RIPPLE SALVO… #510… THE PRESIDENT’S NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR WILL KNOW… but first…
Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED TEN of a 1.5 million word retelling of Operation Rolling Thunder and the years 1965-68 in the land of the free…
28 JULY 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a hot and humid Friday in NYC…
SUMMER 1967 IN AMERICA: Page 1: “President Form Panel To Assess Causes of riots–He Appeals to Congress and the Nation For Remedial Programs for Poor–Proclaims Prayer Day–In TV Speech, He Discloses New Standards in Anti-Riot Training for Guardsmen”… “President Johnson announced tonight that he had named a special advisory commission to investigate the epidemic of racial disorders and to recommend measures to him, congress, governors and mayors…he appealed to American people to work and pray for reconciliation and for better jobs, housing and education that millions of poor Americans need…establishing new riot control training…Commission will draw on facts gathered by the FBI to assess the causes of the rioting and will be called on to recommend measures ‘to prevent or contain such disasters in the future.’ “... Page 1: “Detroit Riots Seem at End–Sightseers Evoke Curfew”… “Detroit’s four-day riot appeared to be ending today. Only an occasional sniper shot broke the silence this evening in the city’s riot area.”… Page 1: “Morton Rebukes G.O.P. On Johnson–Calls Party Irresponsible In Blaming President For Riots–Urges $1-Billion Drive”… “Senator Thruston B. Morton of Kentucky, former Chairman of Republican National Committee urged congress to get out of the political arena and set-up a $1-billion ‘anti-riot’ chest that the President could make available immediately to mayors for social action that would help restore peace.”… Page 1: “Four Poverty Aides in New York Linked to Looting—17 Negro Youths Held in Foray on 5th Avenue Stores–Mayor Calls City Calm”... “Four of the 23 young Negroes arrested for looting are employees of the city sponsored youth and antipoverty projects.”… Other Civil Disobedience, etc: Philadelphia: Window breaking gangs; Cincinnati: Rock tossing at police; Phoenix: curfew, but Negro youths marauding; South Bend: Youths routed by 300 police: Sacramento: Fires for third night.”… Page 14: “SNCC Head Advises Negroes In Washington, D.C.–Burning Capital Is Urged, If Needed”… “H. Rap Brown denounced President Johnson and racial leaders who asked an end of violence…Advised Negroes in Washington tonight to ‘get you some guns’ and to ‘burn this town down….You have to tell the man–the white man– if you come into my community you are going to come in with the intent of dying or you don’t come in at all.’ “
Members of the President’s Commission to assess the causes of the disorder and riots: Chairman Otto Kerner, Governor of Illinois; John Lindsay, Mayor of New York City; Fred Harris, Senator from Oklahoma; Edward Brooke, Senator from Massachusetts; William McCullough, Representative from Ohio; James Korman, Representative from California; I.W. Abel, Steelworkers; Charles Thornton of Litton Industries; Roy Wilkins of NAACP; Catherine Graham Hayden of Kentucky; and, Herbert Jenkins, Chief of Police, Atlanta.” Humble Host most strongly recommends you Google this 1967 KERNER Commission Report and digest the Executive Summary, as a minimum. This document reads like it could have been written for the conditions of our society today, fifty years later. Very little has changed and IMHO the conditions for an eruption of violence in our ghettos and barrios are ripe to blow at any time…
VIETNAM: Page 2: Senator Sherman Cooper Urge Unconditional Halt in Bombing”… “Kentucky Republican said today that tension had increased between U.S. and U.S.S.R. and that the United States and Soviet Union and that this made it more important that the United States halt the bombing in Vietnam in hopes of ending the conflict. ‘I do not believe there will be negotiations until the bombing stops, and unconditionally. Senator Cooper is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee”… Page 2: “Asian Allies And the War–Trip by 2 Johnson Aides–Maxwell Taylor and Clark Clifford–Described As Primarily a Reassurance Gesture”... “Well placed United States sources said major decisions on the war in Vietnam are unlikely to result from the current tour of President Johnson’s two special representatives.”… Page 1: “Ky to Add 65,000 To Armed Force–Total Is 10,000 More Than Announced Last Week–New Force Level=685,000 SVN Troops”…
Page 3: “Many Big Battles In Highlands Seen–Departing General Points To Enemy’s Strength There”... “‘There are many major battles to come in the Central Highlands,’ said LGEN Stanley Larsen. The North Vietnamese had deployed an Army Corps of two divisions in the hilly jungle along the Cambodia border between Cambodia and South Vietnam.”...Weekly Casualties Down Again”…”164 American servicemen were killed in action last week and 1,442 were wounded. South Vietnam lost 175 killed in action and the enemy losses for the week put at 1,702.”…Total American KIA at 12,000…
28 July 1967… The President’s TS Daily CIA Brief: COMMUNIST CHINA: Bloody fighting–at an unprecedented level–has recently broken out in Canton. Travelers say a fierce fight there lasted from Sunday to Tuesday and all rail traffic in the area was shut down during that time…In the Wuhan area, late–but still unconfirmed–reports say that the central authorities are now beginning to use paratroopers and other regulars against the dissident forces. (Much of this report is still redacted after 50 years???)...SOVIET UNION/MONGOLIA: The Russians are continuing to buildup forces in Mongolia…all told, there may well be a many as 10,000 Soviet military personnel now in Mongolia…
28 JULY 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (28 and 29 July reporting 28 July ops)… Page 3 (28th) “The probable downing of a North Vietnamese MIG-21 was reported today by Air Force pilots on an escort mission near Hanoi. The enemy aircraft disappeared into a cloud after having been hit by an air-to-air missile.”… NYT, 29 July, Page 1: “U.S. Reports 7 Planes Lost in Raids on North Vietnam”… “The loss of seven American planes and a helicopter over North Vietnam was announced today. One of the planes lost was an F-4 Phantom that was bought down Thursday over the Southern panhandle. The two man crew is missing in action. The loss of the six other aircraft came to light only when a weekly publication of cumulative loss figures was increased from 617 to 623 through Tuesday. The loss of the Phantom brought the total to 624. No details on the six planes has been provided. A Navy helicopter rescue craft went down on July 19 and was the seventh helicopter lost over North Vietnam in the war. (Humble Host believes this was a book-keeping adjustment since there is no other explanation for the five aircraft.)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 28 July 1967…
(1) 1LT KARL WENDELL RICHTER was flying n F-105D of the 34th TFS and 355th TFW out of Korat on his 199th mission over North Vietnam in the southern panhandle and attacked a bridge 35 miles west of Dong Hoi. 1LT RICHTER was hit by AAA on his pull out recovery from the attack and was forced to eject after several minutes of flight in the damaged Thunderchief. His parachute delivered him into a karst mountain that left him seriously injured with multiple broken bones. The HH-3E crewman, SSGT Charles E. Smith descended to retrieved the unconscious 1LT RICHTER, who died in the helicopter on what was to have been his last “counter” before moving on with his Air Force Cross, Silver Star and a handful of Distinguished Flying Cross awards. This is one of the saddest stories of the Rolling Thunder campaign... for more on 1LT RICHTER please Google the internet for a more complete telling of the story. Also, My post for 20 May 1967, 1LT RICHTER’s AIR FORCE CROSS flight, is also available in the RTR archives… show yourself you are the master of your computer or iPad and go find 1LT RICHTER on the 50th anniversary of his death in combat… 1LT RICHTER WAS AMONG THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE…
(2) ENSIGN BRUCE MERLE PATTERSON and AE2 CHARLES DAVID HARDIE and the pilot in command were flying a KA-3B of the VAH-4 detachment on USS Oriskany about 150 miles northeast of Danang and suffered a double engine failure. Unable to correct the catastrophic failure, all three crewmen abandoned the aircraft but only the pilot was found and rescued. ENSIGN PATTERSON and AE2 HARDIE perished at sea fifty years ago this day and rest in peace forever where they fell…
RIPPLE SALVO… #510… “DERELICTION OF DUTY” by H.R. McMASTER… sub-title: “Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies That led to Vietnam.”… (“dereliction: the act of abandoning”)…
H.R. McMaster: “In 1991, as commander of an armored cavalry troop in the Persian Gulf War, it was clear to me that our unit’s experience was dramatically different from the Vietnam accounts that I had read. The ease with which we could connect our combat mission to strategic objectives that seemed clear and attainable contrasted starkly with combat actions in Vietnam, which seemed to achieve nothing beyond adding more enemy dead to the weekly body count. I wondered how and why Vietnam had become an American war–a war in which men fought and died without a clear idea of how their actions and sacrifices were contributing to an end of the conflict. When I arrived at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1992 to begin graduate work in American history, I began to seek answers to those questions.
“I discovered that the military’s role in Vietnam decision-making was little understood and largely overlooked. By law the Joint Chiefs of Staff were the ‘principal military advisors to the President, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense.’ That was not the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during the escalation of the Vietnam War. It became clear to me that I would need to understand the role of the president, his principal civilian advisors, and the JCS in the decision-making process.”
H.R. McMaster started his quest for answers in 1992 and published his findings in a book in 1997—twenty years ago—that pieced together “...a scathing indictment of America’s civilian and military leadership during the early phases of the Vietnam war, and he speaks…with unique authority…McMaster earned his moral authority under fire… ” (Eliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University).
Ah, the irony of it all… H.R. McMaster is now President Trump’s grand wizard on National Security Affairs as his National Security Advisor. He lives and works in the White House War Room, wears a coat and tie, and moves all the pieces around on the sand board and battlegrounds of the world. Twenty years after he boldly called a spade a spade–LBJ, McNamara and the JCS led our country into an unwinnable war and bitter defeat–the retired three star in a civilian suit now has the baton. And a quagmire to go with it. Or is it several quagmires?
It appears that our country has the right man in the National Security Advisor position. An authority on Vietnam history. An American History scholar. A decorated warrior with proven war fighting skills and high level command experience. A bold thinker and writer, with the guts to call a spade a spade–and a prevaricator a liar. Yup, the right man for the job.
So what’s taking so long to wrap up our 16-year unwinnable war in Afghanistan? Does General McMaster have an answer for the trooper in Kabul who asks: “What am I fighting for? or, “How are my actions contributing to the end of this conflict?…or, “What are the strategic objectives of this endless commitment to defeat an adversary who fights the “long war” with hit and run guerrilla tactics from sanctuaries? (the same questions we asked in Vietnam) Sir, history is the teacher, you are the scholar. What have you learned? Where shall we go?…
RTR QUOTE for 28 July: MENCIUS, Works: “Men must be decided on what they will NOT do, and then they are able to act with vigor in what they ought to do.”
Lest we forget…. Bear