RIPPLE SALVO… #313… “THE ATTEMPT to DE-ESCALATE — JANUARY-JULY 1967… but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED THIRTEEN of a revisit to the air war fought 50 years ago over North Vietnam…
12 JANUARY… HEAD LINES IN AMERICA from the NEW YORK TIMES on a fair Friday full of little white puffy clouds…
Page 1: “Congress Likely to Delay Tax Bill Until the Spring”…”The state of the nation’s economy three or four months from now may provide the in for Congressional activity or inaction on President Johnson’s call for a 6-per cent surcharge on income taxes. Legislators, who will strongly influence and perhaps control the outcome, encouraged speculation along those lines today in private conversation at the capital… Page 1: “Stocks and Bonds Surge in Massive Trading Day”…”Stock and bond markets reacted dramatically to President Johnson’s State of the Union Message. The New York Stock Exchange, after a rocky opening that saw the Dow Jones industrial average drop 11.47 points turned around. The average closed with a gain of 8.35 points and turn over of 13.23 million shares. The third biggest trading volume in history.”… Page 1: “Sonic Booms Damage U.S. Parks” … “Sonic booms from military aircraft have caused damage to prehistoric cliff dwellings and geological formations in at least two national outdoor preserves…The National Park Service reported to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall on damage to cliff dwellings…in northern Arizonal and in Bryce Canyon in Utah… Mr. Udall said ‘the situation is disturbing’ because of the intrusion of the sonic boom on the fragile masterpieces of nature.” …
Page 1: “Peking demanding Action to Counter Sabotage”… “The Peking authorities conceded today that economic and political sabotage had been carried out by some Communist officials and workers trying to discredit Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s cultural revolution. The regime called on the nation in a special appeal to ‘take concerted action and beat back the new counterattack by opposition elements.’ “… Page 4: “Peking Reported Pushing Development of Missiles with Warheads”… “Communist China is placing considerable emphasis on large-scale production of weapons, particularly medium-range missiles that can deliver the atomic warheads it is developing, Congress was told today by the CIA.”… Page 7: “Hanoi Demands Thai Ban on U.S. Use of Bases”… “The North Vietnamese Foreign Minister has officially demanded that the Thai Government immediately stop granting the United States the use of air bases and withdraw Thai ‘mercenaries’ from South Vietnam.”…Page 12: “Syrian and Israeli Tanks Clash for Two Hours“…at Natrona, 15 miles north of the Sea of Galilee.”…
Page 1: “More Troops Join Allied Offensive”… “United States commanders reported ‘frequent contact with small groups’ today in the fourth day of Operation Cedar Falls, the largest single allied offensive of the war. Since Sunday…troops have killed 196 enemy soldiers.”…
12 January 1967…The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized)… COMMUNIST CHINA: Chinese military leaders are being drawn into the vortex. Yesterday it was announced that the army’s “cultural revolution group”–the organization created to purge it of untrustworthy elements– has itself been purged and reconstituted. Mao’s wife is listed as an advisor to the new group. This together with recent public attacks on several major military figures, confirms that the Mao-Lin Piao group doubts the loyalty of some elements of the military. The Mao-Lin Piao forces are evidently making concerted effort to rectify the situation. This may be easier said than done. The strength demonstrated in recent days by Mao’s and Lin Piao’s opponents in the party bureaucracy and perhaps elsewhere suggests that the struggle may well become more violent before a resolution is reached. Meanwhile, the return home of Chinese embassy personnel from posts in all parts of the world is reaching major proportions. So far well over 500 such people have left for China from posts in more than 30 countries…The most likely explanation is that they are in for screening and re-indoctrination in connection with the cultural revolution…
12 JANUARY 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (13 Jan reporting 12 Jan ops) Page 6. “Bad weather continued in North Vietnam limiting American pilots to 40 missions of 2 planes or more. Most of the missions were in the southern panhandle along the coast. In the two most northern strikes, Navy pilots attacked barges in the vicinity of Haiphong.”… (Battlecry 07: Flew a night Milky with 6-MK-81s)… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) One fixed wing aircraft was lost in Southeast Asia on 12 January 1967.
(1) An F-104C of the 352nd TFS and 8th TFW out of Udorn crashed on landing returning from a CAP mission. The pilot survived…
New York Times, 12 January 1967, Page 1, Harrison Salisbury reporting from Hong Kong:
“North Vietnamese Roads Come To Life at Night Fall”
“At 3 o’clock Friday morning across Long Bien Bridge in Hanoi, moved a procession of women, each with a bamboo pole on bowed shoulder and burden balanced on both ends. The women moved silently through the night with a delicate half step that carried them across the bridge. Occasionally they halted to rest. The burdens weighed 50 or 60 pounds. There was nothing unusual in the sight — nothing in Hanoi and North Vietnam, that is. All through the night people are carrying heavy burdens on their backs into and out of the city along the networks of roads and trails that thread through a maze of rice paddies and canals in the Red River delta, moving supplies south and food into the city…The movement goes on not only on the backs of women…goods move on bicycles.
“Toward dusk groups of 100 or 200 cyclists collect at various points in Hanoi and outside. There the burdens are put on bicycles up to 600-pounds per bike, and the bicycle caravans start out on their way through the darkness. With the coming of dusk, olive drab, jungle camouflaged trucks, topped off with brush and leaves, start rumbling our of Hanoi onto the southward trail and empty trucks begin moving back into the city having delivered their goods farther south.
“At night fall, the central railroad station of Hanoi comes alive and trains begin to pull out laden with people and freight. To a remarkable extent North Vietnam has become a night country. It is darkness that provides the greatest protection against American bombers, and it is the dark hours when movements of supplies and troops are carried out.
“Foreigners in Hanoi believe the North Vietnamese when they say they are prepared to sacrifice Hanoi, Haiphong, all their cities and towns rather than yield under American bomb power.”
RIPPLE SALVO… #313… “THE ATTEMPT TO DE-ESCALATE — JANUARY-JULY 1967” (The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Vol 4, page 138)…
“During the first seven months of 1967 a running battle was fought within the Johnson Administration between the advocates of a greatly expanded air campaign against North Vietnam, one that might genuinely be called ‘strategic,’ and the disillusioned doves who urged relaxation, if not complete suspension, of the bombing in the interests of greater effectiveness and the possibilities for peace. The ‘hawks’ of course were primarily the military, but in the war-time their power and influence with an incumbent Administration is disproportionate. McNamara, supported quantitatively by John McNaughton in ISA, led the attempt to de-escalate the bombing. Treading the uncertain middle ground at different times in the debate were William Bundy at State, Air Force Secretary Harold Brown and most importantly, the President himself. Buffeted from right and left he determinedly tried to pursue the temperate course, escalating gradually in the late spring, but leveling off again in the summer. To do so was far from easy because such a course really pleased on one (and it should be added, did not offer much prospect for a breakthrough one way or the other). It was an unhappy, contentious time in which the decibel level of the debate went up markedly, but the difficult decision was not taken–it was avoided… ” FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD! We were out of bold!
Tomorrow: CINCPACs escalation proposals…
CAGs QUOTES for 12 January: DOUHET: “In order to assure adequate national defense it is necessary–and sufficient– to be in a position in case of war to conquer the command of the air.”… PATTON: “What damn good is a general who won’t take the same risks as his troops?”… oohrah…
Lest we forget… Bear -16-