RIPPLE SALVO… #170… “BUILD A WALL”… but first…
Good Morning: Day ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY remembering an air war hippies want to forget and young folks could care less…
18 AUGUST 1966… HOME TOWN NEWS FROM THE PAGES OF THE NYT… A fair and cloudy Thursday with showers to come…Your Humble Host believes the following clips provide a sad commentary on the ability our Government to solve problems. Fifty years ago, and nine Presidents and twenty-five different Congressional lineups ago, while the Rolling Thunder warriors were putting pipper to bull, our Attorney General spoke these words that could be repeated today. How about trying something new! Throwing money at the problems for fifty++ years hasn’t worked!
Page 1: “Katzenback Warns Senate 30 to 40 Cities Face Riots”…”Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach warned today that ‘some unpredictable event could touch off rioting in 30 to 40 of the nation’s cities.’ But he said that ‘poverty and despair, not communists or black nationalists were the villains. I don’t know of a city that is not facing a serious problem today.’ Mr. Katzenback said in testimony before a Senate sub-committee looking into what has been called ‘the crisis in the cities.’ The Attorney General declined to pinpoint any one city as the most likely scene of new rioting ‘but there are 30 to 40 cities with the same problems and the same frustrations, the same tensions.’ He did not disclose the names of potentially explosive cities at the hearing and declined to make the list public. Mr. Kazenback indignantly stood up to Senator Robert Kennedy, Democrat of New York, who has accused the Johnson Administration of having no program for dealing with the ills of the cities. ‘I disagree with you Senator, I think there is a program.’ The two old friends–the Attorney General and the man he once worked for as deputy and later succeeded–clashed repeatedly during the two hour debate. Mr. Kazenback reeled off a list of programs, some under way, some still before Congress, seeking to aid cities and urban dwellers. He cited aid to schools, Medicare, the anti-poverty drive, rent supplements, Teacher’s Corps, urban renewal, urban mass transit, and others. ‘We’re looking at all of this as a whole for the first time in a generation. You have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run.’ ‘I am just not satisfied,’ interrupted Senator Kennedy. ‘You have made that quite clear,’ retorted Mr. Kazenback. With respect to the question of riots, Mr. Kazenback said: ‘The true agitators are named: disease and despair, joblessness and hopelessness, rat-infested housing, and long impacted cynicism.’ He placed the blame on generations of indifference by all the American people to the rot and rust and mold which we have allowed to eat into the core of our cities. Much of the tension stems from antagonism of slum dwellers toward the police. To the poor, policemen are the visible symbols of faceless, nameless frustration. It is just essential that police officers have the respect and confidence of the community, particularly deprived sections of the community, and they just don’t have that today.’…”…
Page 1: “McCone Report On Watts Tells Of Progress” but asks for a bigger effort. The McCone Commission reported today that there had been extensive progress in the Negro district of Watts since the riots of a year ago, but it said that along with other parts of the country, Watts needed a greatly expanded effort to alleiviate racial problems. The commission stressed particularly a need for special programs for the disadvantaged, and cited New York City’s “More Effectiv Schools” pilot programs as an admirable example…The McCone Commission was established by Governor Edmond Brown to investigate causes and remedies. It is headed by John A. McCone, industrialist and former director of the CIA.”…
Page 1: “Lawyer Ejected By House Inquiry; Several Walk Out”…”A lawyer for subpoenaed witnesses was forcibly removed from a Congressional hearing on anti-Vietnam war activities today in another riotous session of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The lawyer, Albert Kinoy of New York, a small but scrappy man, was seized by three United States marshals who pulled him out by the neck and shoulders. They took him to police headquarters where he was charged with disorderly conduct. Seven other lawyers, including the head of the American Civil Liberties Union, walked out of the hearing in protest. They charged that they could not operate in an ‘atmosphere of terror and intimidation.’ By the end of the day, two witnesses had also left in defiance of the committee, 21 men and women had been arrested for shouting in the hearing room or demonstrating in the corridor, and one witness admitted–to the surprise of the committee– that he was a Communist.” ….
Page 1: “Reserve Call-Up Voted By Senate”… “The Senate voted overwhelmingly today to empower the President to call-up reservists who have completed their six months of training, but who have not had other active duty. The measure could effect at least 350,000 and possibly 500,000 men. By a vote of 56 to 21 the Senate approved the proposal”… (HALF A MILLION MORE FAMILIES ON EDGE).
Page 32: “Dr. King Reports No Chicago Truce”…”A ten-hour top level meeting today of city, real estate, and civil rights leaders failed today to reach an agreement that would end marches for open housing that have brought repeated open housing violence to Chicago. But the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr and other participants agreed that the talks had been ‘very fruitful’ and would continue.'”….OpEd page: “Time Out for Action”…”The demonstrations led by Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr have dramatically underscored that there is a ‘white noose around the center of that Mid-West city, just as there is in New York and most other Metropolitan areas. The all white neiborhoods in any city’s outlying sectors and in the suburbs where Negroes find it impossible to buy or rent property are an affront to basic American values of equality of opportunity. It has become increasingly clear however that the Chicago demonstrations run the risk of major violence.”
18 AUGUST 1966…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…NYT (19 August reporting 18 August ops)…Page 1: “In the air over North Vietnam, a United States air force fighter pilot shot down a MIG-17 yesterday in a brief dogfight 25 miles north of Hanoi. a second MIG fled unharmed. It was the 18th MIG reported shot down by American pilots over North Vietnam and the first credited to an Air Force F-105 Thunderchief. The United States military spokesman who made the announcement this morning said American pilots had another MIG encounter yesterday in the same area, but no details are available. The downed MIG was brought down by 20mm cannon fire by the wingmen. There was no report of damage to the oil depot target of the MIG encounter flight of F-105s. Several oil depots were included in the 107 missions over North Vietnam. Navy pilots attacked targets in southern North Vietnam reported having destroyed a 20-car freight train and its locomotive 22 miles northwest of Thanh Hoa after several strikes with 250-pond to 1000-pound bombs. In the raids, one of the F-105s crashed 85 miles north of Hanoi. Rescue teams were unable to locate the two crewmen. (this loss was reported yesterday in RTR #169: MAJORS BRAND AND SINGER were reported Killed in Action). In the ground war losses of troops for the week ended last Saturday, 106 Americans were killed, 128 South Vietnamese and 1,403 enemy soldiers were killed.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson): One aircraft lost on this date…
(1) LCDR DEMETRIO A. VERICH was flying an F-8E of the VF-162 Hunters embarked in USS Oriskany…Hobson: “Yet another of the Oriskany’s Crusaders was los during an armed reconnaissance mission, although this incident took place inland rather than on the coast. LCDR VERICH was pulling up fromhis third bombing run dropping MK83 bombs on a bridge and barges on a river 15 northwest of Vinh, when his aircraft waws hit by small arms fire. He immediately turned east towards the coast the aircraft’s controls progressively failed. By the time the Crusader became totally uncontollabe it was five miles off-shore and LCDR ” Butch” VERICH ejected and was rescued by a Navy helicopter. LCDR VERICH, like his squadron mate, LT RICHARD ADAMS, was shot down twice during the war, the second time was on 16 July 1967 when his aircraft was hit by a SAM.”… Like LT Adams, LCDR Verich beat the odds and survived to fly again…
RIPPLE SALVO… #170… NOW WHAT?… By the middle of August just about everybody had concluded that the vaunted “POL Strangulation” campaign wasn’t slowing down the North Vietnamese rate of supply to South Vietnam that it had promised. What was a poor Secretary of Defense to do? He and we were being out-played by Ho. A new game plan would be required. Jacob Van Staaverson in his book “Gradual Failure: the air war over North Vietnam, 1965-1966,” provides a look ahead, a wall of “physical barriers and sensors”… (page 324) I quote..
“Still believing that the war was winnable with more technology, McNamara now turned to a plan received at the end of August from the JASON division of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) to establish a new anti-infiltration system. At his request, in the summer of 1966 forty-seven scientists and engineers under the aegis of the JASON Division had studied enemy infiltration and the impact of more bombing to reduce it. Rather than more bombing, the JASON group proposed, and McNamara quickly approved, the construction of a system of physical barriers and acoustic and seismic sensors in southern Laos and the demilitarized zone between the two Vietnams. Although the JCS, Admiral Sharp, and all Air Force and Navy leaders and tactical air commanders strongly opposed the barrier concept as it reflected World War II Maginot Line thinking, sensor placement began in early 1967.”
The effort was not undertaken as an alternative to the Rolling Thunder campaign so what’s to lose? Worth a try, I say… since the decision to limit and restrict the employment the bombers was set in concrete… Rolling Thunder will continue for the better part of two years while the scientists and ops analysts build a wall… Somebody should have reminded SecDef that MINES are loaded with technology…Those MK-55s were state of the art…and ready to go…
Parting shot: I wonder if Trump’s “Wall Building Team” could learn anything from our Vietnam experience?…
Lest we forget… Bear ………. –30– ……….