RIPPLE SALVO… #905… THE ENEMIES OF THE UNITED STATES DELIGHT IN OUR DEMOCRATIC FREE-FOR-ALL GENERAL ELECTION YEARS. ALL THEIR PROPAGANDISTS HAVE TO DO IS REPACKAGE THE ATTACKS OF REPUBLICANS ON DEMOCRATS AND VICE VERSA AND THEIR JOB IS DONE. Our political parties are no-holds barred in the months leading up to an election year and the fight for votes fills the air with all that’s wrong with our country from two different points of view. To the world we appear hopelessly divided. In the 1968 Presidential campaigns we were hopelessly divided. In late August 1968 the North Vietnamese newspaper Quan Doi Nhan Dan published a commentary by Nguyen Knac that used the ongoing campaign platforms and “discussions” of Vietnam war issues to deliver a picture of the U.S. to the North Vietnamese people, and the world, angled to paint a picture of a beaten, disheartened and divided United States. Excerpts from the commentary below… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day NINE HUNDRED FIVE of a non-stop commemoration of the air war against North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder fought by America’s bravest-of-the-brave aviators 50 years ago–from March 1965 to November 1968…
In lieu of HEAD LINES from The New York Times Humble Host posts a State Department “Editorial Note” that summarizes a meeting in the Secretary of Defense’s office on 26 August that is a complete update on the war “and a general discussion of the military situation in Southeast Asia.” This is a lengthy, five star document full of details… Read at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d340
26 AUGUST 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times: no coverage… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 26 August 1968…
(1) CAPTAIN ROBERT GEORGE BULL II, 1LT RALPH WILLIAM MANNER and A1C DAVID FREDERICK SLEEPER were flying a C-7B Caribou of the 457th TAS and 483rd TAW out of Cam Rahn Bay on an airlift mission near the Cambodian border and hit and downed by intense ground fire. The aircraft lost a wing, spun and exploded on impact about 10 miles southwest of An Loc killing all three aviators… The three brothers- in-arms and death share a “burial marker’ in Arlington National Cemetery where it is assumed all three rest in peace…
(2) MAJOR DONALD WILLIAM PICK and 1LT SAMUEL F. WILBURN were flying an F-4D of the 480th TFS and 366th TFW out of Danang and after takeoff were hit by ground fire on the climb out. An engine fire and failure forced the two aviators to eject over the water east of Danang. 1LT WILBURN was rescued to fly and fight again. MAJOR PICK was apparently unsuccessful in ejecting and perished at sea with the aircraft fifty years ago and remembered with admiration this day…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON THE FOUR 26 AUGUST DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATIONS OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… LTJG EDWARD ANTHONY DAVIS, USN… (POW–2,728 DAYS)…
1966… LCDR JOHN HEAPHY FELLOWES, USN… (POW)…and… LTJG GEORGE THOMAS COKER, USN… (POW)…
1967… MAJOR VLADEMIR HENRY BACIK, USMC… (KIA)… and … CAPTAIN PACHAL GLENN BOGGS, USMC… (KIA)… and… MAJOR GEORGE EVERETT “Bud” DAY, USAF… (POW)…Medal of Honor, Air Force Cross, Silver Star (3), LOM (V)… Refer RTR for 26-Aug-67, RS #538…
1968… NONE…
RIPPLE SALVO… #905…The Sunday New York Times, 25 August 1968, page E-15:
HANOI LOOKS AT U.S.POLITICS…
“During this year’s electoral campaign, the Republican party publicized a 10,000 word platform approved at the convention on 6 August. The Democratic party is actively preparing its own platform which it will submit for approbation to its convention on 26 August. Actually these are only electoral platforms because neither party has a long-range political platform. Nor does either party possess standing members.
“Through the Republican party’s platform, one realizes that the ruling U.S. bourgeoisie has been forced to publicly and officially admit that American society is rotten, that the war of aggression in Vietnam is being lost, and that the United States is being isolated in the world. The Republicans have been forced to speak of improving the slums, turning poverty-ridden areas into centers for jobs and progress, resolutely struggling against robbery and murder, undertaking a crusade against crimes, and achieving a balanced budget and a sound financial policy in order to eliminate inflation and the gold and dollar crisis–all cancers rotting the U.S. body.
“The recognition of U.S. failure in the aggressive war in Vietnam is the most significant feature (plank) in the political platform of the Republican party. Indeed, it reads:’The Administration’s Vietnam policy is doomed militarily, politically, and diplomatically, even in its relations with the American people.’ It points out that the Vietnam war was carried out hurriedly, without proper preparations, that the United States is too strongly committed to Vietnam, that millions of Americans now must reconsider their trust in the Administration, and that the United States has failed to realize the new political aspect of the aggressive war in Vietnam.
CONCLUSION ON VIETNAM
“From the Vietnam issue, it draws a conclusion on the impotence of the U.S. Armed Forces in the role of International gendarmes: ‘It is time to realize it is not true that all international conflicts cn be solved by U.S. infantry forces.’ We can say that this is a rather complete confession on the comprehensive U.S. defeat in the aggressive war in Vietnam. Although the Democratic party has not yet made public its electoral platform, everyone knows that Johnson and his assistant Humphrey are Democrats and the policy of the Johnson Administration and the Democratic party is a very reactionary policy in both domestic and foreign policy. Concerning the Vietnamese problem, the Johnson Administration has repeatedly escalated the war of aggression, massively introduced U.S. expeditionary troops into the south and, at the same time, used the air force and navy to bomb and shell the northern part of our country.
“Disastrously, defeated and forced to admit the limit that bombing of the north and to appoint delegates to hold talks with ‘us’ in Paris, the Johnson Administration remains, however, extremely stubborn without renouncing its savage ambition to invade our country. The Johnson clique continues to intensify the war of aggression, striving to strengthen its prop in order to carry out its neo-colonialism policy in the southern part of the country.
CAPITALIST TRICKS…
“In truth, mutual criticism and electoral platforms of the Republican and democratic parties are merely tricks of the U.S. capitalists designed to deceive public opinion and gain votes. One still recalls the Democratic party’s noisy advertisement in the 1964 electoral campaign, ‘We will not send U.S. youths some 10,000 miles from the fatherland to do what the Asian youths have to do for their own benefit.’ Before entering that White House Johnson himself noisily warned his teammates against sending U.S. troops to Asia.
“But under the Democratic Administration and the Johnson Government, over a half a million U.S. troops were sent to Vietnam to be bogged down and disastrously defeated as they are now. Whether the Democrats or Republicans are in power, they all carry out the U.S. imperialists’ reactionary policy. The U.S. imperialist policy of aggression in Vietnam has been carried out step-by-step by three Presidents: Republican Eisenhower and Democrats Kennedy and Johnson.
“The U.S. rulers are devoting great effort to waging the cruelest war of aggression in the history of mankind. But they have been repeatedly defeated and have suffered increasingly heavier defeats.”… End quote….
RTR Quote for 26 August: MAO TSE TUNG: “As for the imperialist countries, we should unite with their peoples and strive to coexist with those countries, do business with them and prevent any possible war, but under no circumstances should we harbour any unrealistic notions about them.”…
Lest we forget… Bear