RIPPLE SALVO… #74… THE CHOIR…
Good Morning: Day SEVENTY-FOUR of a review of the North Vietnam “air battle”…
12 MAY 1966 (NYT)… ON THE HOME FRONT… A cloudy Thursday in New York and rain in Washington… but Princeton, New Jersey was a good place to be to sample the mood of our country in mid-May 1966….
Page 1 with a jump to page 14: “President Urges Scholars to Back War in Vietnam”… President Johnson delivered a speech to the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs yesterday that replied to the Senator Fulbright charge that his Presidency and the war with North Vietnam was a case of “arrogance of power.” The President made a plea for understanding by “responsible intellectuals.” Meanwhile, 300 students picketed the event, which was a dedication ceremony for the new Woodrow Wilson School. President Johnson said: “The exercise of power in this century has meant for all of us in the United States not arrogance but agony. We have used our powers not willingly and recklessly ever, but always reluctantly and with restraint… What nation announced such limited objectives or such willingness to remove its military presence once the objectives are secured and achieved? What nation has spent the lives of its sons and vast sums of its fortune to provide the people of a small striving nation the chance to elect a course that we ourselves mighty not ourselves choose?”
The President asked his critics to accept the fact that “security and aggression as well as peace and war, must be concerns of foreign policy; that a great power influences the world just as surely when it withdraws its strength as when it exercises its strength; that aggression must be deterred where possible and met early when undertaken; and that the application of military force, when it becomes necessary, must be for limited purposes, and must be tightly controlled.”
Senator Wayne Morse added a comment from a Senate hearing in Washington: “I would have the President of the United States go on up to New York and ask the United Nations Security Council to vote a resolution for a cease fire. I would put France and Russia on the spot. And if that didn’t work I would take it to the General Assembly.”
Page 1: “McNamara Says Foes Hopes Fade”…In testimony presented to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Secretary of Defense McNamara said that heavy bombing of enemy communications and supply lines had produced a “noticeably adverse effect on Vietcong morale and expectations of victory.” He gave as evidence of this conclusion the results of interviews with prisoners and defectors; captured documents; and the fact that the VC was now drafting 15 to 17 year olds…. Page 2 “Senator Edward Kennedy Reports Efforts On Prisoners Fails”… The Senator’s trip to Genoa to meet with the International Red Cross to ascertain progress in ongoing discussions with North Vietnam about American POWs and other prisoners of war yielded no positive results… Page 10: “Rebuff To Peking Confirmed By U.S.”… China’s proposal that China and the United States promise “no first use of nuclear weapons” was rejected by the United States. “The State Department confirmed today the United States has rejected a Chinese Communist proposal that the two nations pledge neither would be the first to use atomic weapons against each other.”…
President’s Daily Brief (TS sanitized)…One item for Southeast Asia… General Ma, commanding the Laotian Air Force, has been recalled to Vientiane, but left in command…
12 May 1966… ROLLING THUNDER OPS…(Page 2 NYT from May 13):”Strike Closer to Haiphong”…”U.S. fighter-bombers attacked a SAM site 10 miles northeast of Haiphong–the closest strike to the port city of the war. Two flights of A-4 Skyhawks from USS Enterprise dropped 500 and 250 pound bombe on the site and strafed the grounded missiles and their launchers with rockets. Three SAMs were evaded by the striking aircraft and the site was left burning with smoke rising to two thousand feet. The closest previous attack to Haiphong were four attacks on the Uongbi power plant 12 miles from Haiphong three times in December 1965 and once in April 1966. On the day, the Navy flew 53 missions, mainly in the panhandle, hitting railroad and highway bridges, storage facilities and coastal shipping. The Air Force flew 34 missions, mostly in the panhandle, but also struck transportation targets near Dien Bien Phu and in the Mugia Pass..
One aircraft was lost on 12 May… A Marine A-4C from VMA-214 returning to Chu Lai from a combat mission landed short and veered off the runway destroying the aircraft… the pilot was uninjured…
RIPPLE SALVO… A CACOPHONY OF ADVICE….
President Johnson once characterized the Presidency as “splendid misery.” It was mostly miserable for him in May 1966 as he weighed advancing his “gradual defeat” by escalating the air war and adding more ground forces to put more pressure on Ho Chi Minh and the boys in Hanoi to come to the peace table. At the same time, the American public and increasing numbers of members of congress, plus the entire international community of nations, were making their respective cases for a change in the nation’s Vietnam policy. On the one hand, the President was well advised and ready to add the North Vietnamese POL assets to the Rolling Thunder target list. On the other, he was witness to an unrelenting effort by the UN and many nations to seek an end to the war.
The following is from the Pentagon Papers (Gravel Edition):
“The spring of 1966 saw one of the most determined and most public efforts of the international community to bring the U.S. and North Vietnam to the negotiating table. While at no time during this peace initiative was there any evidence, public or private, to give either side’s uncompromising position and hence real possibility of talks. The widespread publicity of the effort meant that the Administration was constrained from any military actions that might be construed as ‘worsening the atmosphere’ or rebuking the peace efforts. Air strikes against DRV POL reserves would obviously have fallen into this category.”
Among the many peace initiatives pursued by other nations were: In February Nasser of Egypt gave a try at starting negotiations; DeGaulle of France wrote to Ho Chi Minh; Wilson of Britain made an effort to get Russia’s Kosygin to convince North Vietnam to come to the table; Hanoi turned down another attempt by India to replace the Americans with an Asian-African peace force; and later in March, the Canadians made an overture on the United States’ behalf that was rejected. In April the Secretary General of the UN advocated Security Council involvement in Vietnam if Communist China and North Vietnam agreed. Late in April the DRV reiterated their unyielding position: no talks without a cessation of the U.S. bombing and the withdrawal of troops. On April 29 the Prime Minister of Canada made another proposal for a ceasefire and a gradual, phased withdrawal of troops from both sides. The U.S. endorsed the Pearson proposal. The DRV rejected the proposal. Also on April 29 the Danish urged the United States to accept a “transitional coalition government” as a step toward peace. In May the Dutch proposed a mutual reduction in hostilities as a step toward a ceasefire and to prevent further escalation, contrary to what the President was being advised to do by the JCS, the Secretary of Defense, and a legion of Hawks, as opposed to Doves, in America. On May 22 Guinea and Algeria joined the chorus and called for an end to the bombing. On May 25 U Thant spoke for a ceasefire, but stated that the UN had no prime responsibility for finding a settlement. As June rolled on Hungary, Canada, and France gave the peace initiative another try to no avail. On June 27 Secretary Rusk advised the SEATO Conference in Canberra, Australia; “I see no prospect of peace at the present moment.” The bombing of the DRV POL targets began on June 29.
In the middle of the Spring of 1966 international effort to bring the United States and North Vietnam together to talk about war and peace, columnist Walter Lippman wrote a piece in Newsweek that made sense in 1966 and, I submit, should find its way to every desk inside the Washington Beltway in May 2016. I quote:
“Not since the great controversy over isolation which took place between the two world wars has the country been so sharply divided as it is today. We have no foreign policy or conception of what our role is in the world…
“This is a trying ordeal for all who are involved in the controversy. The nation cannot be comfortable or at ease with itself when it is without a common understanding and purpose about the issues of war and peace, life and death. Our people are divided and nobody is happy about it. The world changes over two or three decades and we must adjust policies in order to keep pace and prevent the obsolescence of our foreign policy. We are over committed beyond the line we assumed in 1949. The realities of 1949 are not the realities of 1966.
“Our controversy today is not about whether we should retreat to the isolation from which we emerged in the 30s. It is over whether we should work our way back from the unplanned, emergency commitments of the post war era.
“Those among us who want to hold on to all the positions we occupied at that time are at odds with those of us who believe that the abnormal extension of our commitments cannot and should not be made permanent. There will have to be, we argue, a return to a normal range of American commitments and the sooner we accept this the better for all concerned.”
History is the teacher… Less we forget…. Bear ….. –30– …..