RIPPLE SALVO…#697… TO PARAPHRASE A NEW YORK TIMES OPED FROM 50 YEARS AGO… As President Trump leads the nation in the coming days through a full slate of foreign and domestic crises, he has no heavier responsibility than to look beyond self and beyond November. It is for him to evince independence of mind and courage to change course if need be, qualities which his critics fear are diminishing in his Administration but which alone can safely guide a great people through a time of intense and unrelenting storm…. but first…
Humble Host calls to attention the hot copy of Rear Admiral Denny Wisely, MiG Killer, Tailhooker, Carrier Skipper, and leader of warriors in his useful life of honorable and courageous service for our country. He has extended that extraordinary life by creating out of his unique set of adventures an autobiography he has titled GREEN INK: Memoirs of a Fighter Pilot. I have purchased same and added Green Ink to my Kindle as a priority read. I accessed the purchase through:
https://www.facebook.com/USNavyBlueAngels
I put the $5.99 on my wife’s credit card… I will run my review of Green Ink here next Monday, 5 Feb, as Ripple Salvo #702…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED NINETY-SEVEN of a trip back through a turbulent decade of American history that offers so many lessons for our leaders of today… or to ignore at our nation’s risk…
(Webmaster note: This day in Vietnam War History, 31 January 1968, is perhaps the most important and consequential of the conflict. Humble webmaster recommends giving due diligence to this significant day not only in Vietnam War history, but also in the history of the United States and her military. How did this day impact your military duty? Leave a comment below or use the contact form)
31 JANUARY 1968… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a mild and sunny Wednesday in NYC…
TET OFFENSIVE: Page 1: “FOE INVADES U.S. SAIGON EMBASSY–RAIDERS WIPED OUT IN 6-HOURS–VIETCONG WIDEN ATTACKS ON CITIES–Guerrillas Also Strike Presidential Palace and Many Bases”… “A 17-man Vietcong squad seized parts of the United States Embassy in the center of Saigon and held them for six hours early today. The Vietcong, wearing South Vietnamese Army uniforms, held off American military policemen firing machine guns and rocket launchers. Finally the invaders were routed by squads of American paratroopers who landed by helicopter on the roof of the building…. The daring raid was the most dramatic of scores of attacks launched by enemy commando units that carried the Vietcong’s Lunar Year offensive to the capital….At least five American military policemen and two United States Marine guards were killed in a wild night that saw the Vietcong terror squad overrun and then hold a section of the embassy grounds against initial attempts by rescue forces to fight their way in…. An initial count by military policemen said that there were 17 bodies of Vietcong after the fight ended... Page 1: “U.S. Aide In Embassy Villa Kills Guerrillas With Pistol”…Page 1: “Ambassador Safe–Guerrillas Also Strike Presidential Palace and Main Base”… Page 1: “Johnson Receives Flow Of Reports–He meets With Advisors On Saigon Raid, Viewed As New Step Up In War”...”…bold commando raid…viewed here a part of a well-planned intensification of the war by enemy forces took the Administration by surprise… Some officials termed the embassy raid and the attacks on seven provincial capitals, American airfields and scores of other allied facilities as the Vietcong’s single biggest coordinated terrorist offensive in the war, apparently designed for shock effect. They said they expected more of the same.”... Page 5: “Hanoi Calls New Drives Reprisal For Truce Halt”…
Page 1: PUEBLO INCIDENT: “A Pueblo Crewman Is Dead, U.S. Is Told”… “The Defense Department said tonight that it had received word that one crewman of the intelligence ship Pueblo captured eight days ago by the North Vietnamese had died….and the rest of the 83-man crew is being ‘properly treated’ and given necessary medical treatment.”…. Page 1: “President Urges Wider Program To Aid Veteran–Congress Asked to Provide Incentive Pay for Those Joining Public Service”... “President Johnson advised Congress today that he had ear-marked $50 million in his new budget for incentive payments to veterans who agree to take special public service jobs such as to teach the children of the poor, to man under-strength police forces and fire bridges, to join staffs of undermanned hospitals or to be enrolled in various new job-training and antipoverty programs.”… Page 1: “NATION IS WARNED UNREST IN CITIES IMPERILS SYSTEM–Advisory Unit Calls Failure To Solve Issue Greatest Threat Since Civil War–Authors Pessimistic–Report Says Abdication At Lower Levels Challenges Federal Political System”... “The failure of the government to prevent rioting, despair and ‘threatened anarchy’ in the nation’s large cities has brought the federal system to the brink of its greatest crisis since the Civil War, a Government study commission declared today. In a report its authors characterized as ‘pessimistic,’ the Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations said the historic American system of plural government–local, state and national–was in danger. The abdication or inability of the states, of city government and the federal Government, singly or jointly, to hold back the deterioration of urban life, the commission said, raises the prospect of pervasive federal domination in the name of security.”... Page 14: “U.N. Social Study Finds Gap Widen Between The World’s Rich And Poor”… Page 22: “Gallup Poll Rates Nixon Over Romney, 3 to 1 Among Republicans”… Page 22: “Reagan Confident, He Is Backed In His Candidacy As a Favorite Son”…
31 January 1968… The President’s Daily Brief… SOUTH VIETNAM: At last word, Communist forces were continuing their attacks against various cities and key allied military and civil installations. In Saigon, itself, sporadic sniping was continuing in various parts of the city well into the day, but many of the Vietcong terrorists were withdrawing across the river…so far the area around Khesanh remains relatively quiet, but the communist buildup there remains the most ominous in the country. The spectacular series of Communist attacks seems designed mainly for shock effect. The Communists are apparently out to demonstrate to all concerned that they are still a powerful force capable of seriously disrupting the country, if only temporarily….The extensive harassment of US airfields, logistical centers, and command and communications centers appears designed also to inhibit immediate allied reaction and retaliation. It could be preparatory to or intended to support early Communist offensive operations just south of the Demilitarized Zone... NORTH KOREA: the situation remains on dead center as Pyongyang continues to flaunt its determination to stand firm against US “machinations” in the United States or elsewhere…. LAOS: Signs are growing that the Communists are preparing for a major effort to drive government forces from the key counterinsurgency base at Phou Pha Thi. Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops have already taken up positions encircling the base which provides important navigational support for US air operations over North Vietnam….
31 JANUARY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times devoid of coverage of air operations over North Vietnam… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were five fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia to the Vietcong mortar and rocket attacks at Chu Lai (3 Marine F-4s with 2 officers killed) and Bien Hoa (2 aircraft destroyed and 17 damaged). The US air forces lost nine aircraft on the ground in the first two nights of the Tet Offensive. With the loss of 13 aircraft (seven of them on the ground) in January 1968, the month was the worst month in the war to date for Marine fixed wing aircraft.
RIPPLE SALVO… #697… New York Times, 28 January 1968… An OpEd written in troubled times…
Fifty years ago we were a nation divided by a bloody war being fought 10,000 miles from our shores; a civil rights movement was shunted to a back burner for the duration; a commissioned ship was seized on the high seas and a crew of sailors held for trial; a Cold War held the world hostage as two super-powers stared each other down; and then, the North Vietnamese proved the President’s optimism in Vietnam was all too hollow. All came to a head in a the Presidential election year of 1968. It was “the year the dream died.”…
“A TIME OF STORM”
“In this, his fifth year in the White House, Lyndon Johnson gives the impression of a sea captain about to begin a voyage into very rough weather. The time for turning back or choosing another course is past. All those not able to give full loyalty and stay the course unquestionably are tacitly encouraged to quit now. No adversary, foreign or domestic, can look for light treatment. This all makes for an impressive political image. But is it the face of wisdom?
“President Johnson does have a difficult passage between now and November. He is battling for his own and his party’s fate and for the Asian policies to which he has tied that fate. He seems clearly to have decided that his best hope is a show of strength and purpose, not compromise or experiment.
“The resignation first of Secretary of Defense McNamara and now the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Gardner removes from the Cabinet two thoughtful, critical, independent men of exceptional stature. Neither has quarreled with the President in any personal way and neither dissents from the war in Vietnam in the clear-cut fashion of many of the Administration’s critics on the outside. It is the drift of policy, the atmospheric pressure inside the Administration, to which these two quiet dissenters seem to have objected. The President, who surely understands something of their inner doubts and uneasiness has not managed to persuade them to withdraw their resignations even if he has tried.
“Good men remain in the Cabinet, but they are either in total agreement with the President’s course in foreign affairs or they direct departments that have little to do with it. Conformity now seems likely to prevail in the Administration counsels. If there were any doubt, Clark Clifford, the Secretary of Defense, designate, removed it in the sternly bellicose testimony he offered to the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing last week. The generals in the Pentagon and their sympathizers on Capitol Hill need worry no longer about troublesome independence in the office of the Secretary of Defense.
“The capture of the Pueblo underscores the danger and difficulty inherent in pursuing the hard-line in Asia. The Communist nations, if they choose, have it well within their power to open a second front in Northeast Asia or elsewhere as the United States becomes ever more deeply engaged militarily in Southeast Asia. Rather than anything so bold, the Communists more probably envisage the Pueblo affair as a merely embarrassing pinprick to the United States. But no one can really be certain. The Administration’s initial response has been firm but remarkably calm and measured. Confidence would flow more easily from the public to the President, however, if the men and the mood of his Administration had not grown steadily more martial.
“There are political advantages which an incumbent President can derive from a foreign crisis. The voters, quite sensibly, are not quick to change captains when the ship is moving through heavy waters.
“But as President Johnson leads the nation in the coming days through this latest Asian crisis, he has no heavier responsibility than to look beyond self and beyond November. It is for him to evince independence of mind and courage to change course if need be, qualities which his critics fear are diminishing in his Administration, but which alone can safely guide a great people through a time of storm.”
RTR Quote for 31 January: GOETHE: “Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after showers.”…
Lest we forget… Bear