RIPPLE SALVO… #695… TOM WICKER, The New York Times… “Giap has put this force together and brought it to the point of battle despite an air campaign that has unloaded more destructive tonnage on North Vietnam than was dropped in all of World War II.”… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED NINETY-FIVE remembering and honoring the brave cadre of warfighters who took the Vietnam war to the enemy’s heartland for 40-months with one hand tied behind their backs by a President who couldn’t pull the trigger…
29 JANUARY 1968… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy Monday in a steady drizzle…
PUEBLO CRISIS: Page 1: “U.S. IS CONTINUING MILITARY BUILD-UP IN PUEBLO CRISIS–ADMINISTRATION STILL HOPEFUL OF DIPLOMATIC SUPPORT FOR RETURN OF SHIP AND CREW–2nd Task Force Shifted–Pentagon Declines To Name Units Alerted–Chinese Back North Koreans”… “The Johnson Administration, confident that it has a strong legal case in the capture of the intelligence ship Pueblo by North Korea solicited diplomatic support today but continued its military build-up in case no diplomatic solution materializes. The Department of Defense reported that the United States ‘is taking certain precautionary measures to strengthen our forces and to reinforce our tactical air capabilities….In Seoul, South Korea, an official source confirmed reports that a second United States Navy task force, consisting of an aircraft carrier, destroyers and other escort vessels, had been assigned to the Sea of Japan, where the carrier Enterprise is already stationed.”… Page 1: “TENSION BUILDS AMONG G.I.’s AT KOREA BUFFER LINE”… “On these dark, somber hills facing North Korea, 5,000 American soldiers face a silent and elusive enemy. Every night the infantrymen stand in dusty bunkers and stare past a border fence of barbed wire and woven saplings. They climb onto sandbagged towers and watch for shadows moving only yards away... Page 1: “INTENSIVE TALKS CONTINUE AT U.N.–Goldberg Sees Morozov and Others–Reports Differ on Action By Russians”... “Security Council members devoted the weekend to intensive work on Canada’s proposal for a neutral mediator to solve the crisis over North Korea’s seizure of the American intelligence ship Pueblo.”... Page 3: “KOSYGIN ASSERTS PUEBLO INTRUDED”…
KHESAHN and the GROUND WAR: Page 1: “150 OF FOE KILLED AS MARINES UPSET VIETNAM AMBUSH–Battle Near Buffer Zone–Khesanh Is Shelled Anew Despite Cease-Fire”… “American marines upset a North Vietnamese ambush near the demilitarized zone yesterday, touching off a fierce battle that lasted two and a half hours, a Marine spokesman said. Nineteen Marines were killed and 90 wounded in the battle, while 150 North Vietnamese were killed… The action flared near the Marine artillery plateau at Camp Carroll, 15 miles northeast of the embattled Marine base camp at Khesanh and ten miles south of the DMZ… ‘They were setting up an ambush and the marines triggered it first,’ the spokesman said… In fighting along Route 9, the only supply line available to Marines in the northern region, a Marine convoy was ambushed Thursday with eight men killed and 44 wounded… The camp at Khesanh has been under constant shelling since ground attacks began last January 21 in what officers believe to be a major North Vietnamese offensive in the area.”... Page 4: “ENEMY FIREPOWER SAID TO INCREASE–Foe Reported Better Armed Than South Vietnamese”… “A steadily increasing supply of arms and ammunition transported along the Ho Chi Minh Trail has significantly increased enemy firepower over the last yer, according to several high American sources. They said that the enemy is now far better equipped that the South Vietnamese Army. Most of the enemy weapons are Chinese copies of Soviet models… all of the enemy’s operational battalions–plus a further undermanned battalions–are equipped with the fast-firing AK-47. Many, if not all, have acquired the weapon in the last year or eighteen months.”… Page 6: “Marines At Khesanh Sure A Big Attack Is Near–Americans Depending On Air Power To Repel Enemy At Outpost in South Vietnam”…
STATE DEPARTMENT, Office of the Historian, Historical Documents for both (1) Vietnam and Khesanh and (2) Pueblo Incident…
(1) Two documents well worth a perusal. Doc: 230 and 231 summarize meeting of President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to assure the President that our side is all set for what is underway. Good stuff. On the air side the President is told that 40 B-52s are committed to support the operation in and around Khesanh along with 500 tactical air sorties per day with 1,000 available for the duration…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d31
(2) Eight documents that are interesting and provide inside thinking on a historical confrontation with North Korea with the Soviet and Red China observing. Very little to do with OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER, but good history in any case…Access the eight documents through 239:
Doc 239: Ike gives General Wheeler his input on what to and what not to do as he sips an Arnie Palmer…
Doc 240: Summary of conversation with Soviets on the Pueblo incident wherein it is made clear that the Russians have “no doubt whatsoever” that Pueblo intruded…
Doc 241: Telephone conversation between the President and McNamara on how McNamara should prep for his testimony in front of Senate armed Services Committee on the budget since all the questions will be n Pueblo and Khesanh…good stuff…
Doc 242: Long, detailed and interesting minutes of meeting with Wise Men and a half dozen from the White House staff to consider all the options for immediate path ahead…
Doc 243: Notes from same meeting between President and Joint Chiefs (Doc 31), but subject is Pueblo, not Khesanh. President asks about the air order of battle and is told that the bad guys have 450 fighters and the good guys have 24 fighters in Japan…70 MIGs and SAMs at Wonsan. President asks great questions. Answers are weak…
Doc 245: A note from the Director of Navy Intelligence and research concluding that the Soviet posture is “one of non-involvement” and the Chinese Reds are “relatively cool.”…
Doc 246: President’s advisor Walt Rostow provides the President a summary of a conversation he had with Dean Rusk that you can skip…tap the carrot and go…
Doc 247: Short editorial note on what is happening at the UN. Not much. Thant offers his “good offices.”…
Read at: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v29p1/d239
29 JANUARY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times… coverage of air war in the north is nil as the weather curtails major operations and the major portion of effort is being diverted to the 500 sortie commitment per day to Khesanh and the “Niagra” area (Steel Tiger/ I Corps/DMZ) …
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 29 January 1968...
(1) An A-4E of the VA-144 Roadrunners embarked in USS Kitty Hawk suffered an engine failure on a strike mission and ejected to be rescued by a Navy helicopter…
(2) An F-105 of the 355th TFW out of Takhli suffered engine failure on takeoff on a night strike mission, settled back into the runway and was destroyed in the crash. The pilot survived.
(3) CAPTAIN JAMES DALE MILLS, USMC, was flying and A-4E of the VMA-311 Tomcats and MAG-12 out of Chu Lai providing close air support near Hoi An a few miles south of Danang and was downed by small arms fire in a strafing run on enemy troop positions. CAPTAIN MILLS did not escape the aircraft prior to impact and was killed-in-action fifty years ago this day. Inexplicably, CAPTAIN MILLS body has never been recovered. The crash site was within a few miles of Danang and the young pilot rests in or near the wreckage of his Skyhawk. Left Behind? Humble Host notes that the he holds a place of honor on the Vietnam Wall–Panel 35E, Line 61 and a Memorial Marker in Arlington, and wonders–why no recovery of the remains? Anybody know?…
RIPPLE SALVO… #695… The New York Times, Sunday 28 January 1968, Page E13:
“THE NATION: OVERPRICING AIR POWER” by Tom Wicker…
“In the furor over the seizure of the Pueblo, and North Korea’s refusal to release the ship and crew, the ironic limits of this country’s enormous military power have been painfully evident. Twisting and turning to protect its citizens, guard the dignity and rights, and maintain its military credibility, the United States was reminiscent of King Lear raging at his daughters:
No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall–
I will do such things–
What they are, yet I know not; they should be
The terrors of the earth.
“The Johnson Administration, openly weighing risks against gains, and costs against effect, desperately wanted to avoid another Asian war and likely confrontation with Moscow or Peking, or both. What its revenges on the unnatural hags of North Korea would be, therefore, it knew not. Despite its overwhelming preponderance of power, it had for the moment neither the ability nor the willingness to use that power.
HOPE SLIPS AWAY
“In Vietnam, however, the Administration continued to rely primarily on firepower, as all hope of a new movement toward a negotiated settlement appeared to be slipping away. For instance, Clark M. Clifford, President Johnson’s designee to replace Secretary McNamara at the Pentagon, made the meaning of the President’s ‘San Antonio formula’ clearer than ever but also strengthened the impression that negotiations are not in sight.
“In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clifford said that the formula did not mean that the President expected North Vietnam to stop its military activities, or to reduce the level of fighting, or even to slow the infiltration of men and supplies into South Vietnam, following a halt in the bombing. All Johnson expected, Clifford said, was that ‘they not take advantage of the suspension of the bombing.’
STOPPING THE FLOW
“He would not elaborate on what this means but if it does not mean stopping or reducing the level of the fighting or the flow of men and supplies, it can only mean that President Johnson is insisting only that the fighting not be intensified, nor the infiltration of men and supplies increased, after the bombing is stopped. This is reasonable but there is obviously no way that this requirement could be policed, or for Washington to know that Hanoi was complying with it, until after the bombing had been stopped. Yet, Clifford said that Hanoi at present was ‘willing to make no concessions ;whatsoever for a cessation of the bombing’ and that therefore it could not be stopped ‘under present circumstances.’
“This clearly suggests that the Administration had demanded of North Vietnam that it pledge, in advance of a halt to the bombing, that it will not increase the infiltration or the fighting and that Hanoi has refused to make such a commitment. Yet as Clifford pointed out to Senator Strom Thurmond, Thursday, if the North Vietnamese did not carry out such bargain, the United States could and would resume the bombing. It is difficult to see why, therefore, the advance pledge should be considered necessary since the remedy for Hanoi’s ‘taking advantage of bombing halt would be the same whether or not the pledge had been given. Implicit to the obvious American reluctance to stop the bombing is the high value the Administration claims for it. Clifford said it had served ‘extremely useful purposes’ in impeding the southward movement of men and supplies, and President Johnson has on occasion linked suspending the bombing to tying one hand behind the back of the American soldier fighting in South Vietnam.
AMERICAN RESOLVE
“Yet, last August, Secretary McNamara insisted to a Senate committee that the bombing could only make the infiltration of men and supplies more difficult, while demonstrating American resolve to both North and South Vietnam. A ‘less discriminating’ or ‘all-out’ air bombardment, he said, could ‘do no more’ and there was no possibility that any level of air attack–short of annihilation–could stop or even greatly hinder North Vietnamese operations in the South. Since then McNamara has been overruled, and additional targets–particularly around the port of Haiphong–have been hit. Yet the truth of his August testimony is now being sadly borne out in the fog-shrouded mountains of Khesanh.
“North Vietnam’s General Giap has assembled there an estimated 35,000 men–his biggest concentration yet–supported by an array of artillery, rockets,m mortars and other heavy weapons. So formidable is the battle force and its equipment that the whole might of American air power, including planes diverted from the bombing of the North, is having to be hurled–against it–and still the greatest, bloodiest land battle of the war is believed to be at hand.
“Giap has put this force together and brought it to the point of battle despite an air campaign that has unloaded more destruction tonnage on North Vietnam than was dropped in all of World War II. That fact alone calls into serious question the Administration’s insistence on the bombings value, such as Secretary Rusk’s contention that suspending it could be ‘stopping half the war.’ “…
RTR Quote for 29 January: JOHN STUART MILL on war: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest thing: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which he thinks nothing worth a war is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares about more than his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”…
Lest we forget… Bear