RIPPLE SALVO… #204… GROWLING AT THE WATERHOLE… but first,,,
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED FOUR of a review of the second greatest air campaign in American history…ROLLING THUNDER…
21 SEPTEMBER 1966… THE FRONT PAGE OF THE HOMETOWN PAPERS… NYT… A windy Wednesday, cool and cloudy, and rain…
Page 1: “U.S. To Sell Notes To Curb Inflation And Pay For The War”… President Johnson disclosed today a plan to sell new savings notes to the public to help pay for the war and to combat inflation. Details of the new notes have not been worked out, but they would pay higher interest rates than savings bonds and probably mature in a shorter period of time. Notes generally mature in a shorter period of time. Notes generally mature in from one to five years, while recent issues of savings bonds will mature in less than eight years. The purpose of the new notes would be to generate new savings, thus reducing purchasing power and the amount of money the government must borrow in the commercial money market. This will bring down high interest rates. Plans call for the notes to be sold with the zeal of wartime savings bonds.”…Page 1: “U.S. Studies Signs Of Shift In Hanoi”…”The Johnson Administration is taking a definite if guarded interest in reports that North Vietnam may be willing to use proposals advanced by Secretary Thant as a basis for peace talks…Secretary of State will explore the reports this week during talks at the United Nations with Secretary General Thant with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko of the Soviet Union and perhaps others. Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, the majority leader and leading proponent of peace efforts in Vietnam, urged Mr. Thant today to make his proposal more specific. He suggested in the Senate that Mr. Thant set a time table and a step-by-step procedure. The State Department maintained a cool public demeanor toward the reports, as it has towards dozens of others that have arisen in the last two years about possible openings for settling the Vietnam conflict.”… Page 1: “UN Assembly Is Opened”…”The 21st Session of the United Nations General Assembly opened today with a call by the assembly retiring President Amintore Fanfani of Italy for constructive negotiations that would lead to an honorable peace in Vietnam.”…
Page 1: “Grenada’s White Leaders Promise Respect For The Law”…”Grenada, Mississippi. Nearly 300 prominent white citizens issued a statement today of principles promising ‘all our influence to the support of law and order.’ This statement condemned last week’s violence by officials to give this fullest support to upholding the law at all times, regardless of the circumstances or persons involved.’ This was the first strong public declaration by a substantial body of responsible white citizens in this mill town of 9,000 population since the beatings that accompanied school desegregation last week. It was issued while Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was here to rally Negroes and their children with moderate but firm language. The marchers started from the Bell Flower Baptist Church after Dr. King had addressed them. He praised them as ‘Young pioneers of freedom. Go on with your disciplined kind of nonviolence that will bring the whole nation and this whole community to your rescue.’…”…Page 1: “Rights Backers Fear Backlash”…”Go into Chicago today in any home, any barber shop, and you will find people are not talking about Vietnam or rising prices or prosperity. They are talking about Martin Luther King and how they (Negroes) are moving in on us (whites) and what’s going to happen in our neighborhoods.”
Page 5: “GOP Says Johnson Deceives On War”…”House Republican leaders accused President Johnson’s Administration today of ‘deception and lack of credibility’ and said plans for a major escalation of the Vietnam War were being withheld until after the election on November 8. Democrats countered with expressions of shock and disappointment and said the Republicans were making a cheap effort to put the Vietnam War into the political arena. Republicans fired the opening salvo last night with a long white paper tracing the history of the Vietnam conflict. It said: ‘Under President Johnson the United States has become a full-fledged combatant in a conflict that is becoming bigger than the Korean War.’…”… Page 5: “Marines In Sharp Clash With North Vietnamese”…”United States Marines continued a sharp series of clashes with North Vietnamese regulars just south of the DMZ that separates North Vietnam from South Vietnam…United States planes heavily bombed the buffer strip…Allied Intelligence officers report that the North Vietnamese 324B Division has used the zone as an infiltration route into Quangtri province… A large force of Marines has been engaged since August 3 in military Operation Hastings just south of the zone where the NVN has built up troop and supply concentration areas in the buffer zone…”…Page 10: “Pentagon Backs Use Of Chemicals:…”Defense Department said today that there would be no relaxation of thedefoiliation or crop-destruction program in south Vietnam despite protests by 22 leading scientists…”
21 September 1966… The President’s Daily Briefing…CIA (TS sanitized)…South Vietnam: now that reporting from the provinces is almost complete, the original impression that the elections were reasonably honest and will run has been borne out. There was scattered small-scale padding of voting statistics but no evidence of rigging in favor of particular candidates. In fact, a number of candidates with official backing were soundly defeated.
21 SEPTEMBER 1966… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT (22 September reporting 21 September)…Page 1: “2 MIG-17s Downed By Jets In North”… “United States Air Force pilots shot down two MIGs and damaged three more yesterday in the biggest day of aerial combat of the Vietnam War. No United States planes were reported lost in the dog fights which took place in an area about 50 miles northeast of Hanoi. A U.S. spokesman said that Air Force F-105 Thunderchiefs clashed with the enemy jets in at least seven separate encounters. All the hits scored against the MIGs were 20mm cannon fire, although the Thunderchiefs also fired air-to-air missiles. The two enemy planes shot down were MIG-17s. The damaged plane was a MIG-21. The action raised the United States score of MIG kills and probable kills to 20.”… Page 5: “American bombers struck at other enemy targets within and south of the DMZ, which has developed into one of the most active theaters of the war. In other air action over the North, Navy planes from the carrier Coral Sea in the Gulf of Tonkin flew repeated strikes on oil storage areas, rail and shipping yards near Thanh Hoa. Five flights of A-4 Skyhawks and 3 flights of F-4 Phantoms hit the targets with bombs and rockets. Pilots said they destroyed seven boxcars and an antiaircraft site…they reported eight secondaries and smoke to 10,000-feet from the attack on the oil depot…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) Page 75: Two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 21 September 1966”
(1) CAPTAIN CHARLES LEE AMMON was flying and leading four F-105Ds of the 357th TFS and 355th TFW out of Takhli on a strike on a road and railway bridge 15 miles northeast of Hanoi when hit by AAA just before his roll-in to attack the bridge. He reported being hit and ejecting. Flight members saw a good chute and heard a brief transmission from his SAR beeper. Nothing more was heard from or about CAPTAIN AMMON until a U.S. congressional delegation returned from a visit to North Vietnam in August 1978 to discuss POW/MIA issues with several sets of remains of U.S warriors. CAPTAIN AMMON’s remains were among those returned on that date. CAPTAIN AMMONS was Killed in Action leading warriors against the enemy in his heartland. He perished fifty years ago today. He is remembered …
(2) CAPTAIN R.G. KELLENS and 1LT J.W. THOMAS were flying a Wolfpack F-4C of the 433rd TFS and 8th TFW on a strike on a railway and road bridge 15 miles south of Kep when jumped by several MIG-17s. In the ensuing hassle they took hits in the Phantom fuselage and turned toward the east and the South China Sea and took up a course for Danang. Their luck ran out off the coast near the DMZ. They ejected and were rescued by an alerted Air Force helicopter…
RIPPLE SALVO… #204… GROWLING AT THE WATERHOLE… In the dry season in Africa when the rivers drop away from their banks into narrow streams bordered by ever widening swaths of bare river bottom, the critters are forced to endure a nasty environment in order to suck up a life sustaining share of the precious water. The same sort of tense, dangerous, big ones eat the little ones, and survival of the fittest scene occurs annually in the Pentagon with regard to the allocation of scarce resources. The “haves” work tirelessly to retain their roles, missions and funds. The “have-nots” and “want-mores” work just as ferociously to add roles, missions and funds to their plans. When assets, water or funds, are relatively plentiful there is little growling at the waterhole. In the dry season, growling is the norm
When the JASON Summer Study group presented their conclusions and recommendations to Secretary McNamara on 30 August 1966 they unleashed “a momentous policy shift that was the most important evolution in the air war in the summer of 1966.” McNamara got what he wanted and was “strongly and favorably impressed with the work of the Summer Study.” He requested the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Wheeler to “bring the proposal up with the Chiefs.” General Wheeler also asked CINCPAC for an evaluation… Let the growling begin… I quote from “The Pentagon Papers” Gravel page 123,,,
“CINCPAC’s (Admiral Sharp) evaluation of the barrier proposal on September 13 was little more than a rehash of the overdrawn argument against such a system advanced in April. The sharpness of the language of his summary arguments, however, is extreme even for Admiral Sharp. In no uncertain terms he stated:
‘The combat forces required before, during and after construction of the barrier; the initial and follow-on logistic support; the engineer construction effort and time required; and existing logistic posture in Southeast Asia with respect to ports and land LOCs make construction of such a barrier impracticable… Military operations against North Vietnam and operations in South Vietnam are of transcendent importance. Operations elsewhere are complementary supporting undertakings. Priority and emphasis should be accorded in consideration of the forces and resources available to implement the strategy dictated by our objectives.’
“To some extent, the vehemence of CINCPAC’s reaction must have stemmed from the fact that he and General Westmoreland had just completed a paper exercise in which they had struggled to articulate a strategic concept for the conduct of the war to achieve U.S. objectives as they understood them. This effort had been linked to the consideration of CY 1967 force requirements for the war (the allocation of scarce resources), the definition of which required some strategic concept to serve as a guide. With respect to the war in the North, CINCPAC’s final ‘Military Strategy to Accomplish United States Objectives for Vietnam,’ stated:
‘In the North–Take the war to the enemy by unrelenting but selective application of United States air and naval power. Military installations and those industrial facilities that generate support for the aggression will be attacked. Movement within, into and out of North Vietnam will be impeded. The enemy will be denied the great psychological and material advantage of conducting an aggression from a sanctuary. This relentless application of force is designed progressively to curtail North Vietnam’s war-making capacity. It seeks to force upon him major replenishment, repair and construction efforts. North Vietnamese support and direction of the Pathet Lao and the insurgency in Thailand will be impaired. The movement of men and material through Laos and over land and water lines of communications into South Vietnam will be disrupted. Hanoi’s capability to support military operations in South Vietnam and to direct those operations will be progressively reduced.’
“With the formulation of intent for the air war, it is not surprising that the barrier proposal should have been anathema to CINCPAC.
“McNamara, however, proceeded to implement the barrier proposal in spite of CINCPAC’s condemnation and the Chief’s cool reaction.”
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On 15 September 1966 the Secretary of Defense established the “Defense Communications Planning Group” to push the plan for the “anti-infiltration barrier” ahead quickly. He had a new “pet rock”– an alternative to ROLLING THUNDER. And a growling group of admirals and generals. Situation normal. Unity of command??? All would come to a head at an October 10-14 meeting in Vietnam. The “anti-infiltration barrier” was placed first on the agenda… A shift in resources to fund the “momentous shift in policy” and a new strategy???
Lest we forget…. Bear ……….. –30– ………….