RIPPLE SALVO… #104… ROMNEY OR NIXON…. but first….
Good Morning: Day ONE HUNDRED FOUR of a review of Operation Rolling Thunder…fifty years later…
12 JUNE 1966… ON THE HOME FRONT… (NYT)… a sunny, pleasant Sunday in New York City…
Page 1: “McNamara Holds Vietnam Politics Won’t Slow War”… Defense Secretary McNamara spoke to reporters yesterday at a joint press conference with Secretary Rusk at the White House following a briefing for thirteen congressional committee Chairmen. He said he is confident of more military progress despite the growth of the Viet Cong. He gave what added up to an encouraging assessment of the military situation and noted that fighting intensity had picked up after a decline in the spring. In addition, he disclosed: 18,000 more troops already authorized would be moving to South Vietnam in the next 45 days to bring troop levels in-country to 285,000; infiltration from the North is at a steady rate of 4,500 per month; Viet Cong growth depends on recruitment, and the VC has lost 21,000 troops since January; US KIA at 2,100 and SVN KIA at 4,000 in same time frame; current plan is to hit VC bases hard before they can go offensive; and, the expected enemy offensive has failed to materialize due to monsoon and an enemy decision to hold off and see what the South Vietnam political disorder develops…. Page 1: “Catholics In Saigon Rally To Back War On Viet Cong”...”About 15,000 Vietnamese Roman Catholics, most of them in uniform and massed in paramilitary formation, staged a parade and mass rally in Central Saigon today in an impressive show of strength. The demonstration was by far the largest by Catholics so far in the nearly three month old crisis. It was clearly aimed at the Buddhists and junta and other political groups here to show the cohesiveness and power of Vietnam’s Roman Catholic minority of 1.6 million. The Catholics charge that the Buddhist leaders are stooges for the communists and denounced all plots to negotiate with communists in order to neutralize South Vietnam…Page 2: “Victory In War Demanded” by the Catholic demonstrators, who want a complete victory over the Vietcong and that there be no compromise settlement with the Buddhists…
Page 15: “White’s Role Splits Leaders in March” …discuss “northern white liberals. “We have received a lot of help from white liberals and we appreciate it. But the situation is sort of like when you are sick and your neighbor comes to help you. You need his assistance, but you don’t want him to run your house or take your wife,” said Floyd McKissick from CORE.
Page 2: “Vietcong Company Wiped Out”…”United States First Infantry virtually wiped out a company of Vietcong troops in heavy fighting in plantation country about 75 miles northwest of Saigon. The first reports from the battle listed 88 VC KIA out of force of 200. US casualties were light….”Shortages Beset Vietnam Forces“…Pentagon links situation to rapid troop buildup. “The supply situation in Vietnam is ‘so bad,’ said a Marine corporal who recently wrote his congressman, “that some of the guys are writing Sears and asking for a tent as the troops can’t get them.”
Page 6:”Galbraith Urges U.S. To Reduce Military Action In Vietnam War”… Dr. John Galbraith, Professor of Economics at Harvard and former Ambassador to India used a commencement speech at Rhode Island College to criticize the Johnson Vietnam policy. He called for the President to “reduce all military action and remain in Vietnam only to offer a measure of bargaining power to non-communist groups attempting to solve national problems, then pull out. The reduced policy would almost certainly be favored by a majority of the Vietnamese people. It would surely be welcomed by a majority of the American people. I would persist in thinking it would be welcomed very soon by the President of the United States. No one can say we gave up easily. We played the game for as long as we had any plausible government to support. The chance to win support for Vietnam policy was lost last year when the universities could not be persuaded. With time the country has come to share their doubts. The Administration and State Department were discounting far too heavily the reactions of a rising political force in the United States and one that is especially important in the field of foreign policy. That is: the university and college community.”
12 JUNE 1966…ROLLING THUNDER OPERATIONS… NYT (13 June reporting 12 June ops): “In air action one communist MIG-17 was shot down and a second damaged in a dogfight between four Soviet designed MIGs and four United States jets northwest of the port of Haiphong. It was the 13th MIG felled by American pilots over North Vietnam. The pilot credited with the kill was Commander Hal Marr, the leader of the flight of F-8 Crusaders from the carrier Hancock. Either he or one of the other airmen in the flight scored a hit on a second MIG but there was no way to report it down… One aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 12 June… (“Vietnam Air Losses” by Chris Hobson, pg. 61)
(1) CAPTAIN CHARLES WILLIAM BURKART and CAPTAIN EVERETT OSCAR KERR were flying a B-57E of the 13thTBS and the 405thTFW out of Danang on a night strike mission over the Ho Chi Minh trail in the Steel Tiger area, became separated from two other aircraft in the flight in bad weather, and failed to return to base. Active enemy AAA in the area of ops may have downed the aircraft. CAPTAIN BURKART and CAPTAIN KERR were declared Killed in Action in 1979. Location of remains and the crash site are apparently unknown… Fifty years ago today two valiant warriors perished on a battlefield far from home and apparently remain where they fell… Left behind?… but not forgotten…
RIPPLE SALVO… #104… PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS… 1966 and 2016?… While rolling my way through NYT microfilm from 1966 a headline that sounded like a 2016 story jumped out at me. On page E-12 of the monster 12 June 1966 Sunday edition a James Reston column headlined: “The Tragedy of the Republicans.” The issue: who is going to run against LBJ in the 1968 Presidential race?
Reston wrote: “The trend of Republican presidential politics is now fairly clear. It narrows down to Governor George Romney of former Vice President Richard Nixon against Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Nobody quite knows why it had come down to this, and the party is not very happy with the choices, but this is the way things are going.” The GOP leadership wanted a foreign affairs experienced candidate and wanted Rockefeller from New York and Scranton from Pennsylvania in the mix. The GOP over the 36 years, between 1932 and 1968, elected only Ike Eisenhower, and the GOP wasn’t all that pleased with Ike since he extended welfare state legislation contrary to the wishes of the GOP fathers. Reston: “If the purpose of a political party is to control and direct the struggle for Presidential power, the logic of this is that the GOP should be looking for one of two things: either an attractive new outsider who might have a chance of beating Johnson in 1968; or if this sounds unlikely, as it does, a young man with some determination to deal with the growing problems and masses of the cities, who can be prepared for the future political battles of the seventies.” Reston suggests that the GOP is so far behind the Democrats and the incumbent that the candidate for 1968 should be a comer with a chance later. Reston suggested Ronald Reagan as the best bet. “The point is that the Republican party, overwhelmed by defeat by the last generation; is not really analyzing its problem or mobilizing its resources. It is divided and frustrated. It is playing the professional game, which the Democrats invented. If it is this kind of conflict, Democrats political pros against Republican political pros, Johnson against Romney or Nixon, the outlook is fairly certain. It is the Green Bay Packers versus Harvard, and the irony of it is the Republicans have the men to make a race of it but do not mobilize their strength.”
Here we are 50 years later and the GOP still can’t get it right… Of course, the Democrats don’t always show up on election day with the same candidate they had pinned their hopes on. LBJ was doing OK in 1966, but was a no show two years later and the candidate the GOP wasn’t that happy with went on to win. Sometimes the best laid plans go bust. 2016??? GOP is going with a surprise entry and the Democrats appear to have a sure thing at the top of the stretch. Gonna’ be interesting.
Lest we forget… Bear ………. –30– ………..