RIPPLE SALVO… #148… THE POWER OF RABBLE ROUSING WORDS… but first…
Good Morning: Day ONE HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT of a walkabout through the history of ROLLING THUNDER–fifty years ago…
27 JULY 1966… PAGE ONE OF THE HOME FRONT NEWS… NYT …Fair and cool for this Wednesday in Queens…
Page 1: “City Starts Narcotic Program To Turn the Tide of Addiction”… “A new treatment program that will attempt ‘to turn the tide of narcotics addition in the city’ was announced today by Mayor Lindsay. Dr. Efren Ramirez, the city’s narcotics coordinator, said he hoped to involve 5,000 addicts in the program by the end of the year and 25,000 in three to five years. He estimated that the total number of addicts here (New York City) at 100,000. Former addicts will play leading therapeutic roles in the program. One of them Victor Biondo, has been appointed special assistant to Dr. Ramirez. Techniques of the group therapy developed by Synanon and Daytop Lodge on Staten Island, both of which have had considerable success in treating addicts, will also be used . Dr. Ramirez, a Puerto Rico born psychiatrist, said the program is designed to ‘turn around the addict and create the desire to be cured.’ The resistance of addicts particularly during their teens and early twenties, along with the absence of effective therapeutic measures have led to a high rate of relapse in previous programs here.”… Page 24: “Speck Indicted In Eight Killings”…”The Cook County (Chicago) grand jury today indicted Richard Speck, 24 year old drifter and ex-convict on charges of murder in the slaying of eight student nurses on July 14. The grand jury listened to witnesses’ testimony and the presentation of evidence for four hours yesterday without calling the lone survivor of the wholesale slaughter.”… Page 24: “President Backs Negro Promotions”…”President Johnson endorsed today a recommendation of Whitney Young, executive director of the Urban League that more Negroes be promoted to officer ranks in the armed forces. The recommendation was one of the principal suggestions brought back by Mr. Young from a five day inspection trip in south Vietnam to investigate the status of Negro servicemen. Mr. Young gave a generally encouraging report to President Johnson. He found the morale of Negro servicemen in Vietnam was extremely high; although he said that an ‘unprecedented, unparalleled degree of integration’ had been achieved among the American troops with southern troops willingly and respectfully taking orders from Negro non-commissioned officers.”… Page 24: “The Victims Are The Poor”…”If the Negro tough guys and the white tough guys and the Puerto Rican tough guys proved anything in the three-sided fighting that tore the heart of East New York last week it was that those we they chiefly hurt are the people they pretend to shield. The gangs of young hoodlums pose as protectors of women and children in their own groups, but everything violent they do endanger all.”
Page 3: “Premier Ky Gives View On Invasion”…”Premier Nguyen Cao Ky said today that he had no desire to invade North Vietnam but if his countries allies were not ready to keep fighting up to 15 years in South Vietnam then we have to destroy the Communists in their lair. Solemn and subdued as he addressed a press conference Ky spoke bitterly of his critics who called him too belligerent for having urged in an interview published this week that the allies invade North Vietnam to force a show down. Ky: ‘As long as the area north of the 17th parallel is used as a staging area for infiltrators there can be no permanent peace.'”…Page 27: “Pilot Rescued In The North”…”A former Olympic skier flying his last combat mission was shot down over North Vietnam, but was rescued by helicopter. The pilot, Captain James R. Mitchell was on hos 100th mission when shot down.”
27 JULY 1966… The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized) … South Vietnam: The Communist psychological apparatus in south Vietnam has made a pitch to two key generals who may, in fact, be caught up in internal dissension within the South Vietnamese military. The Liberation Front radio was heard recently warning the II and IV corps commanders that they are the next targets of a government purge… North Vietnam: the propaganda treatment which Hanoi has recently been giving to the Demilitarize Zone contrasts significantly with Peking’s. The Chinese are saying that the zone really no longer exists. They imply that the North Vietnamese have the right to strike south in retaliation for US aggressive acts. Hanoi, on the other hand, has been cautious and has stressed its alleged compliance with zone regulations. The recent major North Vietnamese infiltration across the zone clearly gives reason for Hanoi’s sensitivity on the subject. Today Hanoi again formally protested US acts which, it charged, have “aggravated tension” in the area of the zone…
27 JULY 1966… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT (28 July reporting 27 July ops)…Page 1: “US Loses Two Jets In North Vietnam”…”Two United States Air Force planes were lost today over North Vietnam. One, an RF-4C reconnaissance jet crashed 33 miles south of Donghoi. Both crew members were rescued. The other, an F-105D went down while searching for supply convoys on roads and trails in Northern Vietnams southern panhandle. The pilot, Captain James Mitchell, a veteran of 99 missions had just released his bombs when the enemy gunners opened up. The F-105 became difficult to handle and Captain Mitchell bailed out. Others watched Captain Mitchell’s parachute glide into a North Vietnamese jungle and circled over head until a rescue helicopter dipped down to retrieve him. Captain Mitchell is 37-years old and calls Ogden, Utah home. He is scheduled to leave Vietnam in a few days for a new assignment. The losses brought to 310 the number of United States planes lost in the north. In 68 multi-plane missions Air Force, Navy and Marine planes attacked three petroleum depots, a surface-to-air missile site and several ammunition storage areas just north of the DMZ, and enemy fuel supplies near Vinh and Thanh Hoa. Air Force pilots destroyed a SAM site near Vinh after dodging two missiles in the air.”…. “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) Page 68: One aircraft lost on 27 July. The F-105D of the 421st TFS and 388th TFW flown by Captain Mitchell as reported in the New York Times. The Rf-4C reported by the NYT above was reported yesterday in RTR for 26 July…
27 July 1966…Ripple Salvo… #148… THE AMBIGUITY OF WORDS–BLACK POWER…
Fifty years ago while the Red River Rats and Yankee Station Air Pirates were carrying the fight to North Vietnam in a half dozen route packages their own homeland was in turmoil. The draft was pulling more than 30,000 young men out of college and the homes of America every month. The commitment of more resources, money, planes and troops to the war was burgeoning. The possibility of calling up the reserves and national guard was being discussed. The casualties lists were growing in size with more than 100 GIs killed some weeks. The economy was struggling with inflation and wages were largely frozen. The Johnson civil rights bill was stumbling through Congress. The stress on all Americans was significantly more intense and the national safety valves were ready to pop. The streets of a dozen cities were battlegrounds between protesters of a variety of issues, especially race relations. People were dying on those battlefields, and some of them were cops. And then came Stokely Carmichael to escalate the rioting and challenge the non-violent strategy of Dr. Martin Luther King. The battle cry Stokely coined fifty years ago, “Black Power,” came to the fore and changed the intensity of the riots and violence in the streets as whites reacted to the new strategy and the new chant for change– Black Power.
As I peruse the pages of 1966 New York Times microfilm looking for the news of the days of Rolling Thunder, the parallels with the events of July 2016 are notable. Especially with regard to the heightened friction between races and the emergence of a battle cry to fire up the demonstrators. Fifty years ago “Black Power” entered the lexicon of protestors. In 2016 the battle cry is “Black Lives Matter.” My perusing of old NYT microfilm produced a letter to the editors that questions the wisdom of using slogans of ambiguous meaning… NYT letter to the editor of 26 July 1966 by Stuart Chase, Georgetown, CN…
“In your excellent editorial ‘Black Power’ you cite six different definitions by civil rights leaders, three of them critical and three defensive. We have here a fine example of the tyranny of words, their rabble-rousing power to stir irrational action. A slogan is coined out of undefinable abstractions, it hits the headlines, becomes controversial. Presently hackles rise, challenges are shouted, fists fly. Nearly everyone using it gives ‘black power’ a different meaning–which is evidence enough that it has no useful or precise meaning whatever. But it can make enemies out of friends, and shatter a useful movement. In the 1930s when many Americans were talking and shouting about ‘domestic fascism,’ I asked 100 persons from various walks of life what fascism meant. They shared a common dislike but no two agreed on a definition. In 1953, when McCarthy was in his prime every one was talking and shouting about communism. reporters from the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin asked some 200 people on the street ‘what is communism?’ Not only was there no agreement, but 123 of the 197 citizens who answered frankly admitted they could not define the term.
“‘Black Power’ seems to be following a similar pattern. As an abstraction of a very high order, without specific reference in space and time, it can generate plenty of emotion, plenty of trouble, but no reasonable thought action. Language, the characteristic above all others that makes us human, can have disastrous consequences.”
Now, substitute 2016’s “Black Lives Matter” for 1966’s “Black Power” in that concluding paragraph… and…”We have here a fine example of the tyranny of words, … rabble rousing power to stir irrational action…” Right out of Alinsky’s, “Rules for Radicals : A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.”
Lest we forget… Bear ………. –30– ……….