RIPPLE SALVO… #513… ENTER HENRY A. KISSINGER, HARVARD PROFESSOR and consultant to the State Department… but first…
Good Morning: Day FIVE HUNDRED THIRTEEN of a return to the epic air battle over North Vietnam called Operation Rolling Thunder…
31 JULY 1967…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a hot and humid Monday on Fire Island…
USS FORRESTAL: Page 1: Several Pictures. “Forrestal Death Toll May Reach 125; 69 Still Missing–Rescue Teams Press Search But Little Hope Remains For The Other Crewmen–Ship Was Nearly Lost–She Leaves Combat Zone For Subic Base–Tales of Heroism Told”... “With her flight deck seared and punctured, her 83-plane air wing all but wiped out and perhaps 125 of her crewmen dead, this mammoth aircraft carrier steamed out of the combat zone tonight toward the Subic By Naval Base in the Philippines.”… Page 1: “Start of Tragedy: Pilot Hears a Blast As He Checks His (picture of LCDR John Mc Cain, III)…At 10:30 a.m. Saturday, LCDR John McCain climbed aboard his A-4 Skyhawk for a mission over North Vietnam. ‘I closed the canopy and started the plane then went through the normal checks of the gauges and settings,’ the 30-year old pilot recalled today (July 30). ‘Suddenly, I felt and heard an explosion. It was either my plane or the one to my right. Flames were everywhere.’ In the following moments deck crews working amid the towering flames to jettison aircraft with bombs slung beneath them aboard the carrier Forrestal, the 150-pound Annapolis graduate climbed out of the cockpit stepped precariously along the A-4s refueling pipe and then leaped onto the burning flight deck and ran. “I turned around and saw another pilot leaving his aircraft the way I did,’ Commander McCain said quietly. ‘I saw him jump into the fire and roll clear, but his clothing was burning. I ran toward him,’ the pilot went on. ‘He was 50-feet in front of me. I got closer, then the first bomb exploded. I was knocked backward about 10 feet. I never saw him again.’ “…
SUMMER AT HOME 1967: Page 1:”Prayers For Peace Led By President”… “In their homes and churches and synagogues Americans responded to the President’s call and observed a day of prayer for civil and racial peace today.”… Page 1: “Police Get Rules On Enforcing Law in Brooklyn Area–15 Instructions Given to Men in Bedford-Stuyvesant Ask Firmness With Restraint–Orders Given to 1000–Representative Kelly Pleads for More Vigor in Dealing With Looters and Vandals”...”….’enforce the law firmly and arrest those who violate it.. “… Page 18: “Romney Warns Of Civil Warfare–Says Causes of Riots May Bring U.S. Guerrilla Strife”... “…the rioting in Detroit last week was triggered by national conditions that could plunge the United States into ‘civil guerrilla warfare.’ “... Page 18: “The Melting Pot Failed In Bedford”… Page 18: “Acts to Stop Incendiary Speech”… “Speaking in Maryland, Governor Spiro Agnew said today that it would be the policy in Maryland (Cambridge riots stirred by H.Rap Brown earlier in July) henceforth ‘to immediately arrest any person inciting to riot and to not allow that person to finish his vicious speech.’ “… Page 23: “Police Look-On as Hippies Stage a Park Smoke-In”... “The sweet, heavy smell that indicates burning marijuana drifted over Thomkins Square on the Lower East side yesterday evening. The ‘hippies’ were having a ‘smoke in’ and seven policemen were standing by doing nothing about it. About 200 young people gathered and smoked for three hours.”… Page 1: “In The Delta Poverty Is a Way of Life”… “Government officials have quietly gathered new evidence of widespread unemployment and hunger among unskilled farm workers in the delta region of Mississippi.”…
VIETNAM: Page 1: “6 U.S. Physicians Off For Vietnam–Will Conduct a Survey of Civilian War Casualties“…”Sixteen prominent physicians and surgeons have left for Vietnam…will concentrate on what is necessary to insure adequate treatment of civilian war casualties…50,000 will be treated in 1967.”... Page 1: “23 Marines Dead In Enemy Ambush In Buffer Zone–191 Are Reported Wounded–Column On Way Back From Zone”...”A battalion of Marines was ambushed yesterday (29th) as it was withdrawing from a sweep of the demilitarized zone. A spokesman said 23 men had been killed and 191 wounded…near the Marine strong point of Conthien, two miles below the buffer zone the trap was sprung by a force estimated at battalion strength of 500 men. The ambush was launched from concealed positions on both sides of narrow dirt road the Marines were following back to Conthien. The ambush began with a mortar attack then a charge fragmenting the Marines who were spread out for nearly a mile…Forty of the attackers were killed in the four-hour battle. Marine air and artillery were not available due to the intermingling of friend and foe in the battle area…”… Page 2: “In another ground action a patrol of the 5th Marines was said to have killed 14 enemy troops in a short engagement 17 miles south of Hoisan. There were no Marine casualties. However 11 Marines were injured when an explosion device was tripped by a patrol 14 miles southeast of Danang.”… “In the air war in the South B-52s struck enemy concentrations in the Central Highlands and an enemy base area 44 miles west-northwest of Danang.”
31 July 1967…The President’s TS Daily CIA Brief…COMMUNIST CHINA: Mao’s forces seem to have made a major retreat in an effort to reach accommodation with defiant military officers…. Any agreement with the troublesome regional military leaders is bound to be fragile, however, and it is clear that major problems remain. There is a great danger that the Communist Party might lose control of the 2.5 million man army in the continuing battle for power between supporters of Mao Tse-tung, chairman of the party, and Liu Shau-chi, Chief of State…. SOUTH VIETNAM: The Thieu-Ky campaign machinery is not yet working as effectively as it should. part of the problem is resentment in the Thieu camp over the predominance of Ky men in the joint committee–a result of Ky’s much bigger and better organized machine before the merger took place…Continuing mutual distrust between the two leaders is still at the heart of the problem, however…ISRAEL: Arab resistance is growing rapidly in Israel-occupied Jordan and in old Jerusalem. Some of this may be inspired by agitators sent in from the outside, but the main cause seems to be mounting popular anger over the harsh Israeli administration… Israel stressed that any organized resistance would be crushed… LAOS: Communist forces have made several sharp attacks against government positions in southern Laos in recent days. The attacks were carried out by North Vietnamese troops in the Bolovens Plateau (LBJ gets a map with his copy of the brief). They are probably intended in part to counter recent government probing operations into the vital infiltration corridor.”
31 JULY 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (1 August reporting 31 July ops) Page 1: “Forrestal Blaze cuts Down Raids In North Vietnam–Only 10 Missions Flown From Carriers–Fires Total Death Count Now 129”... “The naval air war against North Vietnam was sharply curtailed again yesterday as a result of the fire aboard the carrier Forrestal Saturday…Carrier based pilots flew only 10 missions over North Vietnam following six on Saturday. On an average day 30 to 40 missions are flown… Cloudy and rainy weather and hasty rearrangements of crew schedules and shifts limited the number of missions...Tomorrow the Constellation is expected at Yankee Station. She had been at Subic Bay for shore leave for her crew but her stay was cut short by the Forrestal fire…
“In all, the United States pilots flew 90 missions over the North on Sunday--the usual number: 120 to 150 a day. The pilots struck defensive positions, storage points, truck parks, convoys and transshipment points. A-4 Skyhawks and F-8 Crusader from Oriskany attacked the Bacgiang transshipment point 27 miles east of Hanoi…Skyhawk pilots from the Bon Homme Richard destroyed the transformer station 44 miles northeast of Haiphong and pilots from the Intrepid damaged a bridge five miles south-southeast of the port and rail hub Vinh.”…
Page 3: “Meanwhile, the Air Force announced that First Lieutenant Karl W. Richter, 24 years old, who had flown more missions over North Vietnam than any other Air Force pilot, died on a combat mission Friday. Lt. Richter, a resident of Holly, Michigan, was on his 198th mission over the North and was scheduled to return to the Untied States after his 200th mission. On September 21, 1966, when he was 23, Lt. Richter became the youngest pilot to down a MIG in Vietnam war. The Air Force said Lt. Richter died of injuries after parachuting from his F-105 Thunderchief, which had been shot down in the southern part of North Vietnam. The Air Force said he had been picked up by a rescue helicopter but died while en route to a recovery base.”
34TFS/F-105 HISTORY compiled by Howie Plunkett (page 115 of 300): 31 July 67: “Major Kenneth W. Mays from the 34 TFS flew his first combat mission into RP-6A, North Vietnam: “My first mission to RP 6 (my sixth mission) was to Kep Airfield (JCS 9.1). I was on the wing of George Clausen (Major George G. Clausen). I could not believe the amount of flak that was put up. In retrospect this was a very successful mission. It had been cloudy for some time and the clouds broke on the way into the target and the MIGs were caught on the ground and parked in the revetments. Ten to 12 MIGs were destroyed on the ground. I assume the NVN thought we were going to abort the mission. I always dreaded hitting the air fields because I knew the odds were high we were going to lose a pilot and aircraft.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) there was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 31 July 1967…
(1) LTJG CHARLES PETER ZUHOSKI was flying an F-8C of the VF-111 Sundowners embarked in USS Oriskany on an Iron Hand escort mission east of Hanoi. Chris Hobson: “The aircraft found what they were looking for and started maneuvering to avoid a volley of missiles. Lt. ZUHOSKI was climbing through 11,000-feet when his aircraft was hit in the rear fuselage by a SAM. The engine seized and with the rear of the aircraft a mass of flames the pilot ejected and landed near the village of Ngu Nghi, 10 miles east of Hanoi…. Charles ZUHOSKI was on his first operational tour of duty after completion of flying and combat training. He joined VF-111 in March 1967, got married on 3 June, departed Alameda on the Oriskany on 16 June and became a POW on his 14th mission on 31 July. He was released by the North Vietnam on 14 March 1973.”…
RIPPLE SALVO… #513… WAR AND PEACE… Operation Rolling Thunder, the relentless pounding of North Vietnam, was the principle, and perhaps only American, offensive action against the enemy in his homeland during the Vietnam war through 1968. The air campaign therefore was the highest value blue chip President Johnson held for negotiating a settlement to the war. In every initiative seeking a settlement the first item for discussion was the “bombing of North Vietnam.” Through 1966 the peace initiative most likely to succeed was “Marigold.” Unfortunately, just as effort to get North Vietnam to a conference table was about to happen in December 1966 the list of RT targets was expanded and attacked. The failure to coordinate the State Department’s peace plan–Marigold– and our Defense Department’s war plan–the authorization to strike new JCS targets in the Red River Valley–resulted in the collapse of the budding Marigold opportunity to get some talks going between North Vietnam and the United States. Marigold was bungled and withered away. Lesson learned.
Then came “The Pennsylvania Initiative.” As reviewed here in RTR the month of July 1967 was more of the same for Rolling Thunder targets as all the heavies and advisors in Washington weighed the options going forward. More bombing in RP 6, the same RT 57 that was executed in RT 56, or shift targeting to the panhandle. At the same time the RT 57 decision was made the last week of July and in fact a few new targets were authorized, two other events were happening. Senator John Stennis was rounding up the hawks to convene a three week hearing on the effectiveness of the air campaign. An expanded air campaign was their call. At the same time Secretary of Defense was looking for a way to end the war through the settlement/negotiation process.
The following is quoted from the Defense Department Secretary of Defense Historical Series, Volume VI, “McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam 1965-1969” by Edward Drea. Page 214…
“About the same time that the presidential envoys were advocating escalation, a negotiating channel to Hanoi seemed to holdout great promise. It was at this pivotal juncture that McNamara suffered the loss of his confidant and close advisor, John McNaughton, who died in the crash of a commercial airliner on 19 July.
“From mid-June into October 1967, with Rusk’s approval, McNamara oversaw the Pennsylvania initiative. The overture to North Vietnam enlisted two french intermediaries working with U.S. representative Henry A. Kissinger, then a Harvard professor and consultant to the Department of State, in the administration’s first coordinated effort to establish mutually agreeable negotiating conditions with Hanoi. The secretary pursued the latest offer quietly, not wishing to embarrass the U.S. government with the unwanted or misleading publicity that had surrounded earlier negotiating proposals (Marigold). By discussing Kissinger’s progress at Tuesday luncheons, McNamara also expected t avoid the pitfalls of launching air strikes at sensitive moments during the talks, a circumstance he believed wrecked the earlier Marigold offer. What intrigued McNamara was the report the Frenchmen conveyed in early August that Hanoi would not take advantage of a bombing cessation.
“With the president’s consent, McNamara personally drafted instructions to Kissinger stating that the United States would stop bombing North Vietnam if such action would lead promptly to ‘productive discussions’ and Hanoi promised not to take advantage of the moratorium.”…
Humble Host will include the adventures of Professor Kissinger in RTR posts as he tries to bring “the Pennsylvania initiative” to a better end than that of Marigold. His work cut out for him–before he even gets started the President has added new targets. Why? Because he has to head off the Stennis demand for a different path to peace–win the war. The August Stennis committee hearings will also be summarized in the RR posts… Watch these spaces for exciting developments, all while thousands of troops are dying in the jungles and Yankee Air Pirates are taking their chances in the Red River Valley…
RTR QUOTE for 31 July: THALES (Epictetus, Fragments): “The most universal thing is hope, for hope stays with those who have nothing else.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear.