“…the last long phase of increasing acrimony on both sides.”
RIPPLE SALVO… #512…OPEN SEASON ON PRESIDENT JOHNSON… but first
Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED TWELVE of a return to Operation Rolling Thunder and its place in history…
30 JULY 1967… HEAD LINES from a 900-page Sunday edition of The New York Times on a sunny sabbath in New York City…
USS FORRESTAL: Page 1: Four column picture of the USS Forrestal flight deck post-fire. “AT LEAST 70 DEAD IN FORRESTAL FIRE; 89 OTHERS MISSING–78 INJURED ONBOARD CARRIER IN BLAZE AND EXPLOSIONS OFF COAST OF NORTH VIETNAM–CRAFT IS OUT OF COMMISSION–SHE WILL GO TO PHILIPPINES AFTER DELIVERING VICTIMS TO HOSPITAL SHIP REPOSE”... “25 aircraft had been destroyed or rolled overboard in the blaze…31 other planes had suffered damage described as light to serious…the fire was brought under control ten hours after it broke out. The last fires extinguished at 12:20 today.”…
SUMMER 1967: Page 1: “President Calls for Free Inquiry of Nations Riots–Orders Commission to Find Answers Without Regard to Conventional Wisdom–Detroit Gets U.S. Aid–Johnson acts to Give City’s Small Business Men Help–Soldier Kills Negro”… “President Johnson put his new Commission on Civil Disorders to work today on long list of questions charging it to find answers. What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent from happening again?”... Page 1: “Detroit: An army paratrooper shot and killed a fleeing Negro Saturday. It was the first shooting by a regular Army man since the paratroopers entered the city.”… Page 1: “Mayor Lindsay Hears Angry Pleas in Brooklyn Ghetto Walk”... “Angry Negroes met Mayor Lindsay with their immediate demands for economic relief yesterday as he toured streets in Brooklyn Bedford-Stuyvesant where bands of young Negroes had gone a rampage before dawn yesterday. Half the Mayor’s visit was in the offices of CORE. CORE representative Sonny Carter was seen shaking his finger at the Mayor.”… Page 1: “Cardinal Spellman In East Harlem”...”to lead the Puerto Rican residents in special prayers of thanks for return of peace and brotherhood to the ghetto.”… Page 1: “Mount Vernon Mayor Offers Job Program Paying $100 A Week”... “A new job recruitment campaign in the ghetto would guarantee wages of not less than $100 a week…no one was clear on details, but the Negroes were jubilant. The president of the local NAACP chapter, Lloyd King: ‘You just saw history made. You saw a reasonable confrontation with black power.”… Page 48: “Area Of Elgin (Ill.) Sealed Off in Racial Disorder”... “Police carrying riot guns and nightsticks sealed off a five-block area of downtown Elgin last night after gangs of Negroes began tossing bombs, bricks and bottles…reports of fires in ll areas of town.”… Page 48: “Gunfire in Chicago…eight persons were rescued.”… Page 48: “New Castle (Pa) Police Act”… “Scattered bands of Negroes set fires, smashed windows and assaulted a white man.”
Page 50: “Riots Seen As Bid for Self-Esteem–Psychologist Asserts Most Are Young”... “The summer of violence by Negro youths across the country represents the quest for self-esteem of the truly desperate human beings.’They are not only destructive, but in the process of destroying are seeking to affirm. They are affirming their power to destroy. In the act of rebelling they are asserting their right to rebel. Beneath the random and destructive and irrational behavior there remains the pathetic logic of asserting self-esteem and searching for a positive identity by exposing oneself to danger and even inviting death.”…
ACTION and REACTION… THE FOLLOWING EVENT AND RESULTANT MEMO ARE AN IMPORTANT AND TIMELY DEVELOPMENT:
VIETNAM: Page 2: “In ground fighting in the South enemy gunners launched coordinated attacks using rockets, mortars and recoilless rifles against four United States camps and airfields north of Saigon early Saturday, killing at least six persons and wounding 51 others…
This report led to a Memorandum from Walt Rostow to the President on 31 July that he titled : “On Bombing And Retaliation.”
It starts out: “The Communists are using mortars as their equivalent to our bombing in the North. Like them, we have hit airfields, barracks, and military installations. These mortar attacks are particularly attractive to them at a time when Viet Cong capabilities have somewhat diminished to make conventional guerrilla attacks. The question is, therefore, what additional targets might we add which hurt them and made military sense, in retaliation for their increased use of mortars. I surveyed the possibilities over the weekend. Here in order of priority, are some possibilities.
–Phuc Yen and Gia Lam Airfields. These are MIG bases and Gia Lam is an international airport, similar to the one attacked near Saigon.
–Red River bridge. A mile long. With special care should be attackable without significant civilian casualties. Fits the transport offensive now being mounted.
–The three Hanoi radio stations. The military case is not strong; although they are the source of vicious propaganda throughout Southeast Asia, including Northeast Thailand. They are all out in the country and would involve virtually no civilian casualties. (I, personally, have always thought pretty well of these targets because radio Hanoi is a symbol of regime’s power and regional pretensions. Some of the intelligence people say they would miss the broadcasts as a source of information.)
–Ministry of National Defense. They have struck quite close to the MACV compound. We’re not sure they meant to attack. But an attack on the Ministry of National Defense would bring the war home to some of the military bureaucrats.
“Hanoi TPP is ripe for re-attack when other conditions are ripe; but having been attacked before would not be a sign of upping the ante in retaliation for mortar attacks on us.
“Finally, you should know the Air Force is presenting a plan to Bus Wheeler for cutting transport lines more systematically around Haiphong and seeking to slow down supply movements more effectively. A quite serious and interesting proposal. No attacks on ships involved.” the President read and initialed the memorandum. And would take some of this advice in the early days of August 1967… “…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d261
The memo provides the President with a short list of target options he will use in the first weeks of August as Senator Stennis and the Hawks put the pressure on. The historic Stennis hearings start on August 7 and the first witness will be Admiral Sharp, CinCPac…
30 JULY 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times… (31 July reporting 30 July ops) Page 2: “In the air war against North Vietnam American pilots flew a total of 117 missions. Of these only six were flown from carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. This was about a tenth of the usual number and reflected the fire aboard the Forrestal and the fact that the other carriers in the Gulf–Bon Homme Richard, Oriskany and Intrepid– spent most of the day assisting Forrestal and adjusting to a new schedule for coordinated operations. Air Force pilots from bases in the Thailand mounted 80 missions. Among their targets was the Traithon army barracks, about 28 miles northeast of Hanoi.…Hanoi Says 47 U.S. Planes were Downed in 6-Months Over Haiphong…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 30 July 1967…
(1) CAPTAIN THOMAS RAY ALLEN and 1LT RONALD LYLE PACKARD were flying an F-4C of the 559th TFS and 12th TFW out of Cam Ranh Bay on a night road recce and caught a truck on a road eight miles north of the DMZ. CAPTAIN ALLEN and 1LT PACKARD commenced a diving attack on the target and was observed by his wingman to fly into the ground at the target site. It was presumed the young airmen were either hit by ground fire in the dive or CAPTAIN ALLEN inadvertently flew into the ground. CAPTAIN ALLEN and 1LT PACKARD were killed in action and perished on the attack 50 years ago this day. Their remains were recovered in 1994 and identified in 1997 for burial at home. So young, so many years of life given for our country–their country…
RIPPLE SALVO… #512… “THE LONG ROAD TO DE-ESCALATION–AUGUST TO DECEMBER 1967… A PREVIEW OF WHAT’S TO COME…. (From THE PENTAGON PAPERS Gravel edition, page 197)…
“After the decision on ROLLING THUNDER 57 (authorized 20 July), the debate on the air war against North Vietnam, particularly the public debate, entered a last long phase of increasing acrimony on both sides. As he had been throughout the war, President Johnson was once again caught in the crossfire of his critics of the right and the left. The open-season on Presidential war policy began in August with the high intensity Senate Preparedness hearings where Senator Stennis and his colleagues fired the first shots. In September the embattled President tried again for peace, capping his secret efforts with new public offer to Hanoi in a speech in San Antonio. The attempt was unavailing and, until and under pressure from the military and the hawkish elements of public and Congressional opinion, the President authorized a selected intensification of the air war. The doves were not long in responding. In October they staged a massive demonstration and march on the Pentagon to oppose the war, there confronting specifically alerted troops in battle gear. A month later, Senator Eugene McCarthy announced himself as a peace candidate for the Presidency to oppose Lyndon Johnson within his own party. By Christmas, however, the issue had subsided a bit. Ambassador Bunker and General Westmoreland had both returned home and spoken in public to defend the Administration’s conduct of the war, and reports from the field showed a cautious optimism. The stage was thus set for the dramatic Vietcong Tet offensive in January of the new year, an assault that would have traumatic impact on official Washington and set in motion a re-evaluation of the whole American policy.”
RTR Quote for July 30: SAMUEL JOHNSON: “I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.”
Lest we forget… Bear