RIPPLE SALVO… #785… POLITICAL WRITER AND COLUMNIST HENRY J. TAYLOR PULLED NO PUNCHES IN HIS COMMENTARY on 29 APRIL 1968. “…At no time has the Communist enemy lost the initiative. And after all these years, increasing our forces from 12,000 to more than 500,000 in the third largest war we have ever fought, we have still not built an effective front and are still not secure on our flanks or in our rear.”… but first…
GOOD MORNING: Day SEVEN HUNDRED EIGHTY-FIVE of remembrance of a war fought and lost fifty years ago at the cost of the lives of more than 58,000 American warriors.
HEAD LINES from the OGDEN STANDARD EXAMINER for Monday, 29 April 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “YANKEE AIR TROOPS ROUT REDS IN A SHAU VALLEY–30 COPTERS HIT BY ENEMY GROUND FIRE”… “A big U.S. force that plunged by helicopter into what it’s commander called ‘real paydirt’ has found at least one enemy camp and supplies in the A Shau Valley, but the enemy scattered before the invaders. The 10-day old offensive, not announced until Sunday night, continues under a security blackout. Correspondents with the troops have been pr\ermitted to report only actions in the first three days of the assault. The helicopters swarmed in April 19 carrying thousands of U.S. 1st Air Calvary Division troopers and equipment into what had been a North Vietnamese stronghold for two years. Enemy guns brought down or damaged 30 of the choppers… “Hell, I’ve never lost that many in a weeks and weeks,’said Major General John J. Tulson, Commander of the Flying Horsemen. ‘By far it’s the hottest place we’ve ever gone into. The old opponent gave me a big bad day.’…Despite the heavy antiaircraft fire, casualties on both sides were reported relatively light in the first three days, with fewer than 50 North Vietnamese and 20 Americans killed in the action. Sixteen helicopter crewmen were wounded.”…
Page 1: “ROCKY SET TO REVEAL HIS CANDIDACY?”… “Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller will make ‘an announcement concerning his political plans’ at 11 a.m. Tuesday…the Governor’s press secretary said today.”… Page 1: “POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN–AIMED AT HUNGER TARGET”… “The Poor People’s Campaign got off to a big start today as the organization defined a series of strong demands.”… Page 1: “NAMES IN THE NEWS: HUGHES AND GETTY IN THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS’… “a Fortune magazine survey report says the two richest Americans–the only ones who probably can be listed as billionaires–are oilman J. Paul Getty and financier Howard Hughes…are followed by six other Americans who are half billionaires and 153 who have a net worth of more than $100 million each.”… Page 1: “GROUP AIMS BLOCKADE AT COLUMBIA PROTESTS”… “An impatient faction of the Columbia University student body tightened today a blockade aimed at choking off a protest by fellow students that has disrupted the Ivy League school for a week… some students eager for the school to return to normal formed what they call the Majority Coalition to end the protest and threw up a blockade around the Low Memorial Library Sunday night.”… Page 4: “CONGRESS ‘PLAYING IT COZY’ ON ASSIST TO NATION’S POOR–LITTLE PROSPECT FOR LEGISLATION AHEAD EXCEPT IN HOUSING FIELD”… “With the possible exception of increased housing subsidies, Congress does not appear to be in a mood to enact any broad new programs to help the nation’s poor.'”…. Page 4: “ISRAEL TO CONDUCT ANNUAL PARADE DESPITE U.N. PLEA”… “The Israel government, defying the U.N. Security Council, says it will hold tis Independence Day parade as planned Thursday in both the arab and Israeli sections of the city (Jerusalem).”… Page 8: “LAKERS EDGE CELTICS, TIE SERIES AT 2-2″…
29 April 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… OGDEN S-E (P/UPI)… Devoid of coverage of air war over the North… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 29 April 1968…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 29 APRIL FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…
WE REMEMBER… ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR FINAL FLIGHT IN OPERRTION ROLLING THUNDER
1965… CAPTAIN CHARLES ERWIN SHELTON, USAF… (POW, died in captivity)…
1966… CAPTAIN WILLIAM FRANCES MULLEN, USMC… (KIA)…. LTJG THOMAS EDWARD BROWN, USN… (KIA)… LTJG WILLIAM PATRICK EGAN, USN… (KIA)… 1LT DONALD WILLIAMS BRUCH, USAF… (KIA)… MAJOR ALBERT EDWAR RUNYAN, USAF… (POW)… CAPTAIN LEO SYDNEY BOSTON, USAF… (KIA)…
1967… 1LT LEON HARVEY TORKELSON, USAF,… (POW)… 1LT GEORGE JOHN POLLEN, USAF… (KIA)… MAJOR MARK LANE STEPHENSEN, USAF, (KIA) … 1LT GARY RICHARD SIGLER, USAF… (KIA)…
1968… NONE…
HUMBLE HOST SUGGESTS: Google the name of one of these fallen (KIA) warriors whose names are on the Vietnam Wall on the mall in Washington. Then link to “The Wall of Faces“… the result should be an opportunity to “Leave a Remembrance” for the Rolling Thunder warrior you identified by name… Try it…you will be glad you did… (“Happiness Formula”: Get a good cause; work at it every day; and, while you are at it–do something nice for somebody else)…
RIPPLE SALVO… #785… COLUMNIST HENRY J. TAYLOR pulls no punches in his 29 April 1968 column:
“MISMANAGEMENT CONTINUES IN PROLONGED VIET WAR”… I quote…
“On May 6, 1966, this column stated: ‘By every conceivable measure of relative power, mighty America’s war in Vietnam should have been over and done with long ago.’ Four years earlier, and in nearly a hundred articles across six solid years, Washington’s countless victory statements notwithstanding, this column has called Vietnam a mismanaged war.
“Bobby Kennedy himself, backing up his brother in the White House and committing a cover-up the size of Mt. Everest, began the unconscionable ‘We’re winning’ statement in Saigon in February, 1962. Typically, on February 5, 1963, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara announced, ‘By every quantitative measure, we are winning,’ and repeated this ad nauseam.
PURE HOGWASH
“It was agonizing to write that we were losing– not winning– the war, and state that such announcements were hogwash, which they were. And with each of the 16 or 18 times that Mr. McNamara changed his official estimate of what was necessary to do the job in Vietnam, and with our losses mounting, it has been agonizing to write that ‘what we are seeing is a long drawn-out Bay of Pigs all over again.’
“On January 13, 1964, heavy Communist units stood 15 miles from Saigon. On this same date in 1965, 1966 nd 1967 they were still there. It has been agonizing to write on this same date each year that our basic Vietnam strategy has been dead wrong. Or else how is this conceivable?
“At no time has the Communist enemy lost the initiative. n after ll these years, increasing our forces from 12,000 to more than 500,000 in the third largest war we have ever fought, we have still not built an effective front and are still not secure on our flanks or in our rear.
“This is the way we are to go to the peace table!
“Well, today most polls find that the majority of American people no longer believe that we are being told, or even have ever been told, the full truth about the Vietnam war. But on the record, how has this been a mismanaged war?
“The coverage artists will call the document partisan, which is simply untrue, but an analytical paper prepared under the direction of former Defense Secretaries Neil H McElroy and Thomas S. Gates Jr. for study by the Republican National Committee, which parallels the military expressions of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, provides fundamental answers.
LIST ERRORS
“The first is the failure to meet the aggression with sufficient force to crush it. From the beginning we’ve met the aggression piece-meal, calling it a no-war all the time and still doing so. We have allowed the aggressor to choose the times, places, terrains and methods of doing battle.
“The second fundamental error in strategy is the unprecedented dreamland policy known as ‘gradualism.’ The ‘gradualism’ theory has meant a ‘pause’ at every level of the war. Somehow the Washington sponsors have expected the enemy to reconsider his risks, although no one has explained this incredible dream.
“Third, authority is concentrated in the White House but responsibility is diffused; again and again no one and everyone is responsible.
“Beyond these fundamentals of mismanagement, having nothing to do with international political questions, there are the suppl;y shortages, the misapplication of our airpower, the basic misuse of our marines, the failure to appoint an over-all supreme commander in the field, and a host of other violations on established principles.
“The study’s inescapable conclusion is that ‘America’s overwhelming power has been fended off, not by the enemy, but by our own hand. If the American people are not entitled to the truth. Who is?”… End of quote
There was a time when a soul could fairly conclude that the Vietnam war– running from 1961 to 1973– was the longest “hot war” in our nation’s short history. Alas, we have surpassed that dubitable distinction by waging a war in Afghanistan that is at 16 nonstop years –and going strong– of expenditure of blood and treasure with little to show for it. Humble Host wonders what Henry J. Taylor would say about our conduct of an interminable war in the Afghanistan quagmire… “A long drawn-out Bay of Pigs all over again”… ?
RTR Quote for 29 April: THOMAS JEFFERSON, Letter, 1787: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”…
Lest we forget… Bear