RIPPLE SALVO… #481… “TREACHERY IN THE PURSUIT OF DIPLOMATIC GOALS”… but first…
Good Morning: Day FOUR HUNDRED EIGHTY-ONE of recalling the events, heroism and the lessons of a war created and lost by politicians more than 50 years ago…
29 JUNE 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Thursday under the clouds in NYC…
SIX-DAY WAR: Page 1: “Johnson Decries Israeli Annexation of Old Jerusalem–Action is Termed Unilateral and Hasty–U.S. Will Not Accord it Recognition–Late Appeal is Unheard–President Confers with King Hussein of Jordan on Wide Range of Mideast Issues... President says Israel’s move upset his confidence in their wisdom and good judgement.”… Page 1: “Order Didn’t Get to USS Liberty–Pentagon Reports Message Directing Ship Off Sinai to Move Arrived Late”… “The Defense Department disclosed today that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had ordered the communications-intelligence ship Liberty to move further away from the Sinai coast before Israeli forces attacked her on 8 June. The message was misrouted and did not reach Liberty until she had been hit.”…Page 1: “All Barriers In Jerusalem Are to Come Down Today”… “Jerusalem was formally reunited today. The Arab sector, formerly held by Jordan and some districts in Jordanian territory have been absorbed by Israel… Arab and Jew are able to mingle freely in greater Jerusalem, and in fact, all of Israel. Mayor Teddy Kollek said, ‘The Arabs will be able to go to Haifa or Tel Aviv or wherever they live. All they have to do is show is their receipt for the census we held Monday in the Old City.”... Page 1: “Yugoslavia Asks Israel to Pullback–Resolution in U.N. Assembly a Compromise Between Stands by U.S. and Soviet...demand that Israel immediately withdraw all of her forces from Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Republic… 14 countries join Yugoslavia also seeks to prevent Israel from annexing of the Old City of Jerusalem.”…
Page 1: “Consumer Prices Up Sharply Again for Second Month”… “...went up 3/10th of 1% to 115.8 per cent of it 1957-59 base of 100.The products and services bought by family of four now cost $11.56 for every $10 they cost in 1957-59.”… “Baltimore Mayor McKeldin Will Not Seek Reelection”... “Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin announced today he will not seek reelection thus ending on of the most successful careers in Maryland politics…Thomas D’Alexandro, III, a 37-year old Democrat, who is the President of the city council appeared to have no competition for the Democratic nomination. Democrats outnumber Republicans 4 to 1 in Baltimore. (D’Alexandro’s young daughter Nancy is destined for infamy–she married a guy named Pelosi)…. Page 1: “14 Wounded in Buffalo as Violence Erupts Anew–2 Policemen Among Those Hit By Pellets as 1,500-Negro Youths Rampage for Second Night”... “Beginning about 7PM gangs of Negro youths some numbering as many as 100 roamed through the lower East Side, pelting policemen with stones and bricks as the policemen wearing helmet nd armed with shotguns and tear-gas guns, pushed their way through the youths often firing their tear gas guns.”…
Page 1: “Fighting Light in South Vietnam as U.S. Jets Hammer at North–20 Ground Operations are Underway–Planes Again Attack Railroad Yards”... “Twenty ground operations were underway but there were only light clashes in a few places. New fighting broke out in the Central Highlands, Marines skirmished twice with North Vietnamese near the demilitarized zone and Troopers of the 1st Cavalry Division had several contacts in the Anlao Valley 110 miles south of Danang. In the clash in the Central Highlands near Dakto, 30 miles northwest of Kontum that resulted in six of the enemy killed and losing 2 killed in action and six wounded in action. Twenty North Vietnamese were killed in the fight in the Anlao with no American casualties. In the engagement in the Bongon Plain 280 miles northwest of Saigon fourteen North Vietnamese were killed and 7 Americans were killed and 33 wounded.”…
29 JUNE 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (30 June reporting 29 June ops) Page 7: “MIG Is Caught On Ground”...United States Air Force planes hit a parked MIG-17 and blew craters in the runways at Hoaloa air base in a raid 20 miles west of Hanoi. Navy jets mauled an oil depot near Haiphong…. (Page 4 on 29th) “U.S. Puts Air Losses In North Vietnam at 588”… “The Pentagon said it is losing fewer planes over the north than they expected, but North Vietnam says the loss rate is four times what the United States is reporting: U.S.-588; North Vietnam-2,048.”
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 29 June 1967.”…oohrah.
RIPPLE SALVO… #481… Gentle readers, I am going to keep this post super-simple. If you were studying about World War I you would want to read Barbara Tuchman’s great thriller, “The Zimmerman Telegram.” Here is what the New York Times Book Review had to say about that 1958 masterpiece: “A true, lucid thriller…a tremendous tale of hushed and unhushed uproars in the linked fields of war and diplomacy…Tuchman makes the most of it with a creative writer’s sense of drama and a scholar’s obeisance to the evidence.” The “Zimmerman Telegram,” or note, was a top-secret 19 January 1917 message to the President of Mexico requesting Mexico attack the United States with German support. The Brits broke the code and put it in American hands and on 1 March 1917 the whole world knew what the Germans had in mind:
“On the first of February we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America. If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to re-conquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement. You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President of Mexico, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Germany and Japan. Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months. Zimmerman 2 April 1917.”
On 6 April 1917 President Woodrow Wilson addressed a joint session of Congress and requested a Declaration of War upon Germany. That same day Congress voted 82 to 6 to approve the requested Declaration of War on Germany.
Skip ahead to 24 August 1963 and “Telegram 243” or “Cable 243″… and a 2015 book by Patrick J. Sloyan, “THE POLITICS OF DECEPTION: JFK’s Secret Decision on Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Cuba.” A quote from the flyleaf: “Patrick J. Sloyan…revisits the last year of JFK’s presidency to reveal a ruthless politician. As the president prepared for his 1964 reelection bid that never was, he buried the truth and manipulated public opinion. Using Kennedy’ secret recordings of crucial White House meetings and interviews with key inside players, Sloyan reveals: “
“*President Kennedy’s complicity in the overthrow and assassination of South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem, an event that planted the seed for a decade of jungle warfare and national divide. (And the loss of 58,000 brave Americans)…
“*The secret deal to resolve the Cuban missile crisis that contradicts the polarized eyeball-to-eyeball’ account of Kennedy’s dramatic showdown with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, who out foxed the American president.
“*Kennedy’s hostile interactions with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the president’s attempts to undermine the civil rights movement, which he viewed as destroying his reelection chances in the South.
” ‘The Politics of Deception’ is a revelatory look at JFK few will recognize…”
Humble Host is not suggesting anybody add two more books to their “summer reading program,” but if you are truly into remembering the Vietnam War and the air war over North Vietnam, and the 58,000 brave Americans who didn’t come home to their families, or the hundreds of thousands of wounded warriors from that decade of war, then you might be interested in at least reading about “Cable 243.” You can call it up at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_243
A bit from “Cable 243″…. “The US would find it impossible to continue to support GVN militarily and economically unless the above steps are taken immediately which we recognize requires the removal of the Nhus from the scene. We wish to give Diem reasonable opportunity to remove the Nhus, but if he remains obdurate, then we are prepared to accept the obvious implication that we can no longer support Diem. You may also tell the appropriate military commanders that we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown of the central government mechanism.”
And this: from the Sloyan book, page 211: ” ‘Want to go ahead with coup planning?’ Kennedy asked his advisors. The CIA chief, McCone, said he did not know about Lodge’s coup plans. What followed in the next forty-four seconds is still censored despite the death of all participants and the expiration of security designations after 50 years. For the record, Rusk told Lodge to suspend coup planning and resume diplomacy with Diem. In reality, Kennedy and Lodge continued to explore fomenting an overthrow by Saigon’s reluctant generals.”
Draw your own conclusions. Humble Host has. American diplomats fumbled our way into the Vietnam war — a presidential approval of a coup that turned into the assassination of the only leader capable of pulling and holding South Vietnam together. When Diem died, the United States owned the war with North Vietnam.
Who cares?? it was 54 years ago. IMHO, we all should…
A new generation of American diplomats is at the helm. I wonder how many appreciate the historical consequences of the assassination of heads of state, friend or foe, in pursuit of diplomatic goals and as an objective of statecraft. The Kennedy decision to remove Diem, one way or another, had dire consequences that continue to plague our country more than 50 years after the fact. The coverup of JFK’s “mistake” continues in order to protect the myth of his glorious presidency. The deception continues.
Let’s name another aircraft carrier for the mythical JFK… “…a ruthless politician.”
RTR QUOTE for 29 June: SEYMOUR HERSH on “The Politics of Deception”: “It is only appropriate that Patrick Sloyan has chosen to write about lying at the top–he has seen firsthand the results of such lies on the battlefield.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear