RIPPLE SALVO… #573… THE ANGUISH OF A BEFUDDLED PRESIDENT… It was not a question of more or less, or where or when… but first…
Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED SEVENTY-THREE of a visit to the past: a return to Operation Rolling Thunder…
30 September 1967…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a clear, bright Saturday in New York City…
AUTUMN IN AMERICA 1957: Page 1: “Fund Woes Beset Medical Schools–Enrollment and Income Lag Behind Rising Costs, Yet Expansion is Needed”... “American medical schools, the apparent fat cats of higher education, are facing serious financial troubles as rising income lags behind soaring costs. The combined budgets of the nation’s 94 medical schools have risen by 400% to $1-billion in the last generation. But enrollment has increased by only 50% to 33,000 and expenses have swollen ‘to a horrendous degree,’ as one educator put it.”… Page 1: “Policemen Cleared In 2 Riot Killings–Jury Reports No Basis For East Harlem Indictment”… “A grand Jury that investigated the killing of two persons by police guns in the East Harlem riots last July 24 found no basis for an indictment.”… Page 17: “Wallace Weighs 3rd Party Convention”... Page 17: “Reagan Aids GOP In South Carolina”...”One of six states that voted for Goldwater in 1964.”… Page 20: “Students at Fisk University Stressing Blackness After Riot”… “… In assessing the riots that swept the campus in Nashville six months ago, the students quickly agreed that the riot at the predominantly Negro school had ‘intensified’ student interest in the ‘black consciousness’ philosophy that is being promoted by black power-oriented civil rights organizations. Their assessment of the situation–a look around campus–is, if anything, an understatement. Today, at Fisk, the ‘Autobiography of Malcolm X,’ the late black nationalist, has become ‘must’ reading for students who want to hold their own in campus ‘bull sessions’… Some music is most popular… students are referring to themselves as blacks rather than Negroes. Curriculum changes have been made to include Negro history and non-Western culture. Courses with ‘no blackness there, are out.’… third generation Negroes are not willing to play the same game their parents played…riots teach middle class Negroes that they are no different from other Negroes in the eyes of the police.”…
Page 6: “A New Commander For Pacific Fleet Chosen By Johnson”… “The President has announced he had chosen Vice Admiral John Hyland as Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet.To succeed VADM Hyland as Commander of the Seventh Fleet the President selected Rear Admiral William F. Bringle.
PAGE 1: JOHNSON PLEDGES TO HALT BOMBING IF TALKS FOLLOW–SAYS HE ‘ASSUMES’ NORTH VIETNAM WOULD NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PAUSE–Promptness Stressed–In Texas Speech President Declares Readiness for a Productive Parley”... “…speech in San Antonio to National Legislative Conference…. President: ‘North Vietnam knows the terms he is offering in public… As we have told Hanoi time and time again, the heart of the matter is this. The United States is willing immediately to stop all aerial and naval bombardment of North Vietnam when this will lead promptly to productive discussion. We of course would assume that, while discussions proceed North Vietnam would not take advantage of the bombing cessation or limitation. On these conditions, Mr. Johnson said he is ready to talk tomorrow to Ho Chi Minh.”….
30 September 1967…The President’s TS Daily CIA Brief (Pres Eyes Only)… NORTH VIETNAM: Senior Chinese General Visits…Yang Te-chih… to join in the Hanoi celebration of Communist China’s national day on 1 October. Yang’s visit is the first publicized visit of a senior Chinese military officer since 1961. Both Peking and Hanoi soft-pedaled Yang’ military background (Led Chinese ‘volunteers’ in Korea) in announcing the visit suggesting they did not want to overemphasize that aspect. We suspect Yang will discuss the war in terms of China’s material assistance, but we do not think he will offer major troop commitments–nor that Hanoi would accept right now if he did. yang may also visit the Chinese engineer and antiaircraft units in Vietnam. (Humble Host wonders if the visit included Chinese pilots at Phuc Yen?)…
30 SEPTEMBER 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… (1 Oct reporting 30 Sept ops)…Page 1: “U.S. PLANES PRESS BUFFER ZONE RAIDS–ENEMY BARRAGES SLACKEN–JETS BOMB MIG AIR BASE AND CUT HIGHWAY BRIDGE”… “United States planes and ships pressed their attacks against North Vietnamese artillery positions in the demilitarized zone yesterday despite a slackening of the heavy enemy barrages of the last month. An American spokesman said that 128 artillery rounds had struck Marine positions throughout Quangtri, South Vietnam’s northern most province, but there were no details on when bases were shelled. One marine had been killed and 13 wounded. It was the third flight shelling….“U.S. PRESSES RAIDS”… “Today, pilots of Air Force fighter-bombers reported having blown huge craters in the main runway at the MIG air base at Kep 35 miles northeast of Hanoi. Air Attacks near the North Vietnamese capital were heavy. A military spokesman reported that two MIG-17 fighter planes had made strafing passes at pilots of F-105 Thunderchiefs during the attack but no damage was reported. Kep was the second MIG airfield attacked in two days. The day before Air Force pilots struck the base at Hoalac 20 miles west of Hanoi, reporting hits along the runway and taxiway. ‘Our mission was hampered by weather but we managed to spot the target and put our bombs along the runway,’ said Major James L. Gormley of Rapid City, SA.D.
“Navy pilots from the carrier Coral Sea bombed a highway bridge two and a half miles southeast of Haiphong, striking at construction work on the steel and concrete structure, which was partial destroyed earlier this month.
“Today Air Force pilots blasted a surface-to-air missile site 25 miles east-northeast of Hanoi, and reported that at two of the sites four missiles had been destroyed. The pilots said they had also destroyed the computer van and damaged radar equipment. After the attack, a column of black smoke rose to 4,500-feet. All four highway and railroad bridges linking North Vietnam’s major port city of Haiphong with the rest of the country have now been cut at one time or another in a campaign to isolate the city and the port.
“A Marine F-4 Phantom was shot down by antiaircraft fire shortly after midnight after dropping bombs near the northern border of the DMZ. The pilot and radar officer bailed out over the South China Sea where they were picked up by the Coast Cutter Point Dume. The Marine jet was the 684th American plane downed over the North.”…
“Vietnam: Air War”(Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 30 September 1967…
(1) An F-4B of the VFMA-115 and MAG-13 out of Chu Lai suffered an engine fire after take-off and the two warrior crew ejected safely and were rescued to fly and fight again. This was the second loss of an F-4B by VFMA-115 in two days…
RIPPLE SALVO… #573… By the end of September 1967 the President had become the target for an unrelenting assault from every corner of our society. The result: a befuddled and anguished chief executive. Foremost on his mind was the war and which way to go. Three historical documents made available to the public in about 2015 provide a modicum of understanding of the President’s dilemma on this day 50 years ago…
Read 339. (“Diplomatic and Bombing Actions in the Near Future). It will boggle your mind. And it probably boggled the President’s as he tried to mix bombing with diplomacy and try to figure out how much pressure–bombing– to apply to convince Ho Chi Minh (Or Le Duan) to start talking peace… Then read the short 340. that summarizes the speech quoted briefly above (“Johnson Pledges to Halt Bombing if Talks Follow”)… and finally, read the print out of a 6-minute phone conversation between the President and an old friend from the Senate, Senator Everett Dirksen. In 344 of October 4, LBJ was a man in despair…
339. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68vo5/d339
340. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d340
344. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d344
RTR QUOTE for 30 September: ADOLPH GALLAND: “Only the spirit of attack born in a brave heart will bring success to any fighter aircraft no matter how highly developed it may be.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear