RIPPLE SALVO…#205… 3rd WEEK IN SEPTEMBER… but first…
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED FIVE of a daily history lesson that matters… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…
22 SEPTEMBER 1966… THE FRONT PAGE NEWS IN CONUS…NYT… A partly cloudy Thursday with a chance of showers…
Page 1: “Heaviest Rains Since 1903 Lashes Metropolitan Area”…”A northeaster hit the metropolitan area with high winds yesterday and brought the heaviest 24-hour rainfall here in 63 years. The storm flooded roads, stalled commuter and subway lines, and caused isolated power failures over a wide area. The total rainfall was 5.54-inches. It rained from 1:40 AM to 11:48 PM. The record remains 11.17-inches recorded on October 8-9, 1903…” Page 1: “U.S. Sets Ceilings On Interest Rate Paid On Savings”…”The Johnson Administration took action today against the nation’s economic ailments with restricitions on interest rates, a freeze on Federal housing, criticism of increased automobile prices, and another hint about a possible tax increase to come. (In Detroit Wednesday Chrysler Corporation announced increased prices on 1967 model automobiles). With the ink scarcely dry on a new law giving them authority to do so, the Government agencies that regulate banks and savings and loans associations announced ceilings on interest rates these institutions will be permitted henceforth to pay their depositors. The ceilings for regular savings and loans accounts will vary between 4 and 5 1/2 per cent. The main purpose of the ceilings is to prevent further escalation in interest rates paid to depositors. Such escalation has drawn money out of the mortgage market. It has also endangered the solvency of some financial institutions, particularly the Savings and Loans in the far west.”… Page 1: “Marcos Proposes Soviets and Asians Seek Peace Talks”…”President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines appealed to the Soviet Union and all Asian nations today for a bold initiative to end the Vietnam War. Marcos: ‘Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, the members of the Association of the Southeast Asia, hereby renew their appeal to all Asian countries and the Soviet Union to act with equal boldness of imagination by calling a new Tashkent for Southeast Asia to end the brutal war in South Vietnam.’…”…
Page 1: “5 Pickets Seized In Harlem Clash Over New School”…”Angry Negro demonstrators broke through a police barricade and attempted to prevent the white principal from entering Intermediate School 201 in East Harlem yesterday. Five Negroes, including 2 women were arrested during a 15-minute disturbance. ‘This was only a brief skirmish in a prelude to war,’ said Roy Innes, bearded chairman of the Harlem Chapter of the Congres of Racial Equality. He would not predict what would happen next but declared: ‘You can’t have police escorting teachers and principlal to school every day. If I were Mr. Lisser (White Principal) I would not come here. It is not safe for him.’…”
Page 1: “Planes May Have Erred”…”The result of a United States military investigation made public today indicated that American planes may have bombed a South Vietnam hamlet in the DMZ August 13. MK-82 bomb fragments at the scene led to the report conclusion that: ‘United States jet aircraft were probably involved but positive identification of the aircraft cannot be established.’…” Page 5: “Cambodia Accuses U.S. Of Air Attack”…”Cambodia accused the United States today of having attacked a Cambodian guard post near the frontier with South Vietnam Tuesday killing a Cambodian sentry. Two other guards were gravely wounded and two others, less severely. The guard post is ‘some hundreds of yards inside Cambodia near the town of Soul’ about 90 miles west of Saigon. The attack was carried out by two plainly marked American helicopters. The attack comes at a time when there have been signs that the United States and Cambodia might move toward normal ties which Cambodia severed in May, 1965, mainly because of border violation.”…
Page 2: “Peking On Bitter Attack on U.N. Insists On Total Reorganization”…”Peking has greeted the opening of the United Nations General Assembly with a bitter attack and a new declaration that the world body should be reorganized. The attack was made in a commentary by the Communist Chinese Press Agency, which repeated previous allegations that the United Nations is controlled by the U.S. The commentary said that the U.N. should thoroughly smash the United States control. ‘In order to make use of the United Nations to push through it’s peace plot, the United States has called out all it’s lackeys, including Secretary General U Thant, Fanfani, the Pope, and the heads of puppet regimes to make a hue and cry about it so as to push the dirty plot to a new climax.’…”… Page 2: “China Debate Cleared At UN”…”The way was cleared today for the annual debate on China in the 1961 General Assembly. Without a vote the assembly’s 25 member steering committee passed a request by nine of Peking’s supporters for debate on the issue: ‘Restoration of the lawful right of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations.’..Arthur Goldberg, the United States Representative, said the United States welcomed a debate, indicating confidence that one day the Assembly would vote inconclusively, as it did last year.”
22 SEPTEMBER 1966… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT (23 September reporting 22 September) Page 14: “Pilots Describe Downing Of MIGs”…”The United Air Force pilots who shot down two enemy MIGs yesterday described the action today. Their encounters were part of the heaviest day of aerial dueling in the war over North Vietnam. Both pilots were flying F-105 Thunderchiefs. First Lieutenant Fred A. Wilson, 26, of Mobile, Alabama, said he thought he was going to run right through the MIG he shot down. His flight leader had spotted a MIG and attacked it, but the bullets only tore into the MIGs wing. LT Wilson then swept in behind the MIG. ‘Didn’t even have the electronic gear for my guns hooked up, so I just got down and eyeballed the guy and drove up his tailpipe. It kept getting bigger and bigger and I kept squeezing the trigger. Pieces started tearing off of his tail and then he rolled over on his back and crashed. We were at about 22-feet off the ground. 1Lt Wilson said he remembers calling into his radio, ‘He’s going in, he’s going in,’ as though trying to warn a fellow pilot. ‘You have a feeling for a human being, even if he is the enemy.”… In a battle a short time before 1Lt Wilson’s MIG kill, 1Lt Karl Richter, 23, of Holly, Michigan, shot down a MIG 30 miles northwest of Hanoi. 1Lt Richter, possibility the youngest American pilot with a MIG to his credit in Vietnam, said he had just finished bombing a radar site when he and a fellow pilot saw two MIGs closing in on their flight leader. 1Lt Richter swept in behind one of them and opened fire with 20mm shells. ‘finally,’ he said, ‘my gun stopped firing and right then the right wing broke off the bird and it began to disintegrate. My wingman told me the pilot is our and he has a good chute.’ An American spokesman said no American planes were lost during the day.”… Page 14: “Air Force authorities said the American pilots reported having seen a record total of 21 enemy planes. Four were MIG-21s, the advanced Soviet-built jet. Both the down planes were MIG-17s, an older type of Soviet fighter. The heaviest previous day of air contact over the North 14 MIGs were sighted…Elsewhere over the North, where 121 missions were carried out by the United States, a Navy F-4B (LCDR James Bauder and LTJG James Mills) and an F-105D (Captain Charles Lee Ammon) crashed. The three crewmen were listed as missing in action (KIA).”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) … One fixed wing aircraft lost over Southeast Asia on 22 September 1966… (page 75)…
(1) LT CHARLES ALLEN KNOCHEL was flying an A-1H of the VA-176 Thunderbolts embarked in USS Intrepid on an armed reconnaissance mission in route Pak 2 and was exiting near Cap Mu Ron when hit with intense ground fire. The aircraft burst into flames that torched off onboard 20mm ammo forcing LT KNOCHEL to bail out a few miles at sea. He was seen with a good chute but entered the water in a wild swing that it is thought to have rendered him unconscious. LT KNOCHEL perished during the 12 minutes it took for the HU-16 to reach his position. LT KNOCHEL was killed in action fifty years ago today… and is missing forever… He is with thousands of other Naval Aviators “lost at sea”… and by the nature of the service have been “left behind.”… to rest in peace in “the briny deep.”
RIPPLE SALVO… #205… THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY… The third week of September every year brings the world’s diplomats to New York City for a unique brouhaha that affords every nation big and small a chance to get the burrs out from under their respective saddles. Chests come clean. Chips get shifted around on shoulders. In 1966 the UN met the 21st General Assembly, as they are currently meeting in the 71st General Assembly in 2016… In fact, our President addressed the General Assembly yesterday in what one of my respected correspondents said looked like President Obama’s audition for Secretary General…In 1966 the United States UN Representative Arthur Goldberg gave a widely acclaimed address for the United States that reported the relentless effort to muster peace negotiations. In addition, he went further and opened the door for some new initiatives… As it pertains to Rolling Thunder, I add the comments of the New York Times on the Goldberg speech… NYT 22 September 1966 (Page Ed 36)…I quote: “The Offer To Hanoi”
“Ambassador Goldberg’s address on Vietnam to the United Nations General Assembly is the best and most conciliatory presentation of the United States yet made…It is true that, in substance the United States has at one time or another made just about every offer that Ambassador Goldberg made yesterday. However, his speech was a solemn formal commitment before the most important of world organizations. The always vexing problem of credibility will be difficult to impugn now. So will the charge that the American position is inflexible; almost every offer is accompanied by a willingness to consider alternative approaches. For instance, the supervision of the proposed withdrawal of troops by both sides can be done by the United Nations ‘or other machinery.’ Likewise, ‘we will support a reconvening of he Geneva Conference, or any other generally acceptable forum’… What Ambassador Goldberg has done is give greatly enhanced emphasis and extension to policies expressed previously in such communications as Secretary Rusk’s letter to French Foreign Minister Couve de Murville. In the process, the United States shows its responsiveness to the urgent pleas recently made by Pope Paul VI and Secretary General Thant…A direct response is given Mr. Thant’s three points–that the bombing of North Vietnam should stop; that military activity on both sides should stop; and that the Vietcong should be admitted to the peace talks. The United States expresses willingness to take the first step by halting the bombing of North Vietnam if Hanoi gives any kind of indication that it is ready to match the American action. While President Johnson has said that the role of the Vietcong in any negotiations would not be an insurmountable problem, ‘Mr. Goldberg went a little further. ‘We do not seek to exclude any segment of the South Vietnamese people from peaceful participation in their country’s future,’ he said.
“The next and most crucial move is up to North Vietnam. The silence that has enveloped Hanoi since Mr. Thant made his three point peace proposal has been interpreted as hopeful. The internal troubles of Communist China should give Ho Chi Minh a bit more leeway than previously. The question of credibility is vital to Hanoi, which has always felt it got a raw deal at the end of World War II and after the Geneva conference in 1954…Ambassador Goldberg unfortunately could not offer the most convincing argument of all–a unilateral de-escalation of the war by the United States without any ‘ifs’ attached. He did the next best thing–a promise to de-escalate on a simple assurance from Hanoi of North Vietnam’s willingness to do likewise. Opportunity is knocking at Hanoi’s door. It’s own safety and world’s will be effected by it’s response.”
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It seems to me that the United States made it’s best and last offer to negotiate on 22 September 1966. Time for Hanoi to show up or face some dire escalation–like Linebacker in spades along with the mining. The Air Force Chief of Staff thought so too… Guess who?…
Lest we forget… Bear ………. –30– ………