RIPPLE SALVO… #539… Secretary McNamara defends Administration targeting policy… but first…
Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE of thinking back a half century to the good-old, bad-old days of the air war called Rolling Thunder…
27 AUGUST 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on rainy, stay-home-and-read the 900-page Sunday NYT-day…
VIETNAM: Page 1: HANOI SAID TO USE AIRFIELDS IN CHINA AS MIG SANCTUARY–FOE IS REPORTED TO PREPARE ATTACKS ON U.S. JETS FROM REFUGE ACROSS BORDER–PLANES REFUEL IN NORTH–COMMANDERS PLEA TO BOMB ALL NORTH VIETNAMESE BASES OPPOSED BY McNAMARA”… “…it is not clear whether MIGs actually rising from Chinese bases to intercept American aircraft.” ... Page 1: “Thieu Joins Presidential Campaign Tour With His Rivals–His First appearance With Presidential Aspirants–Smiles at Criticism”… Page 2: “Vietcong Mortar Attack Kills 50 Civilians in Delta”… “Infiltrators fired 10 to 20 mortar rounds into Cantho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta killing 50 residents…United States army helicopters and gunships were called to hit the Vietcong mortar position, but there re no reports of enemy casualties… Ground fighting remained in a lull. scattered light fighting was reported in the Central Highlands near Quangngai.”… Page 5: “As of 24 August United States forces in Vietnam reported 12,605 deaths in battle, 77,513 wounded in battle and 2,549 deaths not the result of hostile operations.”…
Page 5: “Professor Kenneth Galbraith Urges an Easing of the War--Offers Plan as Alternative to Abrupt Policy Shifts”…”Gradual escalation of the Vietnam War was proposed today by one of the leading critics of United States policy in Vietnam. Instead of demanding an abrupt reversal of the war effort Professor John Kenneth Galbraith said critics of the Administration policy should work for lesser steps. ‘If we cannot have negotiations, then let us defend ourselves for the time being in the area we now hold secure.’ “…
SUMMER IN AMERICA 1967: Page 31: ‘HIPPIES FIND WAYS TO AVOID WORKING–SOME PANHANDLE–SOME GET BY WITH NO MONEY” ... “Middle class parents who give handouts to bums would be shocked to find their own children panhandling when they become hippies. For many hippies in the Haight-Asbury area here in San Francisco the most popular means of support are selling one of the 26 West Coast underground newspapers or asking people if they have any spare change. Contrary to popular opinion in the straight world few hippies receive allowances from home; they don’t need them. aside from free hot food served in Golden gate State Park every day, a sizeable portion of greasy fish and chips costs only 65-cents. Many hippies live in crash pads and pay no rent. A crash pad is an apartment open to all who wish to stay a night or for a length of time. A few hippies hold steady jobs–many get occasional part-time jobs. The Hip-Job Co-Op on Cole street helps find part-time jobs for the willing to work. ‘We could use 200 more jobs a week,’ said a Hip-Job Co=Op employee. ‘Most of our jobs are baby sitting and off jobs, day labor. A lot of our kids haul garbage.’ “… (and smoke weeds)…Page 1: ROCKEFELLER ASKS CREATION OF UNIT TO REBUILD SLUMS–NON-PROFIT COMPANY WOULD BEGIN PROJECTS THEN SELL THEM TO INVESTORS–INITIAL COST $50-MILLION--Program Designed To Draw Private Capital Needed To Fight Urban Decay–New York State Urban Development Corporations”… Page 1: “Negroes In Harlem Seeking Businesses”… Page 58: “Pentagon Policy Cuts Housing Bias–34,000 Units in Capital Area Opens to Negro Servicemen” … “The Pentagon, wielding an economic bludgeon, has opened thousands of rental units to Negro servicemen in the Washington area…non-discrimination pledges by owners of 10,400 units opens the doors…result of first use off limit sanctions by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara.” ... Page 62: “Watts Panel Issues Its Final Report”... “A preview of the problems likely to confront the nation’s riot torn cities in one degree or another ws provided this week in the final report of the McCone Commission, which for two years had been the ‘watchdog’ agency for remedial activities growing out of the Watts riot of August 1965. (John A. McCone) ‘Tensions are still high,’ concludes the report.”…‘The actions taken thus far in Los Angeles, and for that matter elsewhere throughout the United States fail to meet the urgent existing need, and unless and until we in our city and in our state and throughout the United States solve the fundamental problem of raising the level of academic achievement of disadvantaged children, we cannot hope to solve all the problems of our disadvantaged youth.’ “…
27 AUGUST 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (28 Aug reporting 27 Aug ops) “2 More U.S. Planes Lost”… “The U.S. command announced today the loss of two more planes over North Vietnam–from 26 August– bringing the number of aircraft lost last week to 15–and 22 additional airmen are missing (KIA of Captured)–equaling the worst week of the air war, August 1966. The number of aircraft lost in the North since February 1965 is now at 662.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 27 August 1967.”…
RIPPLE SALVO… #539… More from the Stennis Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee hearings on the air war held 8-26 August 1967… Secretary McNamara testimony defending Administration policy: TARGETING DECISIONS…
The head targeteer for the Vietnam air war was the President. He got a lot of help–from his Secretary of Defense, who did a little bit of it as an Air Force staff officer in WWII… The White House and SecDef conflict with the Chiefs of Staff and Admiral Sharp revolved around the question of whether the purpose of the campaign was to substitute or supplement the ground war in the South. The military chiefs saw the need to”destroy the will of the North Vietnamese to fight,” along with their ability to wage war, by pounding them into submission. Mr. McNamara saw the air war as a supplement to the ground war, where the war was being fought. Mr. McNamara’s “strategy of gradualism” prevailed. His defense of the policy in the Stennis hearings was that the target-by-target analysis and selection had not prevented the use of air power against military targets.
In August 1967 the JCS target list had been expanded to 427 targets in North Vietnam. McNamara testified that only 359 had been recommended by the Chiefs themselves. Of these, the President had authorized strikes on 302 and of the remaining 57 recommended, but not authorized, 7 were recognized by the Chiefs as of little value and not worth the risk in pilot lives for the little to be gained in inhibiting the enemy’s war effort. Nine of the 57 were small POL targets of little significance–total of 6% of NVN’s remaining storage capacity. Twenty five of the 57 were small targets in heavily populated and well defended locations–risk greater than reward. Four targets in these areas were significant, but risky. three targets were ports, 4 were airfields and 5 were in the Chinese buffer zone. Mr. McNamara evaluated these 57 targets as being not worth the risk of American pilots lives for what little could be achieved. His position was that they would be authorized on a case by case basis as the Chiefs, CIA, or whomever, could demonstrate that the requested addition to the target list could be declared of “military importance as compared with the potential costs and risks.”
Here is some of Mr. McNamara’s testimony on the subject (from The Pentagon Papers):
“Those who criticize our present bombing policy do so, in my opinion, because they believe that air attacks against the North can be utilized to achieve quite different objectives. These critics appear to argue that our airpower can win the war in the South either by breaking the will of the North or by cutting off the war-supporting supplies needed in the South. In essence, this approach would seek to use the air attacks against the North not as a supplement to, but as a substitute for the arduous ground war that we and or allies are waging in the South.”…
“…The economy of North Vietnam is agrarian and simple. Its people are accustomed to few of the modern comforts and conveniences that most of us in the Western World take for granted. They are not dependent on the continued functioning of great cities for their welfare. They can be fed at something approaching the standard to which they are accustomed without reliance on truck or rail transportation or on food processing facilities. Our air attack has rendered inoperative about 85% of the country’s electric generating capacity, but it is important to note that the Pepco plant in Alexandria, Va., generates five times the power produced by all of North Vietnam’s power plants before the bombing. It appears that sufficient electricity for war-related activities and for essential services can be provided by the some 2,000 diesel generating sets which are in place and in operation now.”… “…The people of North Vietnam are accustomed to discipline and are no strangers to deprivation and death. Available information indicates that despite some war weariness, they remain willing to endure hardship and they continue to respond to the political direction of the Hanoi regime. There is little reason to believe that any level of conventional air or naval action short of sustained and systematic bombing of the population centers will derive the North Vietnamese of their willingness to continue to support the their government’s efforts.”
Mr. McNamara continued. He pointed out that as long as there was hope of winning the war in the South, the North Vietnam man in the rice paddies was willing to stay the course. Exactly the same thing Americans then, AND NOW, feel… As long as winning is possible, we are in. But if winning is not in the cards, we are out.”…
Mr. McNamara: “There is nothing in the past reaction of the North Vietnamese leaders that would provide any confidence that they can be bombed to the negotiating table. Their regard for the comfort or even the lives of the people they control does not seem to be sufficiently high to lead them to bargain for settlement in order to stop a heightened level of attack. The course of the conflict on the ground to the south, rather than the scale of the air war in the north appears to be the determining factor in North Vietnam’s willingness to continue.”
Having made his case that “destroying the will of the North Vietnamese to continue the fight” by bombing the remaining 57 targets was not likely, unless the decision was to obliterate the cities and the people, Mr. McNamara tackled the other alternative for the air war some critics suggested: “Stop the flow of supplies to the south.”…”Impeding and reducing wasn’t working, so stop the flow,” they said.
Mr. McNamara: “The capacity of the lines of communication and of the outside sources of supply so far exceeds the minimal flow necessary to support the present level of North Vietnamese military effort in South Vietnam that the enemy operations in the South cannot, on the basis of any reports I have seen, be stopped by air bombardment–short, that is, of the virtual annihilation of North Vietnam and its people.”…
Next: Mr. McNamara defends NOT bombing the ports and mining the harbors… tomorrow…
RTR QUOTE for 27 August: VERGIL, AEneid: “It is valor’s task to extend our fame by deeds.”
Lest we forget… Bear