RIPPLE SALVO… #608… Secrecy surrounded the President’s Thursday, 2 November muster of his Wise Men to provide him the best advice possible on Foreign Policy, with the focus on “What’s next in the Vietnam war?” Most of the documents dated 2, 3 and 4 November were in the Top Secret/Sensitive classification. However, by Saturday morning, 4 November the world could read the bottom line, which is the head line, in The New York Times. Max Frankel’s : “Council Of War Advises President Not to Undertake Any Basic Change In Course.” See Ripple Salvo, and meet the wise men… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED EIGHT on a search for Vietnam war truth in the Nation’s archives of the history…
4 November 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy Saturday with a chance for a rainy afternoon…
Page 1: “Soviet Reported Working On Bomb Fired From Orbit–Nuclear Weapon Could be Put In Operation By Next Year, McNamara Says–But He Isn’t Concerned–Defense Chief Sees Serious Disadvantages In System And Rules It Out For U.S.”… Page 1: “Admirals seeking To Cancel F-111B–Recommend That Pentagon Turn To Cheaper And More Agile Swing Wing Airplane”… “… seek to retain TF-30 engine and Phoenix missile as well as swing wing.”... Page 1: “Brezhnev Opening Jubilee Denounces U.S. And China”... “Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Soviet Communist party leader in a denunciation of the policies of the United States and China, warned today that his nation’s armed forces were ready to meet an attack from any direction. Opening the elaborate celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Mr. Brezhnev declared: ‘The Soviet people would not flinch if some one will be mad enough to make an attempt on the security of the Soviet Union and our allies. This attempt wherever it might come from– the north, the south, the west, and the east–will encounter the all-conquering might of our armed forces. No shields and no distance are too great for this might.’ ” … Page 1: “Johnson Predicts a Revolt By the Public Against Crime–Finds Impatience With Lawlessness–At Installation of New Capital Council, President Calls For Safe Streets”…
Page 4: “Vietcong Attack Again”… “Vietcong units that have lost 860 dead in frenzied efforts last Sunday to take Locninh north of Saigon were hurled back again yesterday in an attack on a fresh United States infantry battalion on the outskirts of town. The enemy herded civilians ahead of them as living shields in the attack but broke off after 12 hours…Locninh is a district capital 72 miles north of Saigon and north of An Loc. …
4 November 1967…The President’s Daily Brief: SOVIET UNION: There was much 4th of July type oratory in the speech Brezhnev gave yesterday. This is what the occasion called for. It was not his function at such a time to generate turbulence, but rather to depict the Soviet ship of state sailing grandly through calm waters. At several points, however, Brezhnev felt obliged to climb down from the level of platitude to give his audience some idea of what preoccupies Moscow now… On China, he was direct in his criticism of Mao’s “nationalist aberrations” but he wound up on the note that present events in China are transient and that “socialism” will ultimately triumph. This is sanctimonious guff at best… Brezhnev used the occasion to renew the call for an international Communist party conference…
4 November 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (5 Nov reporting on 4 Nov ops) Page 4: “In the air war in North Vietnam, stormy weather again limited American air strikes to the Southern Panhandle area. One United States A-6 Intruder was lost and both crewmen are listed as missing. This was the 725th American plane reported to the United States command to have been lost in the North.” (The A-6 from Constellation was reported down on the night of 2-3 Nov. Crew Morrow/Wright KIA…See RTR for 2 Nov)…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 4 November 1967…
(1) MAJOR R.R. LESTER and 1LT G.I. RAWLINGS were flying an F-4C of the 390th TFS and 366th TFW out of Danang and providing close air support to friendly troops just south of the DMZ on the coast 15 miles north of Hue. On their third pass on the enemy bunkers small arms fire downed the Phantom. The crew ejected in the hot area and the rescue by an Army helicopter was stiffly opposed by the enemy. Both aviators survived to fly and fight again…
Ripple Salvo… #608… The President’s Wise Men were still in town when the 4 November New York Times ran the following Max Frankel article to identify the men with the ear of the President, and, oh, by the way, what’s coming next from the United States in the war in Vietnam, in particular, the Rolling Thunder air war…. Head Line Page 1: “Johnson’s Council of War” and on the “jump page” 7, a full banner headline:
“Johnson’s Council of War Advises Him Not to Undertake Any Basic Change of Course.”… the full article…
“The indications around the White House are that the most intimate advice on Vietnam now reaching President Johnson includes some proposals for tactical policy adjustments, but none for any basic change in course. Some of Mr. Johnson’s most trusted counselors in and out of Government, are said to be urging changes that range from a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam to the mining of Haiphong Harbor. and Mr. Johnson is weighing these ideas with varying degrees of interest, officials say.
“But in his talks with the highest and closest officials, with New Deal friends, Texas companions and old Senate colleagues–most of whom think Mr. Johnson’s political problems at home as well as the battlefield realities–the President is said to be hearing no profound dissent of either a hawkish or dovish nature.
“Some military men have occasionally speculated about the wisdom of a quick thrust by ground troops into and out of the southern sectors of North Vietnam to break up major troop concentrations. But even they, it is said, are not advocating an invasion of the North. Neither does there appear to be any advice to end the bombing of the North permanently, to retreat to enclaves in South Vietnam or otherwise to reduce the scale of the fighting in any major way.
“It is impossible to tell whether this relative unanimity of counsel reflects Mr. Johnson’s choice of intimates in the first place or their rather uniform accommodation to his views and predicament. It appears, however, that while he suffers abuse and dissent in public, the President can now usually find relative comfort and support in his most relaxed private moments.
“Who advises what, and which advice counts for most in the White House these days, is beyond the ken even of some of his closest advisors. On any important problem, Mr. Johnson reaches far and wide for ideas and for a discreet and familiar audience of friends before whom he can talk out his own. How and when his judgement his judgement is finally made on a matter remains a mystery even to most White House staff members. No one around him, therefore doubted the accuracy of President’s admonition to reporters last Wednesday when he was asked to discuss the arguments for and against a bombing pause. ‘I would admonish you,’ he said, ‘to avoid irresponsibility and quit grabbing out of thin air these speculative future ventures about which we (meaning Mr. Johnson himself) know very little and about which the folks that apparently are guessing for you know nothing.’ It is generally known, however, to whom the president turns relatively often for special counsel.
“Highest in his regard among unofficial Washington advisors was Clark Clifford, a lawyer, and Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. Both are old friends to whom Mr. Johnson has entrusted the most sensitive political missions and whose views he solicits on many public issues. Their judgement on Vietnam issues ranks particularly high because they opposed the 37-day bombing pause in 1965-66 against all of Mr. Johnson’s official advisors and because he came to believe that they had been right. They argued that the dovish critics of the war would not be pleased by the gesture and that Hanoi’s predictable rejection of negotiations would only agitate the hawks who believed Mr. Johnson is not fighting hard enough.
“A similar debate is again shaping up around the President and there is no reason to believe that these friends have changed their views. Nonetheless some of the advisors, probably including Arthur Goldberg, the chief United States delegate to the United Nations, are said to be urging at least a partial pause of some kind so as to prove to the critics that their hope of early negotiations is illusory. Mr. Clifford has done more than advise. He traveled to Asia as a full member of the President’s delegation a year ago and again last summer with General Maxwell Taylor and Henry Cabot Lodge to assess the situation in Saigon and the mood of Asian allies involved in the fighting. General Taylor and former Ambassador to South Vietnam Lodge, are also special consultants to the President.
“General Taylor had volunteered to help Mr. Johnson during the 37-day pause against critics who might charge the maneuver was costing lives on the battlefield. Recently, however, he had reported the feeling of military men in Vietnam that a pause would indeed be costly, reports that raised the possibility of a damaging challenge by senior officers in an election year if the President attempts another pause. Mr. Johnson seeks the political as well as policy judgement of many members of Congress, Governors and party chairmen. He appears to have a particular affection and respect for Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois, the minority leader and Senator Richard Russell democrat of Georgia. Mr. Russell has been ill the last year but Mr. Dirksen is a regular and social guest at the White House.
“The President’s Senate critics on Vietnam, some of whom once had close ties with Mr. Johnson, have largely been reduced to correct relationships that permit cooperation in other spheres. The President has tried to placate the interest of Senator Mike Mansfield, majority leader, and of Senator Wayne Morse, Democrat of Oregon, in some new initiative on Vietnam at the United Nations. But they are not intimate advisors, even though much affection remains between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Morse. It expresses itself in their active collaboration, education and labor matters.
“Day in and day out, the influential policy advisers, of course are Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, And although they have appeared to some in Washington to have somewhat divergent views about the war, the persistent reports after their weekly Tuesday lunch with the President is that all three men leave the table agreed on every significant matter. Contrary to public impression, officials say, Mr. Rusk often shows as much of more concern for inhibiting some strictly military action as Mr. McNamara.
“Just behind them in access to the President are Walt W. Rostow, Mr. Johnson’s special assistant, who directs the flow of information and decision on Vietnam at the White House and was an early advocate of intervention in that country; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose influence appears to have grown with the nation’s military involvement, and the President’s top lieutenants in Vietnam–Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, who manages over-all policy and American interests in the politics of Saigon; Robert Komer, who is in charge of the pacification program for extending stability in the countryside, and General William C. Westmoreland, the military commander.
“Vice President Humphrey is a vigorous supporter of the President’s Asian policies and a frequent spokesman for them. But he does not appear to sit regularly among the official policy planners.”
RTR Quote for 4 November: EPICTETUS, Fragments… “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
Lest we forget…. Bear