RIPPLE SALVO… #117… LESSONS IGNORED… PART ONE…but first…
Good Morning: Day ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN of a review of the “air war” in North Vietnam…
25 JUNE 1966…ON THE HOME FRONT… A “fair” Saturday in New York City but very hot at 97-degrees….Ditto D.C. at 93….
Page 1: “U.S. To Press Again for Rural Reform In South Vietnam”…”With the political crisis dwindling at least for the moment, the United States is prepared to reemphasize its program of economic, social and political development for South Vietnam. The program evolved in the closing months of last year and proclaimed in February at the Honolulu conference President Johnson’s and the leaders of South Vietnam has been seriously hampered by political unrest for the past three months. Pessimists in Saigon have said the program will be forgotten. The rural reconstruction program which aims to create a social and political fabric in the villages and hamlets ravaged by Vietcong is centered on the training program for rural redevelopment workers…the first class of 59 course graduates is ready to go to work… Page 1: “Accord By Dr. King Angers Marchers”...groans met the announcement of compromise with the leaders of Canton, Mississippi. Dr. King agreed to “no camping on public school grounds” but can hold meetings there. Sleeping arrangements have been set up for the gym of the Catholic Church… Page 15: “Marchers Defy Crowd of Whites Hold rally in Philadelphia (Mississippi)”…”The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and 300 civil rights marchers returned to downtown Philadelphia yesterday and braved a speeding car, three bottles, two eggs and hundreds of shouts ‘nxxxr.’ The taunts and the missiles came from 1500-2000 whites who stared over the shoulders of more than 100 heavily armed state highway patrolmen and local law enforcement officers… Stokely Carmichael: “The people that are gathered around us represent America in its truest form. They represent a sick and resisting society that sits in the United Nations and gives lip service to democracy.”…MLK: “We are going to build right here a society based on brotherhood and understanding.”…Meanwhile, racial tensions tighten in Boston and Cleveland…
Page 5: “Pope Regrets His Peace Bids Failure”… Vatican note: “Pope Paul VI expressed regret today that our sincere disinterested efforts for peace in Vietnam had failed to resolve the crisis, now aggravated by the terrible prospect of extension of the conflict.”….Page 14: “President Signs Bill Raising National Debt” to new limit of $332 Billion from $328 Billion…this is a “temporary limit.”
Page 14: “U.S. Reds To Join Civil Rights Drive”… The Communist Party U.S.A. declared yesterday it intended to move openly into civil rights struggles. The head of its Negro Commission, Claude Lightfoot, leader of the party in Illinois, asserted, “We will allow no one in the civil rights movement or the white power structure to block this.”… “Time had shown that economic equality for Negroes was only possible in a socialist reorganization of society. We must support self-defense for Negroes. While we are not advocates of violence we need to engage in a more determined fight against white chauvinism, even within the party. This is a call for inter-racial living to make Communism a model in overcoming arrogant attitudes. The argument that we could win the struggle without Communism has failed.”…
25 June 1966…PRESIDENT’s DAILY BRIEFING… CIA (TS sanitized): South Vietnam: Premier Ky has completed a showy visit to Hue’ where he renewed his public assurances that his government had no intention to repress any religious group and would hold elections in the fall. In the Saigon area, the striking construction workers are reported reluctant to return to work on the basis of government assurances that some wage increases will be granted. To date the major unions, by and large, have not served as a focus for anti-government dissension, but any prolongation of the bureaucratic process in setting the wage issue could add political ferment to what is primarily an economic issue. Nongovernment workers were not benefited by the recent increase granted government employees.
25 JUNE 1966…ROLLING THUNDER OPERATIONS… NYT (26 June reporting ops on 24 June)…“North Vietnam anti-aircraft gunners yesterday knocked down a United States Navy A-6 into the sea 15 miles northeast of Vinh, then shot down another plane, an A-4 Skyhawk that had joined other planes to fly protective cover for the pilot and radar officer of the Intruder. Both pilots were recovered by helicopter rescue teams but heavy shore fire forced the helicopters away from the crash scene. Subsequent efforts to pick up the radar officer were unsuccessful. In 59 multi-aircraft missions yesterday Air Force and Navy pilots struck bridges, highways, barracks and coastal and river shipping in the panhandle. Air Force missions were concentrated n the Dong Hoi and Mugia Pass areas…”Vietnam: Air Losses”…Two aircraft lost (as noted in the NYT article)…here is the Chris Hobson report of the bad day off Vinh…
LT RICHARD M. WEBER and LTJG CHARLES WELDON MARIK of the VA-65 Intruder squadron aboard USS Constellation were flying an A-6A 25 June…
“VA-65 was the third Intruder squadron to deploy to Southeast Asia and was probably hoping that it had not inherited the bad luck of its predecessors. The squadron lost its first aircraft during a daylight raid on barracks at Hoi thong on the coast near Vinh. As the A-6 was pulling out of its dive on the target the aircraft was hit by AAA and failed to respond to the pilot’s attempts to turn toward the coast. Despite almost complete hydraulic failure the pilot climbed to 12,000-feet and both crew ejected. LT WEBER spoke to to LTJG MARIK over their survival radios while they were descending in their parachutes. LT WEBER landed in the sea a few miles off shore and was rescued by Navy helicopter but despite a four hour search LTJG MARIK could not be found and was presumed drowned.”… and
LT HUGH MAGEE of the VA-146 Blue Diamonds flying A-4Cs from USS Ranger and participated in the SAR of the USS Constellation and VA-65 downed A-6A… “As soon as the Intruder was shot down aircraft from the Constellation and Ranger mounted a rescue attempt. One of the RESCAP aircraft, a Skyhawk of VA-146 was climbing through 5,500-feet about three miles northeast of Vinh when it was hit by a 57mm shell under the cockpit. A fire started in the forward fuselage, the controls stiffened and the engine failed. However, by the time the aircraft became un-flyable it was over the sea and LT MAGEE was picked up by a Navy helicopter.
LTJG CHARLES WELDON MARIK was Killed in Action on this day fifty years ago… Your Humble Host sincerely hopes his readers join in remembering and pondering for a few minutes the incredible sacrifice this young aviator made for his country on 25 June 1966, and what might have been had he lived for the fifty years that has been our great good fortune… Gents and Ladies, this is what ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED is about… at least it is for me..
Read again the lines from Shakespeare on the RTR homepage…
RIPPLE SALVO…#117… The Lessons From The Vietnam War… There is no shortage of points of view or books, essays, speeches, rants and raves available to the student of history who desires to dig deep into our misadventure in Southeast Asia captured under the title of, “The Vietnam War.” Nor is there a shortage of learned folk who have published a compendium of lessons learned during the decade of our fight with Ho Chi Minh on behalf of South Vietnam. I have found an especially good article from an edition of the February 13, 1983 Los Angeles Herald-Examiner written by Frances FitzGerald entitled “Lessons from a War” that I rate as the most instructive set of lessons that should have been beaten into the brains of every President, Member of Congress, employee of the State and Defense Departments, CIA heavy, and every General and Admiral that has occupied those positions for the last fifty years. This writer is in a class with Victor David Hanson and Sun Tzu. That’s my opinion and I invite you to join me for the next two days while I give new life to a masterpiece that has been ignored for the last thirty years… Tonight: Part One of the Lessons of Vietnam….
“Lessons from a War” “How does America avoid future Vietnams?… I quote Frances FitzGerald…
This is an easy question, for it was not at all easy for the United States to get into the war that cost the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, and millions, but literally countless, Indochinese. It wasn’t easy.
Vietnam was not a quagmire, in the same sense that we stumbled into it and were sucked down and unable to get out despite our own efforts; though this is the textbook, and I think probably the cinematic, version of the war. In fact, the United States created the war. And if you count from the time of the Geneva agreements in 1954, that creation took over a decade. It took enormous amounts of time, expense, and the energies of a great many people. There is nothing easier than to avoid future Vietnams.
It’s extremely easy not to intervene in the internal affairs of small third world countries, particularly ones of no economic or strategic importance to the United States. It’s also quite easy not to get involved in weak, corrupt, and repressive governments, even if you do not have to go to the lengths of manufacturing those governments yourself. It is particularly easy when there are people around who remember the horrors of war. And, of course, if any administration forgets the lessons of Vietnam, it has only to look to the lessons of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, where there have been, according to the New York Times, some 12,000 to 15,000 casualties already and countless casualties among the people of Afghanistan.
Of course, it’s quite possible that our administration may forget these lessons and try to repeat history. Indeed, the current Reagan administration seems to be taking all the preliminary steps necessary right now in Central America. But if that’s the case there’s little that I or anyone else can do about it. For to send CIA operators and U.S. military advisors into the social upheavals of Central America with the idea that they can stop them is, I would submit, evidence of some mental insanity.
I can’t tell the Reagan administration how to prevent another Vietnam, but I can try and draw some more detailed lessons from the Vietnam experience some cautionary tales, some practical suggestions, and some pieces of wisdom that the individuals and groups involved in the war have to offer us.
In the first place, for those who would play pro-consul in tropical climes, they could learn a great deal from the experience of General Edward Lansdale and his successors with President Ngo Dinh diem. The first lesson is this: You may create a leader; you may find him, put him in power, protect him to the best of your abilities, but his purposes will not be yours. To paraphrase the North Vietnamese leader, you can create a puppet, but you can’t make a good one. There are only bad puppets. There is a corollary to this proposition, and that is, you cannot bribe a man to end corruption.
A lesson that might be learned from the presidents and the pro-consuls in this war was also the following: Do not let your messengers know your intentions, or they will most surely tell you what you want to hear. To tell them your wishes is to corrupt your reporting system. Secondly, if you put all your money into military aid, because the military in that country will grow and grow to the point where it will finally turn your civilian government out. Then you will be in a position of supporting a military dictatorship that will almost inevitably be oppressive, because it depends on you rather than its own people. And it will almost inevitably be corrupt, because it will be dependent on you. It will hate this dependency, therefore it will steal from you.
There’s a lesson, I think, to be learned specifically from President Kennedy, and that is, beware of having too good a speech-writer–your phrases may be remembered.
There’s a lesson to be learned from Secretary of State Dean Rusk, this particularly for future secretaries of state: Serving your president loyally, playing by the rules of the establishment and making a fuss will not necessarily get you a reward–you may find yourself back in Athens, Georgia.
There’s a lesson to be learned from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, and that is, deception is dangerous, if only because it leads to self-deception. You cannot deceive the press, the public, and your own colleagues indefinitely without beginning to believe what you say. This in turn will disarm you, and David Halberstam will call you not just a liar but a fool.
There’s another, perhaps more important, lesson to be learned from McNamara and that is that in social revolutions, numbers are meaningless. You can count the dead; you can even count the troops on the other side, but that is counting the past. You cannot count what is becoming, and that is the only thing that matters.
There’s a lesson that almost any leader in any country might learn from Ho Chi Minh, and that is, if you embark on a war of any duration, you must have the support of your people. This support is more important than weapons, for if people believe their cause is just, they are capable of extraordinary sacrifices. If they do not, all your weapons are useless….. (to be continued)
I will complete the FitzGerald lessons tomorrow…
Lest we forget…. Bear ……… –30– ……….