RIPPLE SALVO… #271… A HISTORY LESSON FOR THE AGES… but first…
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE of remembering the world fifty years ago when Americans were dying in Vietnam…
28 NOVEMBER 1966… IN THE HEADLINES AT HOME from the New York Times… On a rainy Monday on Wall street…
Page 1: “Eshkol Pledges to Resist Arabs Despite UN Vote…Israel terms UN Security Council one-sided in condemnation of attack on Jordan village November 13. Broadcasts to nation to calm populace but increase vigilance for incidents of terrorism by the Arabs…’The retaliation raid which followed months of Arab harassment was widely condemned abroad and had the unforeseen result of badly undermining the position of King Husayn in Jordan.”… Husayn Said to Hold Firm Against Palestinian Riots…Western diplomats say Jordanian Army ensures King’s rule but the situation in main cities remains tense and may explode.”…Page 1: “Moscow Attack on Peking Linked to World Parlay…The soviet Communist party in its vehement denunciation of the Chinese party leadership today appears to have set forth the principal charges of ideological heresy it will raise if the world Communist Conference is held.”… Page 1: “Nasser’s Pan-Arabism Losing Momentum ten years after President Gamal Abdel Nasser stunned the West and electrified the Middle East by seizing control of the Suez Canal his Pan-Arabism revolution has lost much of it’s momentum.”… Page 4: “Saigon’s Troops Plunder Hamlet…search for foe is cursory but looting is vigorous. A search of a hamlet 110 miles southwest of Saigon for Vietcong became a scavenger hunt by South Vietnamese Army units who took food and furniture but destroyed nothing.”… Page 4: “U.S. Still Discussing Cease-fire With Saigon. Holiday truce may conform to two 48-hour periods offered by Vietcong. North Vietnam has confirmed the Vietcong order for 2 48-hour cease fires over Christmas and New Year’s.”… Page 38: NYT Editorial: “Truce In The Midst of War”…”By all means let there be peace in Vietnam for a few hours or a few days over Christmas and the New Year. It is not much, but it is better than uninterrupted war. Ever since the medieval institutions-the truce of God- was invented, the pause that comes in the midst of fighting is a blessed surcease.”…
Page 17: “Sixth Fleet Prepared…The Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean is prepared for possible action in the middle East should Washington give the command, a spokesman said today.”… Page 16: “The Voice of Arab Refugees”…”Ahmad Asaad Shukany is a polished Arab orator who is chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organizaation and claims to speak for 1.3 million Palestinians, who seek the destruction of the state of Israel so they can return to their arid homeland…Palestinians make up the majority of Jordan’s population. ‘There are so many pages in Arab history and so many catastrophes. One can speak of the crusades as one of these, of the Mongol invasion, of the foreign domination of the middle ages. these are all catastrophes for our people, but this–(the creation of Israel) is the climax and summit of all catastrophes.’…”
28 November 1966… The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized Sept 2015)…VIETNAM: The Viet Cong radio yesterday denoumced Saigon’s statement that the Viet Cong had proposed truces over Christmas and New Year’s. The Viet Cong declared that truce announcement was a unilateral decision, and that there is no question of “making any proposal” to the US and South Vietnam. The Viet Cong’s sharp reaction is probably explained by their desire to squelch any implication that the truce could lead to peace negotiations…
28 NOVEMBER 1966… OPERTION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT Page 2: “Bad weather restricted air strikes against North Vietnam today, but two flights of F-105 Thunderchiefs blasted an oil depot and truck park area 95 miles northwest of Vinh. Pilots reported setting off several secondaries with their 750-pound bombs. Navy pilots struck shipping targets along the coast.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were on fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 28 November 1966… oohrah…
RIPPLE SALVO… #271… A HISTORY LESSON FOR THE AGES… New York Times writer Tom Wicker wrote a piece for the Sunday 27 November New York Times that I believe belongs in every President’s “How To, and How Not To” Govern. Wicker reconstructs the path the United States President’s took while leading us into “The Quicksand” of Vietnam by using selected quotes from the President’s themselves… Here is a history lesson from Tom Wicker he titled: “Into the Quicksand.” I quote…
Since the sages say that past is prologue, and since an old and jaded year is turning inevitability toward a new one, what can we learn of the future from what has gone before?
President Kennedy. December 15, 1961: In a letter to President Diem of South Vietnam: “In response to your request, we are prepared to help the Republic of Vietnam to protect its people and to preserve its independence.”
President Kennedy. February 7, 1962: “We are there in training and on transportation, and we are assisting in every way we can.”
President Kennedy. February 14, 1962: “As the war has increased in scope, our assistance has increased as a result of the government…we have not sent combat troops there, although the training missions that we have there have been instructed that if they are fired upon to…they would, of course, fire back to protect themselves.”
Secretary of Defense McNamara. March 15, 1962: “There is no plan for introducing combat forces in South Vietnam.”
President Kennedy. September 2, 1963: “In the final analysis, it is their war, they are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisors, but they have to win it–the people of Vietnam against the Communists.”
President Johnson. February 21, 1964: “The contest in which South Vietnam is now engaged is first and foremost a contest to be won by the Government and the people of that country for themselves.”
Secretary of State Dean Rusk. February 27, 1964: “No miracle in the North is going to suddenly transform or eliminate the problem in South Vietnam.”
Secretary McNamara. May 15, 1964: “I think we should recognize that our primary function is one of training, support and logistical assistance.”
Secretary Rusk. September 14, 1964: “Of course, we are following, and have been following for many years under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson is the course of helping the Republic of Vietnam with our experience and our resources to put down the Communist campaign of terror and subversion and forge the machinery of stable government in their own country.”
President Johnson. September 25, 1964: “We don’t want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. We don’t want to get involved in a nation of 700 million people and get tied down to a land war.”
President Johnson. September 28, 1964: “What I have been trying to do, with the situation I have found, was to get the boys in Vietnam to do their own fighting with our advice and our equipment…So we are not going North to drop bombs at this stage of the game, and we are not going South and run out…We are going to continue to try to get them to save their own freedom with their own men.”
President Johnson. April 7, 1965: “In recent months attacks on South Vietnam were stepped up. Thus, it became necessary for us to increase our response and make attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires…”
Secretary McNamara. June 16, 1965: “But this is not been enough. Therefore we are seeking to correct the unfavorable manpower balance by the addition of combat forces from other nations–Australia and Korea.”
President Johnson. July 28, 1965: “If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise of American protection.”
Secretary McNamara. November 12, 1965: “We believe it will be necessary to add further to the strength of the United States combat forces now deployed in Vietnam.”
President Johnson. February, 11 1966: “There will be additional men need and they will be supplied as General Westmoreland is able to use them and as he may require them.“
General Maxwell Taylor. February 16, 1966: “(a counter strategy) evolved out of the experience of the preceding months and years and assumed its full form with the critical decisions in 1965 to introduce U.S. ground forces and to initiate the bombing campaign in the North. Both of these courses of action had been under consideration at least since November 1961, when I presented my report to President Kennedy.”
President Johnson. June 24, 1966: “We sincerely feel that the national interest requires that we persist in our present policy….I must observe that this does not mean we will increase our forces for our operations…”
President Johnson to the troops at Cam Rahn Bay on October 26, 1966: “Come home with that coonskin on the wall…”
Moral: Never look ahead. Something may be gaining on you. Unquote Wicker, “Into the Quicksand.” THANK YOU, TOM WICKER.
Tom Wicker put this beauty on the record fifty years ago almost to this day (27 Nov 1966) at the same time the President, the United States State Department and Secretary Rusk were fumbling away the best bet yet for peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese. For more on this botched opportunity for a settlement and an end of American participation in the Vietnam War, Google MARIGOLD. Also, I have been following MARIGOLD in several earlier Ripple Salvos. MARIGOLD is another “History Lesson for the Ages” that belongs in the President’s “How Not To” do his job iPAD.
Our leaders were experts in pounding hamburger in 1966, and as a consequence, another 50,000 brave and loyal American war-fighters would perish in a war that never should have been fought. That is a tragedy for the ages. And did anybody notice? Our decision makers haven’t learned a thing! My evidence: The quagmires of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, for starters… Pass the hamburger… God bless all the American warriors who do what they are told by leaders who don’t study history.
Tomorrow: Recognition for another aircraft carrier, and her embarked air wing and squadrons manned by the bravest of the brave that carried the war to the heartland of North Vietnam on six or seven back-to back-to back, etc. combat cruises. All part of NATIONAL AIRCRAFT CARRIER MONTH…
Lest we forget… Bear -30-