RIPPLE SALVO… #958… HUMBLE HOST BRINGS FORTH FROM OCTOBER 1968 A POINT OF VIEW FOR 2018 AMERICA– A HOUSE NOW HOPELESSLY DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF–TO PONDER… but first…
19 OCTOBER 1968…Day NINE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT of a 1,000 day era of American history that included the air war over North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Saturday, 19 October 1968…
THE WAR: Page 9: “U.S. SHIPS SHELL LAKE SANCTUARY–Inflict Damages In Mekong Delta–Ground War Slow”… Page 28: “LeMAY, ENDING VIETNAM VISIT, EXPLAINS VIEW ON BOMBING PORT”… “General Curtis E. LeMay, retired, the American Independent party vice-President candidate, apparently retreated today from a position that favored the bombing of North Vietnam to end the war. General LeMay asked if he believed that the port city of Haiphong should be attacked by Americans air power, said, ‘I don’t say you have to bomb Haiphong to close it.’ He went on to explain that the port could be closed by the destruction of harbor dredges so they could no longer clear the shipping channels. General LeMay made his comments after concluding a three day tour of American military installations. during his trip, he refused to talk to representatives of news media. This morning, however, he consented to speak to a few reporters aboard a Pan American World Airways jet as it waited at Tansonnhut airport to carry him and his party back to the United States. PRAISES COMMAND… The general was relaxed and affable during his brief interview. He praised the military command here, saying it was doing a good job with ‘a high degree of professionalism.’ He returned to his previous position, however, by saying that the allied policy of ‘offering sanctuaries to the enemy’ had ‘hampered’ the war effort. General LeMay declined to discuss in detail any of his ideas on Vietnam, saying that he wanted to talk over the situation with George C. Wallace, his party’s Presidential candidate, before making any public pronouncements. The former Air Force Chief of Staff had come here with ideas of how to subdue the enemy: blast the daylights out of Haiphong, the chief port of North Vietnam, ‘bomb every military target that was necessary to be destroyed to win the war, regardless of where it was found.’ But what he was told, as a ‘distinguished visitor,’ in briefings by infantry, Air Force and naval officers did not support his prescription of ‘bomb them back to the stone age.’He was told, among other things that the decision to limit the bombing raids in North Vietnam to targets below the 19th Parallel had achieved results. The enemy has apparently been unable to increase the flow of men and material to South Vietnam, and there has been a slight decrease in the number of American air casualties, according to briefing officers.”…
PEACE TALKS: STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of Historian. Historical Documents. Foreign Relations. 1964-68 Vietnam, Volume 07. Eleven documents are references and briefly introduces in order to keep the make the complete series of communications concerning the Paris peace talks in the October 1968 a part of the RTR archives. During this period –17 through 19 October– the effort to get “serious talks” started hung on getting Hanoi to agree to a firm start date to start the day after the President orders the cessation of bombing of the North. Hanoi insists on a greater gap between the halt of bombing and the start of talks. But progress is being made. A second issue is who gets to sit at the table. The U.S. insists on the GVN (SVN) join the U.S. at the table, and says that the North can bring anybody they want to sit on their side. Issue is: Thieu insistence the NFL (Vietcong) not be accorded the status of a government… The series is worth a perusal, but the eleven Notes, Memos, Telegrams, ane Telephone Conversations are dull reading… Start at document 83, which is the best of the bunch–an angry Secretary of Defense holds the floor at a daily morning meeting of the Defense Department’s top echelon of civilian leaders… Continue access to remaining ten documents 84 through 93 by mousing the small forward carrot in the right hand margin of document 83, etc…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d83
HEAD LINES: Page 1: “CAPITAL HOPEFUL ON BREAKTHROUGH IN HANOI’S REPLY–Response Is Still Awaited To Bombing Halt–Proposal Administration Says–War Course A Factor–American Aies Feel North May Be Swayed Now–Thieu Stirs Speculation”… Page 1: “BAN ON F-111 FLIGHTS ENDED BY AIR FORCE”…Page 1: “JORDAN CONTACT WITH ISRAEL SEEN–Informal Talks Reports to Have Been Initiated With Hussein’s Emissaries”… Page 1: “APOLLO ORBIT RAISED IN A TEST OF ENGINE”… Page 1: “TWO BLACK POWER ADVOCATES OUTED FROM OLYMPICS–U.S. Team Drops Smith and Carlos For Clenched Gloved Fist Display On Victory Stand”... Page 45: “SOME ATHLETES-NEGRO AND WHITE-THREATEN TO GO HOME WITH SMITH AND CARLOS”… Page 1: “MRS. KENNEDY AND ONASSIS ARRIVE AT ISLAND SCORPIOS”… Page 1: “HUMPHREY IS TOLD CONNECTION TIDE IS SHIFTING TO HIM–But He Encountered Heckling From Wallace Supporters At An Aerospace Plant In Stratford”… Page 1: “NIXON DEPLORES HATE-BASED VOTE–Tells Party Aids In Boston He Does Not Want Victory Conferred By Negativism”… Page 8: “THIEU SAID TO ASK 3 GUARANTEES FROM HANOI IN A BOMBING HALT”… “President Thieu wants assurances that (1) the enemy will respect the demilitarized zone, (2) stop shelling South Vietnamese towns, and (3) agree to let the South Vietnamese Government participate in the Paris talks.”
19 OCTOBER 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times: There was no coverage of air operations north of the DMZ… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 19 October 1968…
(1) LCOL DONALD R. D’AMICO and 1LT SAMUEL F. WILBURN were flying an F-4D of the 48oth TFS and 366th TFW out of Danang on an armed reconnaissance mission south of Dong Hoi and shot down by AAA while strafing a gun emplacement. The aircraft was severely damaged by the ground fire but LCOL D’AMICO was able to fly the Phantom east and about 15 miles to a point northeast of the DMZ where the crew was forced to eject. During the rescue effort an Air Force HH-3E was hit by enemy gunfire from Tiger Island and had to be abandoned. Both F-4 pilots were rescued by another Air Force helicopter. It was 1LT WILBURN’s second ejection and rescue in two weeks…
(2) CAPTAIN RALPH ROBERT WENSINGER and CAPTAIN ANTHONY JOSEPH PEARSON were flying an O-2A of the 19th TASS and 504th TASG out of Bien Hoa and were controlling an air strike 10 miles south of Saigon when their aircraft was downed by AAA killing both airmen… They are remembered with admiration and respect on this 50th anniversary of their final flight for our country…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 19 OCTOBER DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1966, 1967 and 1968… NONE…
1965… LTJG JOHN BOWERS WORCESTER, USN… (MIA… XX-Presumptive Finding of Death… Body Not Recovered) …
“On the afternoon of 19 October 1965, then LTJG John B. ‘Smiley’ Worcester was the pilot of an A-4C of the VA-195 Dambusters launched from the deck of USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31) as the number two aircraft in a section of two. The flight was conducting a late afternoon areed reconnaissance mission over central North Vietnam between the major cities of Thanh Hoa and Vinh…The visibility along the entire route of flight was excellent. At approximately 1700 hours the Skyhawks were directed to attack the bridge over the Song Hieu River that flowed through the town of Nghia Hu in an attempt to cut off the communist supply line in that region. Both aircraft made a run on the bridge with LTJG Worcester right behind the lead aircraft. Smiley Worcester expended part of his ordnance on the bridge, and as he pulled off target, he reported he was turning over checkpoint one. At approximately 1715 hours his flight leader reported reaching checkpoint two and requested a radio check from LTJG Worcester. When no contact could be established, the flight leader radioed the Airborne Battlefield Command and Control (ABCCC) aircraft to request a search and rescue mission be immediately initiated. He then began a visual search through the rolling hills, along thier flight path, but found no evidence of LTJG Worcester or his aircraft…. All aerial search operations proved negative. Because of the location of loss being deep in enemy held territory, no ground search was possible. LTJG Worcester’s last known location was approximately 26 miles south-southwest of Thanh Hoa and 47 miles north-north-west of Vinh. At the time of formal search effort was terminated, John Worcester was listed as Missing in Action. He was on his 15th combat mission when lost.”… LTJG Worcester was not among the POWs released in 1973 and the North Vietnamese have denied any knowledge of him, though circumstances surrounding this incident indicate the strong possibility that enemy forces knew his fate…His status in 2018 remains XX (Presumtive Finding of Death)…
Today, 53 years after LTJG SMILEY WORCESTER’s final flight, he is remembered as a young warrior left on the battlefield where he fell in honorable death in the service of his country…
RIPPLE SALVO… #958… NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY 13 OCTOBER, Page 55:
“CYCLES OF RIOTS IN U.S. RECALLED–Expert Says Nation Forgets Its History of Violence”…
“The slum and campus riots of recent years are not, as many Americans seem to think, a new phenomenon in national life. So says Dr. John P Spiegel, Director of the Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Dr. Spiegel, who also serves as consultant to the national Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, spoke to newspapermen at an annual United Press International conference of editors and publishers here in Washington this week. ‘As a nation, we suffer from historical amnesia,’ he said. ‘We have an image of ourselves as quite peace-loving and rational beings. The United States citizen thinks of himself and his country ordinarily as governed by democratic, rational, peace-loving instincts. But the fact of the matter is otherwise. We have always been a violent country, and in our country there have been repeated cycles of violence, cycles of rioting, which we tend to forget about. It’s easy to see why this happens, because these particular episodes in our past certainly don’t fit into our self-image as being so peace loving and so rational.’
SEIZURE OF COURTS
“‘So we have forgotten about Shay’s Rebellion of 1786, when a group of hard-presses poor farmers in the western part of Massachusetts, resentful about tax laws passed by the state legislature, simply seized the law courts and wouldn’t let any justice be transacted, scaring the daylights out of the legislature to the extent that the tax laws, which the farmers so much resented, were modified. You might say that’s a prototype of what has happened ever since with respect to the uses and functions of violence.
“‘We’ve forgotten about the anti-Catholic riots–the anti-Irish riots–of the 1840’s and the 1850’s with a particularly bloody outbreak in the city of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love in 1844. We’ve forgotten about the Civil War draft riot of 1863, in which, in a period of five days, almost 2,000 people were killed. We have had nothing like that in the current series of urban disorders. We’ve forgotten about the anti-Chinese riots on the West Coast of in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 1870’s which were extraordinarily cruel.’
HOMESTEAD AND PULLMAN
”We’ve forgotten about the labor uprisings, the whole series of episodes in the course of labor attempting to organize itself and conduct collective bargaining, which began seriously in the 1890’s and was seen in such bloody affairs as the Homestead strike and the Pullman strike just south of Chicago in the 1890’s. In the Pullman strike, I don’t think any of us remember that the nation had to mobilize 16,000 Federal troops to contain the disorders that spread so rapidly throughout the country. Well, again, we’ve just had nothing like that in terms of the numbers used for law enforcement in our current series of difficulties. And frankly, we’ve forgotten about the anti-Negro riots of 1919 and 1920, after World War I–the so-called race riots, which is an improper name for them because they were almost exclusively characterized by the sacrifices of whites attacking black people.
“‘So when we come up to the current cycle that we’re now engaged in of urban disorders in black communities and on college campuses, this is obviously the seventh of number of such cycles that characterized our country, and I have left a lot out of this account.'”… End NYT article quote…
Humble Host features the short NYT article on American violence as a consequence of reading an “American Mind” piece by Angelo Codevilla, OUR REVOLUTION’S LOGIC today.
RTR quote for 19 October: Angelo Codevilla’s parting shot for his essay OUR REVOLUTION’s LOGIC: William Shakespeare, JULIUS CAESAR:
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear