RIPPLE SALVO… #913… THE FALL OF 1968 WAS A TIME OF TRANSITION FROM ORDERLY TO CHAOTIC TIMES. OUR PEOPLE LIVED WITH GREAT UNCERTAINTY IN THEIR LIVES. As we do now, 50 years later… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day NINE HUNDRED THIRTEEN of a return of fifty years to the days of Operation Rolling Thunder and the bombing of North Vietnam to reduce the flow of arms and men to South Vietnam where a war of attrition was killing 350 American warriors every week… Stop the bombing???…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Tuesday, 3 September 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “B-52s BLAST INFILTRATION ROUTES IN HEAVY STRIKES NEAR SAIGON”… “The United States military command set in motion today the heaviest bombing strikes in weeks along enemy infiltration routes into Saigon. During a 24-hour period, B-52 bombers struck eight times in the sprawling military district around Saigon. Several of the strikes rattled windowpanes and shook buildings in the capital. The raids reflected concern that North Vietnam might attempt to commemorate its annual National Day today with a fresh assault on Saigon. Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnamese independence on September 2, 1945…. Before dawn the city of Danang was subjected to a rocket attack that left 26 civilians and one South Vietnamese soldier dead… In South Vietnam fewer ground clashes were reported than in any 24-hour period during the last two weeks. …light and scattered action… The chief ground development was the discovery by the 82nd Airborne Division of an enemy arms cache of significant size during a sweep in an area 15 miles south of Hue. The cache yielded more than seven tons of weapons and ammunition, most of it manufactured by Communist China.”…
Page 1: LABOR DAY…”125,000 IN MARCH SALUTING LABOR–Spectators Are Sparse Here (New York)–Anti-War Protesters Join Parade Up Fifth Avenue…Page 1: “HUMPHREY OPENS CAMPAIGN IN NEW YORK–WOOS URBAN VOTE–Starts Labor Day Walk Upo To White house In Good Democratic Territory–Clue to Strategy Seen–Vice President Expected to Concentrate On Day Time Appeals In Big Cities”… Page 1: “TEACHERS STRIKES LOOM ACROSS NATION–Rising Militancy Is Striving To Avert Tie-up Next Monday–Suburban Schools Face Big City Problems”… Page 34: “WALLACE FINDS ATTACK ON PRESS AND TV SUCCESSFUL TACTIC–Audiences Cheer Scorned views–Response Believed Greater Since Chicago Disorders”… Page 34: “AGNEW PLAYS GOLF UNDER DIFFICULTIES–And Over Par”… Page 34: “HUMPHREY OFFER ON VIETNAM PEACE TALKS SPURNED BY NIXON–Aide Cities G.O.P. Promise Not To Peril Peace Talks”…
Page 1: “PRAGUE AIDS SAY GERMANY RED UNITS LEFT BY THIRD DAY–Pull-Out Is Linked To Russian’s Second Thoughts On Role In The Occupation–The Divisions Involved–Moscow’s Concern About Violating Potsdam Pact Is Viewed”… Page 1: “TOLL IN IRAN’S QUAKE IS NOW PUT AT 12,000”.. Page 1: “KREMLIN LEADERS BELIEVED MEETING–Broad Party Session Likely to Review Consequences of Czech Occupation”…
STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of the Historian. Historical Documents. Foreign Relations. Vietnam 1964-68. Volume 7. Two documents for your consideration. Document 1: In a lengthy telephone conversation on 2 September 1968 between Secretary of Defense Clifford in Washington and LBJ at his ranch for Labor Day. The President wants more options to offer the North Vietnamese in the Peace talks than just the cessation of bombing. He isn’t holding enough cards to win a hand. He gives Clifford a couple of days to come up with some ideas… Lengthy, but instructive…Document 2: Is a telegram from Harriman in Paris to the Secretary of State and the President on the results of a conversation with the Russians in Paris. Diplomacy at the working level…Read at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d1
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v07/d2
3 SEPTEMBER 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times: no coverage of air operations over the North… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixced wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 3 September 1968…
(1) MAJOR T.F. ASSALONE and 1LT C.P. PARLATORE were flying an F-4C of the 558th TFS and 12th TFW out of Cam Ranh Bay and downed by ground fire. Chris Hobson reported it this way… “Air strikes close to air bases were by now quite common and this was especially so at those deemed most vulnerable like Tan Son Nhut and Da Nang, which were surrounded by numerous villages that were suspected of harboring Viet Cong forces. A flight of Phantoms from Can Ranh Bay was called in to bomb VC positions just gwo miles west of Tan Son Nhut air base on September 3. MAJOR ALLALONE was making a run over his target at 600-feet when hs aircraft wa hit by small arms fire. The two aviators ejected immediately and were fortunate to be rescued from the area before the VC could exact their revenge.”…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) FOR THE FOUR 3 SEPTEMBER DAYS OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER THE NORTH…
1965, 1968… NONE…
1966… CAPTAIN CLIFFORD S. HEATHCOTE, USAF… (KIA)… and… CAPTAIN WILLIAM PRESTWOOD SIMMONS, USAF… (KIA)…
1967… CAPTAIN HUBERT WILLIAM MOORE, USAF… (MIA– Presumed killed-in-action– body not recovered)… The circumstances of MAJOR MOORE’s loss 55 miles northwest of Dong Hoi were reported in RTR post for 3 September 1967. The search for MAJOR MOORE’s remains continues– “pursuit is active.”… Among remembrances for this fallen warrior is this poignant offering… author unknown… I quote…
“He loved us so.
Every day, in a hundred ways, he told us so.
In honesty, in affection, he told us so.
He loved us so.
Every day, in a hundred ways he showed us so.
With loyalty and bravery, he showed us so.
He was our defender, and he kept us free!
He took an oath to guard us, and fought for liberty!
He loved us so, and we should know
For we loved him so. “… Left by A.I.M….
RIPPLE SALVO… #913… NEW YORK TIMES “OPINION EDITORIAL”, 2 September 1968, page 18: I quote…
“RIVERS OF CHANGE”
“The most vocal of political demand in the nation today is for change. It is a diffuse, contradictory and confusing demand. Middle-class suburban voters have astonished pollsters by asserting that if the Democrats did not nominate Senator Eugene McCarthy, the country’s most intellectual and radical politician, they would vote for George C. Wallace, the country’s most unintellectual and reactionary politician. Young militants have swung from total rejection of the political system to intense participation. Independents have shifted from the late Robert F. Kennedy to Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller to Senator George W. McGovern, indifferent to party affiliation.
“The Vietnam war, increasingly stalemated and increasingly unpopular, has been the catalyst of this demand for change. But as Senator Inouye of Hawaii pointed out in his unusually thoughtful keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention, opposition to Vietnam cannot be the whole explanation in a year in which students have rioted from Paris to Prague to Peking. Old, rigid political structures on the campus and in civic life are breaking down and young people are demanding more direct and effective popular participation.
“In the United States, the racial crisis is taking new, bewildering forms. Negroes who once clamored for integration now identify themselves as black and insist upon a heightened sense of racial identity and racial power. The slogans of the 1950’s have been turned upside down. Federal civil rights laws have laid the necessary basis for legal and political equality, but few can agree on how to invest that formal equality with economic and social content. many whites meanwhile have grown weary of ceaseless clamor and racial strife. Under a truce flag emblazoned ‘law and order,’ they demand an immediate cease-fire in the battle of social change.
“The two major parties, having written their platforms and nominated their candidates, find themselves about equally ill-prepared to respond to these imperious if inchoate demands for change. If either party had dared nominate a leader who stood for change, it would probably have swept the field. The Republicans, however, could not countenance the experienced Governor Rockefeller–not to mention a comparatively unknown quantity like Mayor John V. Lindsay–and they settled upon the slightly shopworn Richard M. Nixon. The Democrats likewise spurned Senators McCarthy and McGovern and, although casting glances at Senator Edward m. Kennedy, they turned to the reliable, familiar Hubert Humphrey.
“The rival platforms are clearest in imitating one another and promising more of the same. The Democrats who grappled harder and more openly with the dilemma of Vietnam have the virtue of being more specific in their plank discussing the complexities and alternatives. In response to the public anger over street crime and racial violence, both parties vie in asserting that they can halt disorder, calm the threatening discord an achieve reconciliation.
“In terms of party organization, the Republicans and the Democrats are equally matched. The latter have a wide edge in voter registration and past loyalty, but the disaffection of may middle-class liberals and young voters on the Vietnam issue largely wipes our the advantage. Vice President Humphrey has decided to fall back upon the labor unions as the most dependable Democratic party shock troops.
“The nation is rife with conflict, but the two parties reply with pleas for party and national unity. It is in the essence of their nature as institutions to include and accommodate as many people as possible, rather than exclude and reject. This kind of politics is not always exciting, and neither are this year’s candidates, platforms or organizational techniques. But this kind of politics helps hold together 200 million people of rare diversity. Within these useful restraining limits, the parties begin their efforts today to channel and direct the powerful, unpredictable rivers of change.”… End quote…
RTR Quote for 3 September: ANDY WARHOL: “When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them.”…
Lest we forget… Bear