RIPPLE SALVO… #279… “…THERE WAS A LONG SILENCE…” but first…
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY-NINE of sifting through the history and truth about the tragic Vietnam War and Operation Rolling Thunder…
6 DECEMBER 1966: The HEADLINES OF THE NEWS AT HOME from the NYT on a cloudy Tuesday in New York City…
Pge 1:.”Rhodesia Rejects Terms for Ending of Rebellion”…”Prime Minister Harold Wilson is bitter and says whites demand for power in Rhodesia blocks settlement, which is an attempt to peacefully resolve the problem of a minority of whites retaining power in the country. ‘They are an unrepresentative minority. It is clear,’ said Mr. Wilson, ‘that power for its own sake and the insistence on maintaining that power in the hands of a small minority have dictated the outcome–the rejection of the settlement terms by the whites.’… Page 1: “Britain Asks U.N. To Act as Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith rejected Britain’s proposals for settling the crisis of Rhodesian independence. He only agreed to the British principals of action to move the country toward independence and accept greater British influence during the transitional period until the new Constitution became effective.”… Page 1: “Vietnam Foe Hints Shift in Tactics” …”Leadership puts emphasis on small scale actions. Analysts have concluded that its conventional forces are incapable of overcoming the firepower of American divisions and that the war will be won or lost in small guerrilla actions.” … Page 1: “High Court Voids Georgia Refusal to Seat Julian Bond and unanimously holds Georgia House violated the Free Speech rights of a member’s qualifications. The Supreme Court noted constitutional rights can’t be waived on basis of criticism of draft and the Vietnam War.” … Page 1: “Soviet Sharpens Guard On Border With China and commences training patriotic unit in Central Asia.”… Page: 1 “Eisenhower Faces Operation Soon”… Major surgery to remove gall bladder. Enters hospital Thursday.”… Page 3: “Johnson to Honor a Queens (New York City) Marine”…”Sargeant Robert E. O’Malley awarded 10th Medal of Honor of Vietnam War by LBJ.” … Page 5: “Gregory Leaves on Trip to Hanoi…via London hoping to work out details with North Vietnamese.”…
1-6 December 1966: The President’s Daily Brief …CIA (TS sanitized)… Humble Host has retrieved and reviewed these six multi-page daily reports by CIA to a limited distribution (POTUS + 5) and notes that the subject of MARIGOLD — negotiations with NVN– remains redacted or missing completely.
6 December PDB: Rhodesia: The sanctions program is unlikely either to satisfy black African governments or to have a serious impact on Rhodesia’s economy. To be effective it would have to include Rhodesian manufactured goods, which would hurt Zaambia, and Rhodesian imports of petroleum, which would require the cooperation of South Africa. Since South Africa will almost certainly not cooperate, sanctions would then have to be extended against South Africa as well. London would suffer from this as much as Pretoria, and the latter is in a very strong position to withstand any pressure that could be brought to bear… Cuba: Recent photography of Soviet ships enroute to Cuba has identified four guided-missile patrol craft carried as deck cargo. Another Soviet arms carrier–the ninth this year is en route from Leningrad…
6 December 1966: OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (7 December reporting 6 Dec ops)…Page 4: “3 U.S. Planes Downed in North, One by MIG-7, Ground Fire Hits Two Others. Pilots Report Three Dog Fights. Red River Valley Blasted”… “A MIG-17 pilot shot down a United States Air Force F-105 Thunderchief as intensified raids continued northwest of Hanoi…Two other Air Force planes– an RF-101 Voodoo and and RF-4C Phantom, both used for reconnaissance–were brought down by ground fire. The two pilots of the Phantom, which crashed yesterday were rescued, but the lone pilots of the two recce planes downed the day before were listed as missing in action. The three downed planes brought to 438 the number of American aircraft reported lost in the air war over North Vietnam. The F-105 downed by the MIG-17 was the fifth lost to enemy aircraft… ‘The enemy aircraft raced out of the sun and pulled in behind the F-105…and likely used heat seeking missiles to down the F-105.’…Pilots who returned from the North after 85 multi-plane missions yesterday described anti-aircraft fire as moderate to heavy over a number of targets. Air Force pilots flew 40 missions concentrating on the Red River Valley which forms a natural funnel for supplies from China to the North Vietnamese capital. They hit hardest at the Yenbay railroad yard 75 miles northwest of Hanoi where American pilots carried out the heqviest single air attack of the war earlier this year…The attacks yesterday cut the rail lines in 13 different places. Seventy-one miles northwewt of Hanoi they sank 25 heavily laden barges moored along a bank of the Songehay River. Navy and Marine Corps pilots struck at targets along the coast and in the narrow panhandle region.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson)… Two fixed wing aircraft were lost in Southeast Asia on 6 December 1966…
(1) LCOL T.W. DYKE and 1LT W.R. FANNEMEL were flying an RF-4C of the 11th TFS and 432 TFW out of Udorn en route to cover an area of North Vietnam in the north west provinces when hit by ground fire east of Dienbienphu. LCOL DYKE was able to fly the failing aircraft west and clear of the NOrth Vietnam border before the aircraft failed and the two pilots were forced to eject. Both were rescued by an Air Force HH-3… Thank God for “Rotor-Heads.”
(2) MAJOR LEE ATTILIO GRECO and 1LT JOHN MICHAEL TROYER were flying an F-4C of the 559th TFS and 12th TFW out of Cam Ranh Bay on a close air support mission in South Vietnam and while under control of a ground control station entered a dense cloud layer and impacted a mountain in Ninh Thuan province… MAJOR GRECO and 1LT TROYER were Killed in Action it is hoped that there remains have been found, returned and buried in the homeland they gave their precious lives fighting for… They are remembered here on the 50th anniversary of their tragic deaths in a combat zone… LEAVE NO MAN BEHIND?
RIPPLE SALVO… DEFINITION: “unimpeachable: reliable beyond a doubt; above suspicion; and, impossible to discredit.” The following is a United Press International story run on page 4 of the 6 December 1966 New York Times… I quote…
“Soviet Said To Have Transmitted ’64 Peace Bid”
“A 1964 peace proposal from North Vietnam to the United States through the United Nations Secretary General U Thant was transmitted to him from Hanoi by the Soviet Union, unimpeachable soources said today.
“North Vietnam declared its independence from Chinese influence in accepting Mr. Thant’s bid to a private meeting in 1964, these sources said. The acceptance carried a notation that the contents were known only to the bearer, and the bearer was the Soviet Union.
“The conclusion was that Peking, regarded by many to be dictating the policy of the Hanoi Government, did not know of the peace overture by Ho Chi Minh.
“Published reports have stated that Mr. Thant relayed two Vietnam peace proposals, both endorsed by President Ho Chi Minh, which Washington received in 1964 and again in 1965.
“According to top United Nations sources, Mr. Thant asked the North Vietnamese leader in September 1964 whether he would agree to a private meeting with U.S. envoys.
“President Ho Chi Minh agreed, the sources said, and an estate outside Rangoon, Burma was sequestered under top security for the meeting.
“Mr. Thant was quoted in one report as having said that after he had relayed Honoi’s acceptance to Washingron, ‘there was a long silence.’
“The message to Washington was relayed through the late Adlai E. Stevenson, United States Delegate to the United Nations and eventually the reply came back that the State Department had made its own soundings and concluded that North Vietnam ‘had no interest in talking peace.’
“This was the occasion on which Secretary of State Dean Rusk was reported to have said that his antennas ‘had told him North Vietnam was not serious in seeking peace,’ a statement that stiffened Mr. Thant’s independent attitude toward the United States.
“Later according to published reports, Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Thant arranged a United States-North Vietnamese meeting on the ambassadorial level at Rangoon, Burma, which resulted in a second United States refusal.
“According to reports published in the magazine Newsweek, United States bombing of North Vietnam began 24 hours later after Washington’s second refusal reached Hanoi in January 1965.” unquote UPI news report
I suppose the State Department response to this media report, coming two years after the fact, was the now very familiar line: “At this point, what difference does it make?”… I also suppose in 1964 the State Department folks saw our entry into South Vietnam to be a sure thing…get in, save it from Communism, fix it and get out… it was too early to talk of peaceful negotiations… “let the guns begin to shoot” …. “Foggy Bottom: the home of fuzzy thinking, then and still…
I find this item–botched peace palaver– a very timely subject as our President-elect searches for a Secretary of State who can get us out of the mess the last two have created in every corner of the world… I suggest the lesson of 1964 and 1965 in this Ripple Salvo be a guide for the fresh blood in Foggy Bottom— get out of where we have proven we do not belong ASAP… strategic retreat it is called… Defenders of Freedom? if that’s the national interest on the block around the world, I say we better start thinking about defending it here at home… That’s where I am, where are you?…
Lest we forget… Bear -30-