RIPPLE SALVO… #885… Humble Host respectfully requests a mite of forbearance… a 50 year old news item sent me tangent to Rolling Thunder…
The NEW YORK TIMES, 7 AUGUST 1968, Page 27: “SAUL D. ALINSKY TO TRAIN WHITE MILITANTS”…. “Saul D. Alinsky, the ‘professional agitator’ who has spent a quarter of a century organizing the poor in the slums of scores of cities is branching out. He announced today the establishment here of a national institute that will train representatives of the white middle class to be social revolutionaries in their city neighborhoods or suburbs. Graduates will return to their home bases to organize militant pressure groups for social change. ‘This is the first effort of this kind in the United States,’ the 59-year-old Chicagoan told a news conference in the offices of the Midas International Corporation, maker of Midas Mufflers.”…
Humble Host brings this bit of old news to the fore as support for a contention that these moments in the “year the dream died” are where the divisions in our society broke loose from the tenuous ties that allowed American multiculturalism to flourish. Alinsky’s mentoring created a cadre of left-wing radicals in the Boomer Generation to put in practice his RULES FOR RADICALS. Millions of copies sold (Still Selling). Alinsky’s role in the destruction of democratic republicanism in America dates to his organizing of the generation of “realistic radicals” that took to the streets in protest of the Vietnam war in the days of Rolling Thunder. Alinsky’s legions of disciples, including at least one former President of the United States, have sustained the militant pursuit of radical change and “transformation” ever since…. NYT article on Alinsky continued below… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED EIGHTY-FIVE of a thousand days of reading old newspapers and books and remembering all the great guys who carried the Vietnam war home to Ho Chi Minh in his own backyard…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Wednesday, 7 August 1968…
THE WAR: Page 3: “UNITS NEAR SAIGON ARE PLACED ON ALERT–VIETNAMESE BOLSTER DEFENSE–U.S. EXPECTS ATTACK”… “Sporadic skirmishing and a light mortar attack near Saigon put the South Vietnamese Army full alert near Saigon today for he possibility of enemy rocket and harassment attacks against the capital this week. A high American military official said that captured documents and prisoner interrogations, plus the slight increase in enemy activity, had also convinced the American command that an enemy move was imminent….however…any enemy move against the city at this time would be designed as a harassing action and not as a massive assault. ‘We’re sure they are planning something. Too many prisoners have told us about it for us to think it is a deception, but, of course, we can never be sure they will not call it off.’ … B-52 Stratofortresses, each carrying 27 tons of bombs, struck 10 times in the last 24 hours in five provinces of South Vietnam…ENEMY WRECKS BRIDGE…”Using underwater explosives, the Vietcong blew up a temporary pontoon bridge leading to Saigon from the Mekong River Delta. The Vietcong blew up the bridge on June 30 with mines floated down the river. The attack today was a similar floating mine attack.”… Page 3: “MALARIA CASES SURGE IN ONE AREA OF VIETNAM”…
STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of Historian, Historical Documents, Foreign Relations, 1964-1968, Vietnam, Volume 6. Document 325 is an interesting memo from the CIA dated 6 August 1968: “Some reservations on Thieu and Ky” by George Carver. One of the continuing worries in Washington was leadership of South Vietnam where Generals Thieu and Ky remained #1 and #2 and the ability of the two to get along. The note shows how progress was made in this relationship. Ky was pulled out of the Head Shed looking over Thieu’s shoulder by giving a flying job. Ky smiles while talking about being F-5 qualified. Carver concludes this is perfect, since Ky “has vision, flair, initiative, emotional grasp in basic social problems, but lacks a capacity for a sustained endeavor, attention to detail and patience.” (He’s a fighter pilot)… Read at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d325
Page 1: “ROCKEFELLER AND REAGAN STRUGGLE TO DENY NIXON VICTORY ON FIRST BALLOT–TWO GAIN SUPPORT–PLATFORM APPROVED BY THE CONVENTION–NOMINATIONS TODAY“… Page 1: “Nixon Says He Has Eased Views On Communistic Bloc”… Page 1: “Convention Key-noter Governor Dan Evans of Washington Backs Rockefeller–A Gain By Reagan Is Reported”… Page 1: “EISENHOWER HAS SIXTH HEART ATTACK –COMES DAY AFTER ADDRESS TO GOP CONVENTION“… Page 26: “Law Dean Assails Critics Of Fortas–Yale Official Warns Bar of Assault On Constitution”… Page 26: “In Second Day of Murder Trial Black Panther Huey P. Newton Acts Out Testimony Accusing Him of Killing A Police Officer”… Page 26: “5 Policemen Shot In Chicago Suburb Harvey–3 South of Chicago”…
7 AUGUST 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (8 Aug reporting 7 Aug ops) Page 3: “American pilots, attempting to stop the movement of reinforcements and supplies into South Vietnam, flew 109 multi-plane missions into North Vietnam. Back at their bases in Thailand, Danang and aboard the carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin, the pilots reported that they had struck 23 supply boats, 7 trucks, 4 buildings and an antiaircraft position.”…VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 7 August 1968…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON THE FOUR 7 AUGUST DATES OF THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… LCDR HAROLD EDWIN GRAY, USN… (KIA)…
1966… BLACK SUNDAY…Loss of eight aircraft and seven aviators. See RTR Archives: 7 August 1966, Ripple Salvo #159… CAPTAIN JOHN HENRY WENDELL, USAF… (POW)… and… MAJOR WILLARD SELLOCK GIDEON, USAF… (POW)… and… CAPTAIN ROBERT JAMES SANDVICK, USAF… (POW)… and … CAPTAIN THOMAS SHAW PYLE, USAF… (POW)… and… LIEUTENANT CHARLES WIGGER FRYER, USN… (KIA)… and … 1 LT MICHAEL LEE BRAZELTON, USAF… (POW)… and … LCDR RICHARD ALLEN MORAN, USN… (KIA)… The five Air Force warriors were all F-105 pilots or EWOs, two of the downed -105s were Wild Weasel SAM hunter-killers. All were destined to serve out their 2,402 days in brutal and mind-bending duty as Prisoners-of-War.
1967… CAPTAIN GLENN HUBERT WILSON, USAF… (POW)… and… 1LT CARL DENNIS CHAMBERS, USAF… (POW)…
1968… none…
“Leave a Remembrance”… Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Fund (VVMF), “Wall of Faces“… a world class no-profit with big plans that need and deserve Vietnam veteran support…
RIPPLE SALVO… #885… NYT, 7 August 1968, page 27: “ALINSKY TO TRAIN WHITE MILITANTS–Institute Planned for Chicago to School the Middle Class–Graduates to Set Up Pressure Groups for Social Reform”…(continued from lead)…
“The Midas International Foundation will subsidize the school for the first year. Gordon Sherman, president of the corporation, put the cost at several hundred thousand dollars. ‘Lack of organization in white neighborhoods can be as harmful to the total society as lack of organization in the black community,’ he said, adding: ‘We all live in our own ghettos. The time for picketing city hall and writing your Congressmen is over,’ Mr. Sherman continued. ‘Something stronger is needed. We need constructive entities to exert pressure on forces that hold back social progress. Saul Alinsky is a master at helping communities discover within themselves how to serve themselves.’ Mr. Sherman said the school would be dedicated to insuring that there will be more Saul Alinsky’s around.
“Mr. Alinsky said that students would be screened for allegiance to such democratic values as justice and equal opportunity. At least 25 organizers will have been trained by early 1970,’ he said. ‘Just think of all the hell we kicked up with only four or five in the past.’
A 15-MONTH COURSE
“Mr. Alinsky’s abrasive tactics in challenging local power structures to deal with slum groups on job and housing and other neighborhood problems have made him persons non grata in city halls across the country. But such active and effective groups as the Woodlawn Organization of the Negro South Side of Chicago remain as testimonials to his organizing ability. (Humble Host interrupts to point out the condition of “The Negro South Side of Chicago.” This past weekend, 4-5 August 2018: 66 humans shot, about a dozen dead by gunshot in Chicago).
“The training course at the as yet unnamed institute will take 15 months. The institute will open in October or November. Students will be sponsored by institutions, such a churches, in their communities, some will be ministers. Some will come from Puerto Rican and Mexican-American and Appalachian neighborhoods. But about half, Mr. Alinsky said, will come from suburbs and other white middle class neighborhoods. They will return for organizing work under the aegis of their sponsoring institutions. The school will be operated by Mr. Alinsky’s Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). He will be director, as he is of the foundation, and Edward Chambers, associate director of the foundation will be associate director. Others on the faculty include the Reverend Arthur Brazier, president of the Woodlawn Organization…”
“Mr. Alinsky said that institutions in suburbs ringing two unnamed cities ‘east of Chicago’ had already enrolled students for the institute’s first training period. ‘Students will work seven days a week,’ he said, ‘and it won’t all be seminars.’“… End article quote…
Saul Alinsky died of a heart attack after establishing the IAF with Sherman’s help and Edward Chambers there to take over. The spread of Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation continues throughout the United States and among the successes it claims are the passage of “living wage” legislation… Alinsky’s legacy will be on the streets this fall and be a factor in the November midterm elections. They got their start 50 years ago today…
(Webmaster note: Marxism, communism and socialism, the popular flavors of Alinsky and his murderous ilk, resulted in more than 100,000,000 deaths in the 20th century)
RTR quote for 7 August: The IAF “Iron Rule of Organizing”: “Never do for others what they can do for themselves.” (“Turn ’em on, and turn ’em loose.”)
Lest we forget… Bear…