RIPPLE SALVO… #469… That was the question for Secretary McNamara in April 1967, and that was the question for Secretary of Defense Mattis in June 2017… they both gave the same answer, 50 years apart… but first…
Good Morning: HAPPY GRANDFATHERS DAY, CURMUDGEONS and OLD WARRIORS!!!… Day FOUR HUNDRED SIXTY-NINE of a review of the part of the air war over North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder…
17 JUNE 1967…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a hot and humid Saturday with bumpers coming…
Page 1: “Kosygin Arrives Here Today; Meets 2-Hours With De Gaulle–Assembly;y to Open This Morning–Many Leaders Dub Middle East Session May Get Record Turnout of High Officials”... “Premier Aleksie Kosygin of the Soviet Union was due here early today to lead his country’s delegation to a special session of the United Nations General Assembly on the Middle East starting this morning. The Soviet leader is expected to spearhead an attempt to condemn Israel as an aggressor and demand her withdrawal from the territories she won by arms.”…“UN to Meet at 9:30AM; Agenda Dispute Expected”… “President Johnson Urges A Stable Mideast–Bids Each Nation Respect Rights of Its Neighbors–Cancels Trip to Ranch...Must accept the right of its neighbors to a stable and secure existence…if they turn in this direction, these people can count upon the friendly help of the United States.”… Page 3: “Jordanians Count 200,000 Refugees...fled from the Israeli-held area west of the Jordan River to the east. That would be one-fifth of the total population of the West Bank and it would bring to 470,000 the number of refugees on the east bank, including those who were here before the Six Day War…”… Page 3: “Yugoslavia Hints Discord in Cairo”… “A leading Yugoslavia newspaper suggested today that a power struggle might be going on in the United Arab Republic.”… Page 4: “Captured Egyptian Missile Base Stands Intact in the Sinai Desert”… “Two American correspondents today were the first westerners to see the secret Egyptian missile base captured by the Israelis. Seven SA-2 missiles are still at the base.”… Page 8: “Jordan’s Economists Fearful of Future Without West Bank…... depends on continued support of the United States. Jordan was the big loser in last week’s Arab-Israeli war. It is not just that Jordan lost half of her population and more than half of her economy, and acquired a new refugee problem, U.S. aid was $47-million in 1960, down to $30 million in ’66. However, U.S. investments in Jordan were $500-million since 1947.”…
Page 1: “U.S. Calls For a ’67 Tax Rise of More Than 6%”...”The possibility of a tax increase this year of more than 6-per cent was suggested publicly today for the first time by an Administration official… Page 1: “N.A.A.C.P. Is Urged to Prevent Riots”... “Roy Wilkins dispatched a message to NAACP chapters throughout the country urging them to work this summer to prevent riots….He called on chapter officials to work with local police along with religions, political, civic and labor leaders to seek solutions to the growing unrest in the ghettos. ‘Don’t just be against riots, be active in preventing them.’ NAACP has 1,500 chapters. Mr Williams called for the following general goals: We want jobs, especially for out youth; We want more recreation, more sports, more play areas; We want not only anti-poverty jobs but activity by people in the communities on anti-poverty projects; We want the police to maintain law and order but with their heads not their guns; and, We want Congress to pass the 1967 Civil Rights Act.”…All was quiet in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio.”…
17 June 1967…The President’s TS Daily CIA Briefing: SOVIET UNION: Embassy Moscow believes the Soviet delegation to the General Assembly is well-tailored for the talks with the US–particularly on subjects other than the Middle East. The embassy also comments that Kosygin’s trip may be a good thing in itself–he has never been in the US before and, being relatively undogmatic, is more likely to draw appropriate conclusions from what he sees here than Khrushchev did or Brezhnev would...SOUTH VIETNAM: Despite assurances to the contrary from both Ky and Thieu, armed forces unity is going to be strained if both men go in to the presidential campaign. There is deepening enmity between the two men, an enmity particularly noticeable on Thieu’s side. Ambassador Bunker talked with Thieu Wednesday. After repeating his pledge to maintain military unity, Thieu whipped into a bitter condemnation of Ky’s electioneering tactics. “This is not Ky’s government,” Thieu said, “the directorate is the government and I happen to be the chairman.”…
17 JUNE 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (18 June reporting 17 Jun ops) Page 1: “In the air war over North Vietnam Air Force pilots attacked the rail yards at Vuchua and Kep. At Vuchua, 43 miles northeast of Hanoi, 10-15 pieces of rolling stock were reported destroyed. At Kep, 35 miles northeast of Hanoi, the pilots set off an explosion of gasoline. At two unidentified rail yards at 37 and 50 miles northeast of Hanoi a total of 20 railroad cars were destroyed. Carrier based Navy planes destroyed or damaged 30 cars and set off three secondary explosion during strikes on the rail line between Hanoi and Thanh Hoa…” (bear#102bridgeRP2)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 17 June 1967…
(1) A C-130B of the 772nd TAS and 463rd TCW out of Mactan left the runway on takeoff at An Khe, ran down an embankment and burst into flames. Thirty-five of the 56 passenger and crew were killed in the accident, mostly American and South Vietnamese troops… a terrible tragedy on a Father’s Day in Vietnam 50 years ago today… and leaving how many kids without a father forever?…
RIPPLE SALVO… #469… “ARE WE WINNING?” Earlier this month Secretary of Defense Mike Mattis went on record in Congressional testimony with a response that stated clearly and unequivocally: “We are not winning (in Afghanistan).”… It was an echo from fifty years ago when our Secretary of Defense and General Westmoreland were giving the same answers to the question— “Are we winning?”– and then they called for more and more troops to turn the tide in South Vietnam… The current plan for Afghanistan is also more troops—4,000 more trainers to assist the 8,400 American troops presently in-country.
The next question is, “How will we know when we are winning?” How is our war going? How can we tell?… In Vietnam this was the job of McNamara’s “Whiz Kids” who put in place a system to measure progress. It proved to be ineffective, unreliable, invalid, and useless. Since then our Defense Department has tried a variety of operation assessment models with questionable results. The latest in place in Afghanistan went in the trash basket when General Mike “Maddog” Mattis” was in command of the U.S. Joint Forces Command. When the General put this directive on the wire, “operations assessment,” the domain of thousands of Systems Analysts and innumerable think tanks, was declared “broken” by a consensus of experts. The 2008 edict from General Mattis:
“First, operations in the future will require a balance of regular and irregular competencies. Second, the enemy is smart and adaptive. Third, all operating environments are dynamic with an infinite number of variables; therefore, it is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to the nature of war. Fourth, we are in error when we think that what works (or does not work) in one theater is universally applicable to all theaters. Finally, to quote Sherman, ‘Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.’ History is replete with such examples and further denies us any confidence that the acute predictability promised by Effects Based Operations (EBO) long assessment cycle can strengthen our doctrine.”… “Effectively immediately, USFORCOM will no longer use, sponsor or export the terms and concepts of EBO… in our training, doctrine development and support of Joint Professional Military education.”
The Center for Naval Analysis distributed a short paper (56 pages) by two of their analysts that readers of RTR may find interesting at:
https://www.cna.org/reports/2014/are-we-winning … or Google “CNA ‘Are We Winning? A Brief History of Military Operations Assessment.’ “
General Mattis: “…it is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to the nature of war.”
Secretary Mattis: HUMBLE HOST has a suggestion for your consideration: Listen to history. Listen to the lessons of Vietnam. Go with your gut, sir. Listen to yourself. Afghanistan is unwinnable so long as Pakistan is the sanctuary for the enemy that Cambodia and Laos were for the North Vietnamese and Vietcong.
RTR Quote for 17 June: SHERMAN: “Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.”
Lest we forget…. Bear