arthur J. Goldberg (U.S. Delegate to the U.N.) called on North Vietnam today to resolve the ‘ambiguity’ in its peace proposals, to help clear the way for a settlement of the war in Vietnam. ‘The United States approach to negotiations is flexible,’ the American Delegate to the United Nations asserted in a speech at Howard University…’To resolve the obstacles to peace the first and essential prerequisite is the will to resolve them–not by traditional surrender or by the definition of terms, but through the process of mutual accommodation where nobody’s vital interests are injured. We and our allies do not ask our adversaries to accept a pre-condition to discussions or negotiations, any point of ours to which they may have objections. We do not ask that of Hanoi–and progress toward settlement will be facilitated if Hanoi does not ask it of us.’ …’we are prepared to go to the conference table as soon as…our adversaries are prepared to join us.’ “…
HUMBLE HOST COMMENTS: The SUNFLOWER peace initiative coincided with the Tet truce stand-down February 8-12, a 96-hour cease-fire that included no bombing of North Vietnam. Prime Minister Wilson of Britain was presenting the American side in the discussions in London and Kosygin of the Soviet was purportedly representing the North Vietnam conditions for a pause in the fighting to talk about where to go from there. The front page of the New York Times reflects the U.S. State Department explanation of what was happening in the SUNFLOWER peace initiative. I am posting four documents, Top Secret then in 1967, unclassified and available in the State Department Office of the Historian now, for your information. It is a fast and furious flurry of memo passing as the whole initiative caved in. This set of documents, all originated on 11 February 1967, fifty years ago today, is also very informative of how the State Department does business in Foggy Bottom. For your reading pleasure:
THE 11 FEB 1967 SUNFLOWER DOCUMENTS (4)…
(1) #58… Memorandum from Secretary of State Rusk to the President (Resumption of Operations Against Viet-Nam Over the Next Two Days)…at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d58
(2) #59… Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom (Secretary of State Response to Prime Minister Wilson…”As you know, we did not want to make any commitments to extend the Tet bombing stand-down. You also know that our basic position remains not to stop bombing in return for mere willingness to talk.”)…at… <https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d59>
(3) #62… Memorandum From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Wheeler) to Secretary of Defense McNamara (Resumption of Offensive Operations against North Vietnam……”In summation of the foregoing, I wish to register my belief that there is danger that the Soviets and the British for their own reasons, mot necessarily the same, will attempt to delay, obstruct, and obfuscate the resumption of our offensive operations against North Vietnam.”… )…at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d62
(4) #63… Memorandum for the Record (author: Chester Cooper- Embassy in London) “This is an attempt to reconstruct the content and mood of the meeting last night at Downing Street.”(This is a fun read: …”the atmosphere was tense, and when the British read the message explaining the shift in tenses, It became even more so. Wilson said he could only conclude that Washington knew what it was doing but did not wish to keep the British informed, or that Washington was consciously trying to lead him up the garden path by tightening it negotiations posture while letting the British to proceed on the basis of an assumption that Washington was in fact ready to reach a settlement. Wilson in short felt that he had been made a fool of by Washington and that his credibility …was now badly damaged.”) … at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d63
11 February 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… stand-down from offensive operations… No coverage in NYT… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) One fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 11 February 1967…
(1) LTJG T.F. CARRIER was flying an F-8E of the VF-51 Screaming Eagles embarked in USS Hancock and during the night recovery from a Combat Air Patrol mission struck the ramp of the carrier landing area shearing the main landing gear. The pilot was back on the schedule the next day…
RIPPLE SALVO… #343… On 11 February 1967 I was at Yankee Station on USS Enterprise lounging in the VA-113 Stingers Ready Room awaiting a decision to bomb or not to bomb… a decision was made , the ordnance guys took off the Mk-82 and my wingman and I were launched on a “training flight.” Practiced plugs on the tanker and spent an hour playing tag with little white puffies all over the Gulf of Tonkin… No green ink on 11 February… The war resumes tomorrow…and the bad guys will be well rested, rearmed to the teeth and ready to make it extra interesting for the diving fighter-bombers, as they always did the few days immediately after a stand-down… oohrah…
The hope for peace negotiations in 1967 was gone..evaporated…fumbled away…
CAG’s Quote for 11 February: Fred the Great: “Always attempt the unexpected.” (The daily Patton quote has been redacted as inappropriate for this forum)…
Lest we forget…. Bear