RIPPLE SALVO… #248… OR WAS IT CIVIL WAR?…. but first…
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT (of 1,000) of a return to the Vietnam War and Operation Rolling Thunder…
5 NOVEMBER 1966… HEADLINES AT HOME from the New York Times… A sunny football Saturday with increasing cloudiness…
Page 1: “8 Die Off Vietnam In 2nd Carrier Fire”…”At least eight enlisted men died and four others were injured when fire broke out aboard the aircraft carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt yesterday. It was the second fire aboard a United States carrier off Vietnam in 10 days. The carrier had been on-line since august 15. a United States Navy spokesman said the fire had started five decks below the flight deck in a storage compartment containing paint, oil and hydraulic fluid. The fire was extinguished in 15 minutes. When fire broke out on the F.D. Roosevelt…firemen immediately flooded the ship’s flare locker in an effort to prevent recurrence of the Oriskany tragedy.”… The names of six of the eight seamen who died in the fire were released as follows: VINCENT BORDEAUX of New York; CHARLES MECHAIN of Houston; BARRY MYRH of Fort Collins; GARY TACKETT of Belpre, California; THOMAS BLACKMAN of Fort Worth; and SEBORN GRAHAM, JR of St. Louis… They served with honor and died in the service of our country… May God bless them on this 50th anniversary of their tragic deaths…
Page 1: “Johnson Derides Nixon’s Criticism Of Manila Stand”…”President Johnson said today that former Vice President Richard Nixon ‘doesn’t serve his country well’ by questioning the wisdom of the Manila Conference proposals on withdrawing troops from Vietnam. In one of the sharpest personal attacks Mr. Johnson has made in over three years in office he derided Mr. Nixon as a chronic campaigner who had not known ‘what was going on even when he had an official position in government’…The President said Mr. Nixon’s comments confused rather than clarified the matter. ‘We oughtn’t to try to get mixed up in a political campaign here because attempts to do that are going to cause people to lose votes instead of gain them. And we ought not to have men killed because we fuzz up something.’…”…Page 1: ‘Nixon Sees Break In Bi-partisan Line”…”Richard Nixon said today that the President’s attack on him at a news conference had broken the bipartisan line on Vietnam policy But in a campaign appearances in Waterworld, Maine the former vice president–affable and smiling whenever he was asked about the attack–asserted that his position would not change.”… Page 1: “U.S. and Soviet Sign Air Service Accord”…”The United States and the Soviet Union ended years of on-again-off-again negotiations today by signing an agreement for direct air service between Moscow and New York. According to present plans, service will begin in the spring with one weekly round trip fight each with Pan American Airways and by Soviet Aeroflot.”…
Page 1: “Both Sides Warn Of War In Korea”…Both the United Nations Command and North Korea warned today of the danger of war at an emergency meeting of the armistice commission held here in Panmunjon. ‘You are travelling on a collision course declared Major General Richard Ciccoletta, United States Army and delegate to United Nations Command. ‘United Nations Command seeks peace, but it will not stand idly by and watch your murdering bandits run rampant up and down the Peninsula. Make no mistake, these are not empty words.’…”… “Page 1: “President Cautions Hanoi Not To Misread U.S. Vote”…”President Johnson cautioned North Vietnamese today against interpreting next week’s congressional elections as a test of the Administration’s policy in Vietnam. Mr. Johnson said at a press conference that he hoped the Communist side would be ‘very careful not to make any mistakes in judgment about the election.’…”…
5 NOVEMBER 1966… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… NYT (6 Nov reporting 5 Nov ops)… Page 36: “Two jets, an F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber and an RF-100 Voodoo reconnaissance plane, crashed in North Vietnam while conducting 155 multi-plane missions. The pilots of both planes are listed as missing (CAPTAIN DEAN ELMER, MAJOR ROBERT BRINCKMANN, and CAPTAIN VINCENT SCUNGIO were Killed in Action, see RS #247 of 4 Nov). Pilots of returning aircraft reported destroying five bridges, 37 barges and 10 boxcars…” …also Page 36 “United States Air Force pilots brought down two enemy MIG-21s with air-to-air missiles yesterday. The action raised to 25 the number of MIGs shot down in the Vietnamese war and to six the number of MIG-21s, a modern version of the plane. Yesterday’s battle lasted under three minutes. The American craft, on an escort mission sustained no damage. The crew members of the two F-4C Phantoms credited with the kills were identifies as: CAPTAIN JAMES TUCK of Virginia; 1LT JOHN RUBENTI of Southboro, Mass.; 1LT WILLIAM LATHAM, JR. of Eagle Grove, Iowa; and, 1LT KLAUS KLAUSE of Franklin, PA…” oohrah….. “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in southeast Asia on Saturday 5 November 1966….
RIPPLE SALVO… #248… Was the war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam a civil war? Who were the aggressors? Did aggression come first from the North? These are enduring questions that should be faced with serious discussion every and any time our country feels the need to commit the lives of American warriors to a fight on foreign turf. There was no serious discussion before Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy started the flow of material and men into South Vietnam to assist the South Vietnamese contend with the Vietcong guerrillas of the National Liberation Front. By 1966 more than 300,000 troops were fighting and the war became Americanized. And before we started to back out in 1968 more than 500,000 would be required to support the South Vietnamese in a lost cause. 58,000 Americans perished forever. For what?
Serious discussion? That, by my way of thinking, is when the Congress and the citizens, who provide the men and treasure for combat operations on foreign shores, conduct an open and complete hearing to reach the level of agreement a DECLARATION OF WAR requires. FDR was the last President to seek and obtain the approval of the people to lead us into war.
As our nation changes leadership in January 2017 “we the people” have a fleeting opportunity to throw THE WAR POWERS ACT out and start over on restoring a mandatory path by which a President commits the United States to war. Our Vietnam experience was a national disaster and the ongoing Afghanistan and Iraq wars are as well. What more evidence do the American people need to demand a “do-over” by the incoming Congress and Administration?… General Georges Clemenceau said that war is too important to be left to the Generals. General Jack Ripper said war is too important to be left to the politicians.
The United States has learned the hard way, not once but twice, at least, that war is also too important to be left to the President. War belongs to the people, for it is the people who must make the sacrifices and sustain the resolve, the will to win. A penitent President, who has taken us to war under the War Powers Act, meeting incoming coffins at a Delaware airport doesn’t square the deal made with the people when he (or she in the future) put on the mantle of Commander in Chief. War is too important to be left to the President, especially the incoming one. Repeal the War Powers Act and start over. I immodestly make this request on behalf of 58,000 brave men and women who sacrificed their lives in an undeclared and unwinnable war in Vietnam….”that they shall not have died in vain.”
Lest we forget…… Bear -30-