RIPPLE SALVO… #901… ON 22 AUGUST 1968 AMBASSADOR AVERELL HARRIMAN, THE SENIOR NEGOTIATOR FOR THE UNITED STATES IN THE ONGOING PEACE TALKS WITH NORTH VIETNAM, wrote himself a memorandum-for-the-record while on duty in Paris fifty years ago this day, that expressed his frustration, concern and disappointment, not just with the lack of progress in the “peace talks,” but with the President as well. He wrote: “I believe that the failure of the President to stop all bombing of North Viet-Nam in late July or early August (as we recommended) is an historic tragedy of possibly wide consequences. It is my belief, weighing all the evidence, that Hanoi would have been preempted from a new widespread attack–particularly in the DMZ area and on Saigon. (Even Xuan Thuy is quoted as saying to a French reporter ‘Why doesn’t President Johnson try us out? If we fail to respond, he can start bombing again.’) If the bombing of North Vietnam had been stopped, we would have satisfied the Soviet leaders and could have been in the midst of discussion on how to proceed from here. President Johnson’s trip to the Soviet Union would have been publicly laid on. Nuclear restraint talks would perhaps have been more active, and other bilateral matters might have been more active, and other bilateral matters might have been in process of opening up.”… Ambassador Harriman continued his woulda, coulda, shouda been hypothesis… “These factors might have weighed in the balance to help the more cautious viewpoint in the Soviet councils against the intervention in Czechoslovakia. this may seem far fetched but it certainly looked as if the Kremlin leaders wre divided and couldn’t agree for some weeks. If they had been involved all out on a new tack with the U.S., it is difficult to believe they would have thrown that all down the drain. Whereas instead, the image of Johnson looked rigid re Viet-Nam, and this did not give much hope to early U.S. moves. In fact, it seems that the decision to invade Czechoslovakia was made at the last minute as Johnson was invited to Moscow only a few days before their action, and it was almost announced the morning of the invasion.”… (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d336)
It would seem that Ambassador Harriman was also talking to Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy… see below…but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day NINE HUNDRED-ONE of reflections from the pages of history covering the years of the air war in the skies of North Vietnam called ROLLING THUNDER in the classified pubs….
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Thursday, 22 August 1968…
THE WAR: Page 4: “14 KILLED, 67 INJURED IN SAIGON IN THE FIRST SHELLING SINCE JUNE”… “The Vietcong shelled central Saigon this morning for the first time in two months. Hospital authorities said that 14 persons had been killed and 67 wounded. At the same time, rockets and mortar shells struck the cities of Taybinh and Nhabe, the sprawling air base at Bienhoa and five artillery fire bases. A spokesman said that 20 123-mm rockets were fired into Saigon…Yesterday afternoon, American soldiers, fighting from armored personnel carriers of the 25th Infantry Division and heavily supported by artillery and air power, killed 182 enemy soldiers in a sprawling rubber plantation 44 miles northwest of Saigon. Two American soldiers died and 43 were wounded in the plantation, which is 15 miles east of the city of Taybinh…Earlier the Vietcong launched a series of coordinated but small-scale attacks in the Mekong Delta that produced few casualties and id little damage. Reports showed that five persons had been killed and 55 wounded–most of them South Vietnamese–in the attacks. Nine helicopters wre damaged and a bridge on the main highway to Saigon was blown up. There were 20 separate attacks….The enemy struck 11 provincial capitals, several district towns an artillery base and a bridge.”…
Page 1: “RUSSIANS SEIZE DUBCEK AND SIX COLLEAGUES–MACHINE GUN FIRE IS EXCHANGED IN PRAGUE–Czechs Balking Formation Of New Regime–23 KILLED IN CLASHES WITH INVADING FORCES”… “The Major Development in the Crisis”… ‘SOVIET TROOPS and their allies, completing their occupation of Czechoslovakia, were reported to have detained Alexander Dubcek an the Prague leaders. The occupiers, finding it difficult to set up a new regime, denounced Mr. Dubcek by name for the first time…CZECHOSLOVAKIA CIVILIANS put up scattered resistance, sitting tanks on afire, Twenty-three demonstrations were reported killed when the invaders opened fire….AT THE UNITED NATIONS, Czechoslovakia diplomats issued statement demanding that the invading forces withdraw. The Security Council met and put the Czechoslovakia issue on its agenda over Soviet protest….PRESIDENT JOHNSON condemned the action by Moscow and urged it to withdraw its troops. But he indicated that the United States would not go beyond leading in protest…MANY COMMUNIST LEADERS, among them Presidents Ceausescu of Rumania and Tito of Yugoslavia, condemned the invasion. A chorus of protest from Communist bloc parties elsewhere, including France’s, indicated a setback for Soviet efforts to unify the Communist movement.”…
Page 16: “WAVE OF ANGER SWEEPS WORLD–SOME SOVIET EMBASSIES RAIDED–Britain and France Assail Invasion–Mrs. Ghandi Expresses Anguish–Three Arab Lands Back Moscow”… Page 1: “JOHNSON SCORES MOSCOW’S ACTION–Administration Has Decided There Is No Safe Way ffor U.lS. To Reist Move”… Page 17; “KREMLIN’S HAWKS WON THE DEBATE–Invasion came After 9-month Period Of Indecision”... Page 22: POLITICS: “Democratic Doves Hope For Strong Peace Plank Dimmed By Czech Invasion”… “Anti-War Foes Reject Offer on Demonstrations From Mayor Daley of Chicago”… Page 3: “U.S. GIVES FIRST MEDAL OF HONOR TO A NEGRO MARINE”… ” The first Medal of honor awarded a Negro marine was presented toay to the parents of Pfc. James Anderson Jr. of Compton, Calif., who gave his life to save his comrades in Vietnam…General Leonard F. Chapman, Commandant of the Marine, read the citation telling how Private Anderson curled his body around an enemy hand grenade to shield other members of his platoon from its blast. It was the 42nd MOH of the Vietnam war and the 12th in the war to go to a marine. Officials said it was the first in Marine Corps history to to to a Negro…”…Page 1: “PRESIDENT EISENHOWER’S HEART IS MORE IRRITATED–Doctors Say He Is Resting Comfortably–and His Vital signs Are Stable”…
22 AUGUST 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (23 Aug reporting 22 Aug ops) Page 6: “In North Vietnam, United States Navy pilots flew several strikes against a 25-mile long fuel line running between two cities northwest of Vinh…. VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 22 August 1968…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW? FOR THE FOUR 22 AUGUST DAYS IN THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965, 1966, 1968… NONE
1967… 1LT FRANCIS BARNES MIDNIGHT, USAF… (KIA)… (BODY NOT RECOVERED) …lEFT BEHIND
RIPPLE SALVO… #901… WITH LESS THAN A WEEK TO GO BEFORE THE OPENING OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION THE POLITICIANS POSITIONS ON THE ISSUES WERE FIRMING UP. On 22 August 1968 The New York Times endorsed Senator Ted Kennedy’s “fresh proposal that comes closer to the realities and needs of the situation than any of those currently on the table.”… NYT, OpEd, page 36: “KENNEDY ON VIETNAM”…I quote…
“Senator Edward Kennedy has cut though the confusion and complexity of the Vietnam debate in this country and in Paris with a fresh proposal that comes closer to the realities and needs of the situation than any currently on the table. He proposes to halt the bombing of the North and to negotiate with Hanoi a mutual withdrawal of troops from the South, starting with significant reductions this year. Everything else would flow from these two steps.
“The halt in bombing would enable substantive negotiations to begin in Paris without endangering American troops, as testimony by two Defense Secretaries has made clear. The proposal to begin mutual cuts in external forces would move the Paris talks past the stage of a ridiculous charade. America’s most distinguished Ambassador, Averell Harriman, has been wasting his time trying to get Hanoi’s representatives to admit what the whole world knows — that North Vietnamese troops are fighting in the South. Mr. Kennedy assumes that they are there and will leave only if American troops also depart.
“By leaving the political settlement in South Vietnam to the South Vietnamese, Mr. Kennedy would remove from the Paris negotiations the issue of a coalition government in Saigon and the nature of election procedures. This would become a matter for the Saigon Government and the Vietcong to work out or fight out as they wish. Meanwhile, the start of American withdrawal would put the strongest possible pressure on the Saigon Government ‘to broaden its base, increase its appeal and negotiate an accommodation with the National Liberation Front.’ Senator Kennedy rightly warned that ‘the government in Saigon must not be given a veto over the course in Paris, our cessation of the bombing or our mutual withdrawal of troops.’
“American withdrawal would be accompanied by ‘whatever help we can give to the South Vietnamese in the building of a viable political, economic and legal structure that will not promptly collapse upon our departure.’ The concomitant pull-out of North Vietnamese military takeover of the South and to leave its future to the self-determination of the South Vietnamese people. The Kennedy plan puts into simplified, political realization form the more inchoate proposals of Senator McCarthy and McGovern and other anti-Administration Democrats. President Johnson undoubtedly will reject it out of hand. Vice President Humphrey would be wiser to give it its run through the platform committee to the inevitable vote on the floor of the Chicago convention. Its virtue lies not in its immediate political effect, but in the fact that it shows a way out of the Vietnam dilemma to the country and the world.”… End quote…
RTR quote for 22 August: SUN TZU, The Art of War: “There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.” (Vietnam 1961-1973)… (Afghanistan 2002-2018)…
Lest we forget…. Bear