RIPPLE SALVO… #821… NYT, 2 JUNE 1968… “JOHNSON GETS THE WORD FROM PARIS AND SAIGON”… In addition to General Westmoreland, General Abrams and Ambassador Bunker reporting howgozit from Saigon and the war zone, the President now has a son-in-law, Marine Captain Chuck Robb, writing him letters. On the peace side he hears from both Ambassador-at-Large Averell Harriman and his #2 in Paris, Ambassador Cyrus Vance, who the President has flying back-and-forth to provide details on the “peace conversations” with North Vietnam… There was no shortage of information–the flow was a torrent. What was missing was progress on either front… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE of remembering the participation of 17 U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and their air wings in Operation Rolling Thunder, a three-and-a-half year air war that took the Vietnam war into the enemy heartland….
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on Tuesday, 4 JUNE 1968…
THE WAR: “SAIGON SHELLED IN HEAVY ATTACK–CARGO VESSEL STRUCK–40 ROUNDS OF MORTAR AND ROCKET FIRE HIT CAPITAL AND ITS SUBURBS–8 CIVILIANS ARE INVOLVED–U.S. Copters Drop Tear Gas In Cholon To Oust Foe–Sniping Continues”… “The enemy hurled 40 rockets into Saigon and its suburbs this morning as small bands of infiltrators doggedly held on in two small sections of the city… damage was generally light. Eight South Vietnamese civilians were wounded. The enemy has attacked Saigon several times this year with rockets and mortars, but had never before fired more than about 20 shells in a day… In a statement last night, the United States Embassy said there was a ‘strong possibility’ that a stray rocket from an American helicopter,’ which fell short of its target, landed in the vicinity of city officials visiting the combat zone. One South Vietnamese officer explained: ‘A helicopter came in and fired at buildings behind the school. The apartment buildings were held by the Vietcong and were full of snipers The misplaced rocket apparently hit too low and hit the front wall of a school about 30 feet above the step instead of going over the school (where the city officials including Ky’s brother, were meeting).”…The U.S. response said the helicopter fired three rockets and two hit the target but the third rocket ‘malfunctioned.’… At the Tuesday Lunch Meeting at the White House this issue came up: President: “What happened on that chopper, Bus {Wheeler, CJCS}? Read at: State Department. Office of the Historian. Historical Document 261…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d261
PEACE TALKS: “Page 10: “HANOI’S AIDES DENY STAND WILL EASE–New Delegates Issue Firm Statement In Paris”… “Le Duc Tho, a ranking leader in North Vietnam, arrived today to join Hanoi’s negotiating delegation and issued a firm restatement of his Government’s demand for an ‘unconditional halt’ in American bombing of North Vietnam. Although there has been wide speculation that Mr. Tho would bring the North Vietnamese negotiators fresh instructions for their next session with the American delegation on Wednesday, his brief arrival statement castigating American ‘obstinacy’ did not disclose any shifts in position.”… (The Joint Chiefs sent a memo to Secretary Clifford on 4 June offering a “U.S. Policy With Respect to Negotiations with North Vietnam. Paragraph 6. is a beauty!… and 7. and 8. indicate how the Joint Chiefs really feel…Read at: State Department. Office of the Historian. Historical Document 260…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d260
Page 1: “CANDIDATES END CALIFORNIA DRIVE–PRIMARY IS TODAY–McCARTHY AND KENNEDY PREDICT VICTORY–REAGAN UNOPPOSED IN GOP VOTE.”… “Democratic Presidential aspirants raced toward the California finish line today with Senator Eugene J. McCarthy’s backers predicting an Oregon-style upset in tomorrow’s primary. Senator Robert F. Kennedy led the two most recent straw polls, one by 9 percentage points, the other by 5.”… Page 1: “ROCKEFELLER PREDICTS NOMINATION AND HIS ELECTION IN NOVEMBER”… “…says the tide has turned and depicts Nixon as the loser.” … Page 30: “HUMPHREY FACES A TEST IN SOUTH DAKOTA”… “Vice President Humphrey faces a clear-cut test of his popularity with a Democratic electorate in the South Dakota Presidential primary.”… Page 1: “ATTORNEY GENERAL RAMSEY CLARK IS BESIEGED BY POOR IN CAPITAL–Mexican-Americans Seek A Meeting Over Indictment of 13 in Los Angeles.”… Page 12: “TWO DRAFT RESISTERS ARE DRAGGED FROM CHURCH BY AGENTS OF FBI”… “…a crowd of about 50 young demonstrators tried to impede the arrests by elbowing, shoving and kicking at the Federal agents.”….
FOREIGN HEAD LINES:… Page 1: “STUDENT PROTESTS FLARE IN EUROPE”… “Take over government offices in Belgrade, Yugoslavia”… “Three hundred shouting students at Oxford University in England conduct sitdown demanding changes in regulations.”… “In Rome, factions of students clash and police move in to break up brawls.”… Page 1: “POMPIDOU URGES RETURN TO WORK IN FRANCE–Also Says Issue In French Election Is Communism”… Page 17: “AFGHAN DEMOCRACY IS APPROACHING CRITICAL JUNCTURE”… “too little is happening said an economist trying to explain why he was worried about the future of Afghanistan. ‘too much is going on here at one time. People are not used to it.” …
4 JUNE 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times devoid of coverage of air war north of DMZ… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 4 June 1968… A truly tragic story… Hobson quoted…
(1) LT ERIC PARKER BRICE and LTJG WILLIAM A. SIMMONS were flying an F-4J of the VF-33 Tarsiers embarked in USS America as part of a flight attacking a road choke point 15 miles south of Vinh and were hit by ground fire recovering from a dive attack. Hobson: The LT BRICE and LTJG SIMMONS Phantom was hit as they pulled up through 4,500-feet, having just dropped Mk-82 bombs on the intersection target. The utility hydraulics failed and the controls were damaged with the throttles stuck at full military power. LT BRICE managed to fly the aircraft using rudder only for control. The aircraft crossed the coast safely, but about 25 miles out to sea the Phantom caught fire. LT BRICE ordered LTJG SIMMONS to eject but the pilot’s canopy then failed to jettison and LT ERIC BRICE was last seen desperately trying to push the canopy free so that his ejection seat could fire. Sadly, this was one of many instances when Phantom front seaters failed to escape from a doomed aircraft…. LTJG SIMMONS watched the final moments of the Phantom as it disappeared into the waters of the South China Sea taking his Pilot, LT ERIC BRICE, to his death and final resting place 50-years ago this day… Gone. So young to rest in peace forever… LTJG SIMMONS was rescued to fly and fight again, as a different man…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 4 JUNE FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION IN THE SKIES OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… NONE…
1966… NONE…
1967… NONE…
1968… LT ERIC PARKER BRICE, USNR… (KIA)…
Humble Host flew #176. Also flew a .4 maintenance check flight before the late afternoon strike in the same A-4F. The short up-and-back flight consisted of a cat shot ahead of the pack going to the beach to destroy things; a short list of engine checks; and a trap with the cycle coming back from an earlier launch. Such is the way of a “bagger”– a tailhooker who never passes up the opportunity to catch a wire and log another arrested landing. The strike was on a bridge west of Vinh and I followed the leader in a “mini-Alpha” of a dozen bombers through some 37 and 57 stuff to put 3 MK-83s and 2 Mk-82s in the first division’s smoke, which covered the bridge… When the smoke cleared the bridge was in the water. The best part: the landing was made fifteen minutes after sundown– the best of all possible opportunities–a day cat shot, day strike, and a sort of night landing…
RIPPLE SALVO… #821… The SUNDAY NEW YORK TIMES… 2 JUNE 1968… Max Frankel wrote:
“JOHNSON GETS THE WORD FROM PARIS AND SAIGON ON WAR AND PEACE”…
“Austin, Tex. — Now that the war in Vietnam is being fought out on both sides of the globe, the informants through whom President Johnson keeps control of any remote situation are coming from both directions. Almost simultaneously last week, Ambassador Cyrus R. Vance flew to Washington from Paris and General William C. Westmoreland flew to the LBJ Ranch near here from Saigon. And privately, though perhaps most persuasively of all, Captain Chuck Robb kept writing to his father-in-law from the combat area itself.
“Vance said the negotiations in Paris were proceeding as expected, and getting nowhere so far. Westmoreland said the fighting on the ground was going very badly for the enemy, yet there would be much more of it for quite a time. Robb was drawing a noble portrait of the American soldier and a vivid picture of the death and destruction. His son-in-law’s letters are the most crucial, in the President’s view, because they bear on the endurance of American forces in Vietnam and the patience of the American people at home. Fatigue in Danang and a sense of futility in Dubuque, he knows, could still dissipate the advantages he thinks he has gained in Paris and Saigon.
“It was primarily to buy time at home to keep waging the war’s military and diplomatic battles abroad that Johnson accepted the dovish counsel of at least a partial halt in the bombing on March 31 and threw his own retirement for good measure. So far, the tactic has worked better than he had dared to hope. The bitter controversy has abated and the political candidates have been muted and unexpectedly Hanoi came to the conference table, essentially on the President’s terms.
“Now, from their separate stations, Vance and Westmoreland agree that North Vietnam’s first objective in both talking and fighting is to destroy and panic the Saigon government and to sap the patience of Americans in a tell-tale election year.
“Hence Vance’s plea from the White House rostrum that though there has been no serious discussion in Paris, there is no reason to be discouraged, but only to persevere with patience. And though the President would not adopt the idea as his own, he let Vance go on to ‘assume’ out loud the North Vietnamese ‘also have as their ultimate objective the finding of a just an honorable peace.’
“Hence also Westmoreland’s plea, before the klieg lights on the ranch, that ‘time is on our side’ now, if the American people will grant it. The enemy, he said, ‘seems to be approaching the breaking point in desperation in battle, with forces that are ‘deteriorating in strength and quality,’ while the South Vietnamese forces are showing more aggressiveness than at any time in the last four and one-half years in the war zone.
“Against the enemy’s psychological ploys, the President has mounted his own and he thinks for once that he is getting the better of the propaganda gains.
“He stood beside Westmoreland while it was solemnity asserted that Hanoi must be receiving false reports from its field commanders–wrong by a factor of three to 12 and even more. And he engaged in some of his own subtle pressure. He would never ‘be pressured’ into stopping the continuing air attacks on southern North Vietnam until Hanoi matches his own restraint to date, he said. And it wasn’t hurting on the ground from the partial cessation that began two months ago.
“‘But if Hanoi will take responsive action,’ Mr. Johnson added temptingly, ‘we are ready to go far and fast with them, and with others, to reduce violence and to build a stable peace in Southeast Asia.’
“It was time to stop the ‘fantasy’ and ‘propaganda,’ the President asserted last week, and a neutral observer might address the same plea to both sides in Paris, but as Chuck Robb keeps suggesting in his letters to the Johnson family, the real negotiations are on the other side of the world–in blood.”
RTR quote for 4 JUNE: MACHIAVELLI: “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in it success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”…
Lest we forget… Bear