RIPPLE SALVO… #959… HUMBLE HOST VISITS THE SPORTS PAGES OF THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE GREAT SPORTS WRITER ARTHUR DALEY FOR THIS DATE’S SAMPLE OF THE NEWS AT HOME WHILE WE WERE WAGING AN AIR WAR IN SOUTHEAST ASIA… Daley takes on “The Incident”– the upraised gloved fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the victory podium at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day NINE HUNDRED FIFTY-NINE of a look back to the unforgettable days and dark, stormy nights of Rolling Thunder…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times for Sunday, 20 October 1968…
THE WAR: Page 5: “U.S. PATROL CRAFT SINKS ENEMY JUNK–15 Of Crew Killed–Ground Action Lags”… “Naval operations were prominent in war activity again today as ground action continued to lag. In a night attack 40 miles southeast of Saigon, a United States Navy patrol boat, sank a junk and killed at least 15 of its crew on a river nrr Vungtau. The enemy craft had sailed out from an area from which rockets had been fired at the city. Five persons died in the rocket attack on Vungtau, a coastal resort, and 19 were wounded. The city was visited later in the day by President Nguyen Van Thieu who had planned to be there before the attack. The naval action in recent days, including a surprise raid on a long-secure enemy stronghold in the Mekong Delta yesterday, can hardly be termed unusual. The pace of sea warfare has not changed for months. It simply has gained more attention in the absence of significant ground action... HAMLET ATTACKED… Throughout all of South Vietnam in the last 24 hours, there were only nine incidents in which South Vietnamese regular units were attacked by enemy forces. The most serious incident in the period was a strike against irregular civilian defense forces defending the hamlet of Locha… in the central lowlands. Nineteen persons were killed. The daily communique of the South Korean forces in Vietnam also reflected the lack of engagement by regular allied troops. It stated: ‘No enemy offensive activities were reported throughout yesterday in the Republic of Korea forces tactical area of responsibility.’ …Allied forces are having a hard time finding the enemy.”…
PEACE TALKS: Page 1: “THIEU SAYS HANOI BARS CONCESSION–SEES NO ADVANCE–Raids Should Continue Until Enemy Makes Reciprocal Movement, He Asserts– Discounts Lull in War–Saigon Leader Believes Foe Is Catching His Breath Before Fighting Again”… President Thieu said today that North Vietnam had made ‘no concession whatsoever’ in an effort to negotiate a bombing halt and that there had thus been ‘no breakthrough’ in the preliminary talks in Paris. He also said that his government would keep urging the United States to keep bombing in North Vietnam until that country admitted the South Vietnamese to the Paris talks and announced that it would take a reciprocal step toward de-escalation of the war. As far as the Government of South Vietnam is concerned, the President continued, the current lull in the war has no significance as a peace gesture. He said that it only indicated that the enemy was tired and was trying to catch his breath before returning to battle.”… Page 4: “NO CHANGE IN PARIS PEACE TALKS, U.S. ASSERTS”…
HEAD LINES: Page 1: “PENTAGON ORDERS A STUDY ON ALL-VOLUNTEER FORCE”… Page 1: “LeMAY SAYS A BOMB CURB WASTES AMERICAN LIVES”… Page 1: “ONASSIS WEDS MRS. KENNEDY ON GREEK ISLAND OF SKORPROS”… Page 1: “U.S. ATHLETES SET 5 RECORDS AND WIN 4 FINALS AT OLYMPICS”… Page 1: “NEW ASIAN ACCORD IS URGED BY NIXON–Says Free Nations Must Be Guided To Security Pact to Meet Red Threat”… Page 1: “Both Sides Say Humphrey Can Still Carry New York”… Page 49: “WOMEN ARE SAID TO BE INFRINGING ON ANOTHER MAN’S PREROGATIVE: CURSING”…Page 70: “HURRICANE GLADYS IS THREATENING COAST OF CAROLINAS”… Page 73: “CONTROLLERS MAY BAR ASTRONAUTS REQUEST TO DESCEND WITHOUT SPACESUITS”… Page 78: “WALLACE TO MEET LeMAY ON WAR–Alabaman To Appear On ‘Meet the Press’ On NBC Today”… Page 61: “BERKELEY RESISTS MOVE BY GOVERNMENT REAGAN–Regents Action Bars Curb On Outside Speakers”…
20 OCTOBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (21 Oct reporting 20 Oct ops) Page 11: “Over North Vietnam, bad weather again hampered air activity, but some planes got through to hit supply craft and bridges. Four vessels and two bridges were damaged but heavy clouds prevented further observation of damage. A military spokesman here announced that a Marine Phantom jet fighter was downed Friday near Quangtri, just south of the demilitarized zone on the coast. It wa hit by 37-mm antiaircraft fire and became the 313th fixed wing aircraft lost in action in South Vietnam. Both crewmen parachuted into the Tonkin Gulf and were rescued by helicopter…” (See RTR for 18 Oct 1968: Marines: Major J.W. Quint and 1LT D.T. Schanzenbach)…
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 20 October 1968…
(1) An Air Force C-47D of the 460th TRW out of Tan Son Nhut was lost on a flight between TSN and Danang killing all 23 on board. The aircraft lost an engine in mountainous country. The pilot made a MAYDAY call reporting the loss of an engine and the inability to feather the propellor. He requested steers to Ban Me Thot airfield before all contact was lost. The aircraft went down in pre-dawn bad weather and the wreckage and 23 bodies were found 20 miles south of Ban Me Tout on a mountain at an elevation of 2,300 feet.” …
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 20 OCTOBER DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965, 1967 and 1968… NONE…
1966… LTJG FREDERICK RAYMOND PURRINGTON, USN… (POW)… and… LTJG HARRY SANFORD EDWARDS, JR., USN… (KIA)… Refer to RTR for 20-Oct-66, Ripple Salvo #232)
20 OCTOBER 1968… RIPPLE SALVO #959… NYT, 20-Oct-68, Sports:
“SPORTS OF THE TIMES” by Arthur Daley…
THE INCIDENT
“Mexico City, Oct. 19–George Foreman is a 19-year-old heavyweight with ambitions to follow the trail to gold and glory blazed by Floyd Patterson, Cassius Clay and Joe Frazier is also black, and he is bigger than any of them at 218 pounds. The gesture of black power militancy by Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the victory tribunal last Wednesday left him unmoved. ‘That’s for college kids,’ he said. ‘They live in another world.’
“If he could ignore the incident, few others could. Smith and Carlos brought their other world smack into the Olympic Games, where it did not belong, and created a shattering situation that shook this international sports carnival to its very core. They were also very divisive. When the two sprinters stood on the podium with black-gloved fists clenched overhead and with heads bowed in defiant refusal to look at the American flag while it was being raised, they precipitated reactions that were violent but mixed. Some thought it was legitimate to drag a protest movement onto a global stage, but a majority condemned it as disgraceful, insulting and embarrassing.
THE NINE OLD MEN
“Most incensed were the nine old men who form the Executive Council of the International Olympic Committee. They hail from nine different countries and are headed by Avery Brundage, their president and everybody’s whipping boy, most of his condemnation undeserved. Like Brundage, they also are idealists.
“The United States Olympic Committee, closer to the situation and much more aware of how sensitive it was, was inclined toward leniency. The U.S.O.C. issued a formal apology to the I.O.C., the Mexican Organizing Committee and the people of Mexico for their athletes’ ‘discourtesy,’ ‘untypical exhibitionism’ and ‘immature behavior.’ The U.S.O.C. was inclined to take no punitive action as a way of depriving the militants of future publicity, the only objective of a protest that one member described as going over ‘like a lead balloon.’
“But the I.O.C. was so furious over the intrusion of politics into its sacred games that it summoned Douglas Roby, the President of the U.S.O.C., to its council meeting and virtually ordered him to suspend Smith and Carlos. Thus they so dignified the protest that they blew it onto the front pages of almost every newspaper in the world. Let one thing be understood. The Brundage role was minor. The elderly sports statesman of eight other nations forced the issue. The Marquis of Exeter, the president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, had bestowed the medals when the incident took place. He also had stood atop the victory pedestal 40 years ago when he was Lord David Burghley and had won the Olympic 400-hurdles championship.
“‘I will not countenance such action again,’ he said angrily afterward. ‘I’ll refuse to hold a victory ceremony if an such attempt is made again.’ The Soviet delegate was quoted as offering a comment that must be considered ironic. ‘The Soviet Union never has used the Olympic Games for propaganda purposes,’ he supposedly said. He must have meant direct propaganda, because the entire Russian sports setup is indirect propaganda.
UNOPENED DIKES
“Yet the I.O.C. was fearful that any ignoring of the Smith-Carlos contretemps might open the floodgates to other protest gestures. Maybe the Czechoslovaks would protest the Russians. East and West Germany or Korea or Vietnam or any other countries might use the Olympics to put their problems in this international show-case. And what nation in the world doesn’t have problems?
“However, the suspension of the two most bristling American black militants to prod a couple of nonmilitants into sympathetic gestures. Larry James, a nonmilitant, diplomatically wore a black beret to take the heat off Lee Evans, the winner, and Ron Freeman, who was third, when the two militants took the stand with him. Evans really was the man on the spot. But he still set a world record of 43.8 seconds to win the 400 despite inner emotional turbulence, beating James by a whisker at the wire. And Evans stood with chin held high during the flag raising ceremonies, a half-smile on his proud face.
“The worst seems to be over. Ralph Boston, a nonmilitant, took his Bronze medal in the broad jump with feet bare, a token gesture that probably would never have been noticed if the I.O.C. had not lighted the hotfoot under the U.S.O.C. for summary action. When the ultrabelligerent Carlos stomped out of the Olympic Village yesterday, he was asked where he was going. ‘I’m going home,’ he snapped, brushing interviewers out of the way. ‘Do you mean the United States?’ maliciously asked a bystander.”… End Daley column…
RTR Quote for 20 October: THUCYDIDES: “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet, notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”…
Lest we forget… Bear