RIPPLE SALVO… #865… ANOTHER WAY TO SAY “ON THE SKIDS” WOULD BE: “ON A SLIPPERY SLOPE”… And a good case can be made that 1968 really was the “year the dream died” and our beloved nation “HIT THE SKIDS.”… Columnist Holmes Alexander wrote a column 50 years ago on 16 July 1968 that supports the conclusion… Read below… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED SIXTY-FIVE of a return to the years of an air war to the north of the bloody battlegrounds of South Vietnam where 58,000 brave American fighting men laid down their lives in good faith in a lost cause….
HEAD LINES from the OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER for Thursday, 18 July 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “YANK FORCES COUNTER FRESH RED REGIMENT–34 FOES KILLED IN BATTLE”… “U.S. troops battled for five hours with a fresh North Vietnamese regiment that had marched 125 miles south from the Central Highlands to join other enemy forces believed massing for n attack on Saigon. U.S. headquarters said 34 enemy were killed while American loses were four killed and 23 wounded. A spokesman said captured documents and interviewed prisoners identified the enemy as soldiers of the 32nd regiment, headquartered near the Cambodian border. The fighting occurred 75 miles north of Saigon and six miles south of the Cambodian border, near the key government district capital of Loc Ninh where 1,000 enemy soldiers were killed last November in the first phase of the Tet offensive… It was the first contact in several weeks between American troops and the enemy on infiltration routes near the Cambodian border… Little action was reported from the battle fronts as U.S. Defense Secretary Clark M. Clifford concluded his four-day visit to South Vietnam. He left with the promise that the United States will continue to bomb North Vietnam until the Hanoi government pledges ‘important and serious reciprocal acts of restraint.’… …Clifford told an airport news conference at the end of a four-day visit to Vietnam that a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam’s southern panhandle would not endanger the allied troops in South Vietnam if Hanoi also made a serious de-escalation move.”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 2: “AIDE TO HANOI SHUNS U.S. RESTRAINT CALL”… “A North Vietnamese spokesman said today it was up to the Viet Cong whether to strike at Saigon, and he thrust aside suggestions that his side had shown restraint on the battlefield as a means for advancing the Paris peace talks. Nguyen Thanh Le, press spokesman for the North Vietnamese delegation, said: ‘How can the United states ask us to show restraint? We owe it to ourselves to exercise the right legitimate self-defense. As long as aggression continues we must fight against it.’ Le was asked several times a a news conference whether Xuan Thuy, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator here, had suggested that the recent cessation of bombardments on Saigon was a sign of moderation. The United States has demanded that enemy forces in Vietnam show ‘reciprocal restraint’ in return for a complete U.S. halt of bombardments on North Vietnam. The spokesman said that Thuy, in an interview made public Wednesday, had said that although Saigon has not been bombarded, the United States continues its attacks on the North.”…
Page 1: BANNER HEADLINE PAGE 1: “WALLACE THREAT CASTS DARK SHADOW ON G.O.P., DEMOCRAT PROSPECTS”… “George Wallace’s growing muscle in public opinion polls is matched by increasing concern in both major parties over his potential impact on the presidential election. Republicans, regarded at this stage as most likely to suffer from a big Wallace vote, appear to be the most concerned.”… Page 1: “STRIFE ERUPTS IN OHIO CITY–GUARDSMEN PATROL AKRON– Council Imposes Curfew”… “The Akron City Council declared a state of emergency today in the wake of sporadic incidents of looting, window breaking and fire bombing in a predominantly Negro section. In addition, the council, including its lone Negro member, unanimously imposed a curfew beginning at 9 P.M. and extending to 6 A.M. Friday. The action came after 700 National Guardsmen moved in to reinforce police after the disturbances of late Wednesday and early Thursday.”… Page 1: “CZECHS DEFY FEDS IN FACE OF CRISIS”… Page 1: “Czechoslovakia’s liberal Communist leadership promised the support of Yugoslavia, Romania and Western Europe’s biggest Communist parties, defied Moscow’s orthodox world today. It warned that an attempt to restore the ols Stalinist life would face ‘the resistance of the overwhelming majority’ of the nation. This stance was the Czechoslovak party presidium’s reply to tough demands from the Soviet Union and four East bloc governments in its orbit that Prague restore, in effect, to regimented party life and a closed society.”… Page 2: “PROPRIETY KEYS FORTAS HEARING–FURTHER QUESTIONING ON TAP ON LBJ SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENT”… “The propriety of contacts between presidents and Supreme Court members has emerged as a key question in hearings on Abe Fortas ‘ qualifications to be chief justice and even Fortas says, ‘it could be a problem.'”…
17-18 JULY 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER … Ogden Standard-Examiner (AP)… (19th reporting 17 & 18 ops) Page 1: “WAR RETURNS TO THE SKIES”…”The spot light shifted back to the air war in Vietnam Thursday as ground fighting relapsed into another lull. With the threatened big Vietcong offensive against Saigon evidently delayed and with President Nguyen Van Thieu in Honolulu for a summit meeting with President Johnson, a watch and wait mood prevailed in South Vietnam. Over the southern panhandle of North Vietnam, American pilots flew 112 missions below the 19th Parallel Thursday in the continuing effort to reduce the flow of supplies to enemy troops in the South. The fliers reported destroying or damaging 28 trucks, 11 supply bases and seven bridges and touching off 171 sustained fires and 81 secondary explosions. Air Force pilots said 57 of the fires were a large military storage area about 36 miles above the demilitarized zone. WATER TRAFFIC… Marine pilots attacked the Dong Hoi airfield, believed to be used now as a supply base rather than an airstrip, while Navy pilots concentrated on highways and water traffic. … Eight-engined B-52 bombers joined in the raids above the demilitarized zone and also struck night times Thursday and today against suspected enemy bases in the cental \highlands and in the Mekong Delta.”….
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 17 and 18 July 1968…
(1) (17th) LCOL S.C. FERGUSON and CAPTAIN R.P. LAPPIN, Nail FACs, were flying an O-2A Duck of the 23rd TAS and 504th TASG out of Nakhon Phanom on an Igloo White mission in Southern Laos near Ban Dong Hene when small arms fire took out the forward engine. LCOL FERGUSON made a successful emergency landing on a small clearing and the two FACs were rescued by a USAF helicopter to fly and FAC again…
(2) (17th) 1LT ARIEL LINDLEY CROSS, USMC and 1LT LIONEL PARRA, USMC were flying an EF-10B Skynight of VMCJ-1 and MAG-11 out of Danang and were downed while radar jamming near the demilitarized zone and “the loss and fate of the crew remain undetermined,”as reported by Chris Hobson. “This was the fifth and final EF-10B loss during the four years that VMCJ-1 operated the type from Danang. The Skynight pioneered electronic-counter-measures during the war despite its age and poor performance in comparison with more modern jets. Using the radio call sign Cottonpicker, VMCJ-1’s aircraft flew over 9,000 sorties and provided stand-off electronic jamming in support of thousands of strike both day and night. The EF-10Bs were withdrawn from Danang in October 1969 and transferred to the 3rd MAW at El Toro and retired on 31 May 1970.”… Both 1LT CROSS and 1LT PARRA remain this day where they fell 50 years ago somewhere in Vietnam…. They are gone, LEFT BEHIND, but not forgotten… The search goes on with hope in the heart… LEAVE A REMEMBRANCE at “VVMF Wall of Faces“…
(3) (18th) CAPTAIN A.R. ZIASEKER was flying an O-1G Bird Dog of the 21st TASS and 504th TASG out of Nha Trang en route to an assigned mission and area at low level when hit in the engine by small arms fire. 1LT ZIASEKER crash landed and walked way to be rescued quickly by a USAF helicopter…
RIPPLE SALVO… #865… HOW MAD AT EACH OTHER CAN WE GET? OUR BELOVED NATION IS FORMED UP FOR A CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD AND THE SAFETIES ARE COMING OFF. OUR NATION IS COMING APART AT THE SEAMS… In 1968, a “nation on the skids.” HOLMES ALEXANDER EXPLAINS ANOTHER TIME IN OUR HISTORY WHEN DISSENSION WAS RAMPANT: I quote…
“OUR NATION SEEMS ON SKIDS AS SELF-GOVERNING PEOPLE”
“WASHINGTON– Between two summer milestones, July Fourth and Labor Day, the party conventions are supposed to give us a pair of tickets to our choice. But in this, our year of discontent, we can hardly count upon anything. Independence Day was a caution: Hubert Humphrey, booed in Philadelphia…George Wallace almost mobbed in Minneapolis…American deserters from the armed services demonstrating against their country in Stockholm… Poor People marchers performing unprintable obscenities to get themselves arrested in Washington… the President in Texas presenting self-pity to the nation he’s sworn to lead…Nixon and Rockefeller laying low… McCarthy talking pacifism on the Glorious Fourth.
ARE WE FINISHED?…
“Have we had it? Are we finished? Historically, it is ominous that we now have two one-term Presidents in succession, Kennedy by assassination, Johnson by default. This has happened only twice before. This has happened only twice before. Between 1832-64, from Jackson to Lincoln, no president was reelected–and we had slithered into civil war. Between 1876-1896, from Hayes to McKinley, twoo presidents were assassinated and none succeeded himself–only Grover Cleveland was a man of parts. None of the 1968 candidates has the mark of enduring qualities. Our political bloodstream runs thin. A Harris survey conducted in mid-June suggests that our best men and women chose other professions than public life. A cross-section of the voters declared that ‘leadership’ was ‘better’ than ever in medicine (88 per cent), in science (79 per cent) and in business (64 per cent). But only 13 per cent of the panel thought political leadership was better than in the past, and 36 per cent found it worse.
“By any rejection, we seem to be on the skids as a self-governing people. Do men corrupt politics? Or does politics corrupt men. You can have it either way. Lyndon Johnson, life-long politician, will leave office with a sizable personal fortune but with the Democratic party in shambles. Nelson Rockefeller, three times honored s the people’s choice in New York, ducks the primaries and digs into his money-bags, as if he trusts dollars above democracy.
“Where is the corruption? –is it in the professional politician? Or in the political profession? Either way we are losing the capacity of rulership that once was the boast of every July Fourth orator.
THEN THERE’S WALLACE…
“Losing it but grasping at something else. The Harris survey calls it ‘the new politics’ and says it focuses on ‘character leadership qualities and style.’ Well, that has to mean something between ‘the Kennedys’ and George Wallace. Eight years ago we had candidate John Kennedy. He ws somewhat synthetically put together by expensive publicity as a man of character and leadership[, but he had his own ‘style.’ Today, the closest resemblance to JFK is New York Mayor John Lindsay who is stylish, if nothing else. And then there’s Wallace. I recently wrote here, as a note of warning, that history would find fascism in Wallace’s racist authoritarian appeal. I am learning by my mail that I am telling people anything they didn’t already know.
“They know what he stands for! And yet in large numbers, the people want Wallace. This is a measure of how far we have gone toward losing the knack for self-government, and how wildly we clutch for something else.”… End Alexander commentary…
(George Wallace finished 3rd with more than 9-million votes and the 46 Electoral Votes of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia)
RTR quote for 18 July: ALEXANDER the Great:”An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.”…
Lest we forget… Bear