RIPPLE SALVO… #884… NYT, MIAMI BEACH, 5 AUG– “A SMILING NIXON ARRIVES, CONFIDENT OF NOMINATION”… “With a smile as wide as Biscayne Bay, Richard M. Nixon and his confident entourage blew into this convention city this afternoon, one day later than his principal rivals for the Republican Presidential nomination, but perhaps 100 more times confident. With the raw notes of his acceptance speech in his briefcase, Mr. Nixon told an airport crowd, in a remark that conveyed what appeared to be absolute certainty of victory, ‘This is the end of one journey and the beginning of another that is going to lead us–we think–to new leadership for this nation.'”… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED EIGHTY-FOUR in a row with a daily post to remember the events and war-fighters of Operation Rolling Thunder, the air war over North Vietnam fought fifty years ago…
HEADLINES from The New York Times on 5 and 6 August 1968…
THE WAR: 6th, Page 1: “ENEMY DEATH TOLL PLACED AT 66 AFTER TWO BATTLES SOUTH OF SAIGON”… “Allied forces reported ttat they had counted the bodies of 66 enemy soldiers today after two battles in the rice paddies south of Saigon. The enemy shot down a helicopter and killed two Americans…Eight infantrymen were wounded. The first action was 24 miles south of Saigon. The second battle came two hours later when an American unit came under heavy fire a it scrambled out of helicopters six miles closer to Saigon. As night fell the Americans and South Vietnamese set up blocking positions around the enemy. Until daybreak most of the soldiers lay staring intently into darkness, trying not to make a sound. When a twig cracked a score of rifles fired. While searching the paddies this morning the Americans found 45 bodies of enemy soldiers and the South Vietnamese found 21. The allies also found four machine guns and 17 rifles. The South Vietnamese took 17 prisoners…elsewhere in the South the enemy downed a helicopter and a twin engine reconnaissance plane. The six crewmen survived with injuries.”…
PEACE TALKS: 6th, Page 1: “HANOI INSISTS U.S. MEET WITH NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT–Aide In Paris Asserts Talks Must Follow Bombing Halt”… “North Vietnamese spokesman asserted today that once American bombing of the North was halted, the United States ‘must discuss’ a political settlement in South Vietnam with the NLF, the political arm of the Viet Cong….American officials have long felt that once the bombing was stopped, Hanoi would be ready to discuss with Washington such subjects as prisoners of war, war reparations and a regional settlement, but would insist that the United States discuss all political matters with the NLF….the statement today seemed to draw back from that position. “…Page 2: “PEACE WORKERS TELL OF DELAY IN 3 FREED POWS RETURN–U.S. OFFICIALS ARE CRITICIZED ON FLIERS RELUCTANCE TO SPEAK OUT ON RETURN”… “To New York Together,” said the three Air Force pilots, smiling, raising glasses of champagne high….The toast capped three weeks of controversy concerning the mode of travel for the pilots…”The State Department and the military moved in, subtly and otherwise, to keep the men from conducting meaningful press conferences in New York and the European capitals. ‘The spokesman for the peace group said that the ‘pilots wanted to make it clear that they had not been ill-treated by the North Vietnamese and that their release had in no way been conditioned on their choice of airplanes. The peace workers said the pilots had prepared a statement for delivery in New York. ‘Tthey kept saying all along that they wanted to save the big statement for the U.S,’ Mrs. Scheer said, ‘But once we landed the wives came aboard, the State Department, the military, and it was one of those ‘Let’s get this over quick.'”…FLIERS UNDERGO CHECKUPS…Three American pilots released by the North Vietnamese were undergoing extensive medical tests and ‘administrative processing’ said a spokesman at the hospital at Andrews AFB, Maryland. She said that all three appeared tob in good shape and that every effort was being made to let them relax.”…
(Webmaster note: Drinking Champagne, smiling, and spreading propaganda like communist toads (“pilots wanted to make it clear that they had not been ill-treated by the North Vietnamese”) while their fellow officers endured unspeakable torment, maltreatment, torture and murder)
5-6 August 1968 OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (6-7 Aug reporting 5-6 Aug ops)… 6th, page 3: “In the air war in North Vietnam, United States pilots flew 100 multiple plane strikes against enemy supply lines and storage areas. Seven miles southwest of Vinh, Navy pilots reported having seen surface-to-air missiles being fired, but no planes were hit.”… 7th, page 3: “Over North Vietnam, United States pilots reported damaging or destroying 44 supply boats, 24 trucks, two bridges, two ferry complexes and five antiaircraft guns.”… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 5 and 6 August 1968…
(1) MAJOR G.D. HARLOW was flying an RF-101C of Detachment 1, 45th TRS, out of Tan Son Nhut on a photo reconnaissance mission just north of the DMZ. MAJOR HARLOW was hit by ground fire on his second photo run but was able to get the burning Voodoo east and south over the South China Sea but was forced to abandon the aircraft east of Hue. He was rescued by a Navy destroyer to fly and photo again… The loss of this F-101 was the last to be lost in the war, which began for the photo guys in October 1961. With the deactivation of the 45th TRS on 1 November 1970, the last of the RF-101s left the theater. 38 RF-101s were lost during the conflict, 28 of them over North Vietnam and 10 were lost in operational accidents.
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 5 AND 6 aUGUST FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… NONE…
1966… NONE…
1967… 6 AUG…CAPTAIN ALBERT LINWOOD PAGE, USAF… (KIA)… and … 1LT DONALD RICHARD KEMMERER, USAF… (KIA)…
1968… NONE…
MAJOR PAGE and CAPTAIN KEMMERER, were promoted while in MIA status and were declared “presumed killed in action.” Their final resting place remains unknown. They gave their lives for our country 51 years ago this day. They are gone, but not forgotten. They were left behind, but their recovery and return home remains a promise–every effort is being made to keep the promise. The July 2018 status of the number of American warriors still missing as a consequence of the Vietnam war is now 1,596. DPAA estimates that 90% of that number remain in Vietnam or areas of Cambodia, and 455 remain to be located and returned from North Vietnam. This category covers the fallen warriors of Rolling Thunder who remain missing…
“Leave a Remembrance” VVMF, Wall of Faces… it is the right thing to do…
RIPPLE SALVO… NYT, 6 AUGUST 1968, page 36…
“IN THE NATION: NIXON AMONG THE DOVES” by Tom Wicker…I quote…
“MIAMI BEACH, Fla, Aug. 5–On Nov 1, 1966, Richard M. Nixon was campaigning through Southern Pennsylvania on almost the last of those punishing tours on behalf of Republican congressional candidates that ultimately proved successful enough to launch him into the Presidential picture. Talking with two reporters at the end of a long day, Nixon looked back over his weeks of campaigning, then aimed his sensitive political antennae at the political road ahead. The war in Vietnam, he said, was going to be a devastating political issue’ that would defeat President Johnson.
THE WAR ISSUE…
“Americans, Nixon was convinced, would not ‘tolerate a long, endless’ war and by 1968, therefore, unless Johnson had found some means to end it or unless there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel,’ the Republican Party would be ‘grievously tempted’ to run on a peace platform. That much was on the record–but in what is too interesting a footnote to keep off the record–Nixon went on to say what if the party did indeed wage a ‘peace campaign’ in 1968, he doubted that he could be its candidate; his record of hawkishness was too clear, he said.
THE PLATFORM…
“Now, in the platform sure to be adopted at the Republican convention Tuesday night, the party was pledging itself to a ‘de-Americanization’ of the war and to a search for an equitable, negotiated peace. It did so at least with the cooperation of the Nixon agents here, and after he had submitted a dovish statement of his platform views. The net result hardly lines up Nixon or the Republicans with Dr. Spock or the New York Review of Books. But it does mean that his prediction about the course his party would take has largely come true. As it now appears, he has found a way to make himself a candidate, any way.
“A peace campaign waged by Richard Nixon as a Republican Presidential nominee hardly seemed possible even as recently as, say, the primary contests that ended in June. Right back to his statements as Vice President fourteen years ago, he had consistently favored a hard-line stand against Communism in Southeast Asia during his national campaigning in 1966, he sounded more hawkish than Johnson; as recently as February, he called the American Commitment to Saigon ‘the cork in the bottle of Chinese expansion in Asia.’ As for his party, with rare exceptions, it has followed Everett Dirksen’s lead and stood fast behind the Johnson policy–except for the frequent criticism that the President was not prosecuting the war fiercely enough.
“Then last Thursday, Nixon told the Republican platform committee: ‘the war must be ended… We must seek a negotiated settlement.’ Pending that, he suggested, there ought to be greater reliance on South Vietnamese combat forces. All this is testimony to two things. The first, of course, is what Nixon termed the grievous temptation of the peace issue, it would be political madness for the Republican party, or the candidate, to go into the 1968 Presidential campaign essentially in support of a war so unpopular that Johnson already has been forced to withdraw from the race and Hubert Humphry is being driven steadily toward whatever dissociation from the war policy he can manage. In fact, the only way Humphrey is likely to redeem the dove vote is to have a hard line hawk for an opponent.
“The Republican plank on Vietnam, and Nixon’s part in developing it, also testify to the masterful campaign he has waged for the nomination that now seems in his grasp. It is a commonplace among the pros here that Nixon has made not a single major mistake; what is more important is that he also has been imaginative, forceful and flexible.
NIXON’S STATESMANSHIP…
“For four months, after Johnson first sought negotiations, Nixon has maintained a statesman like (and politically profitable) silence. Then his platform statement committed him, not loudly but unmistakably, to a negotiated settlement. He cautiously let Rockefeller agents lead the battle for the plank which his party made the same commitment; but his blessing made it possible. The final step, many here believe, could be the selection of a running mate–perhaps Hatfield, Percy or Lindsay–who would personify the dovish trend Richard Nixon sensed so long ago.”
RTR quote for 6 August: RICHARD M. NIXON: “We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another–until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.”…
Lest we forget… Bear