RIPPLE SALVO… #855… PETER BRAESTRUP WAS THE PREMIER JOURNALIST IN-COUNTRY DURING THE VIETNAM WAR. How do I know? He wrote the book. It is titled THE BIG STORY. Therein Braestrup reports on the reporters and the stories they were or were not covering. By any measure, he was the most objective and honest journalist to cover the war. How do I know? I studied journalism for two years at the University of Maryland. (Smile!) A prolific writer–all journalists are prolific writers: most of them get paid by the inch–Braestrup contributed a short piece to an anthology by Al Santoli, TO BEAR ANY BURDEN, entitled “Vietnamization.” I put a copy in an envelope addressed to the President today. I suggested he take a few moments to digest our disastrous experience in Vietnam as a useful history lesson. Vietnamization provides a dismal picture of where Iraqi-ization, Afghanization and Syrianization are taking his ship of state–and all of us. The short Braestrup piece and another short salvo below… but first…
GOOD MORNING…Day EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE of 1,000 daily posts celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War in response to the President’s proclamation encouraging Americans to recognize the service and sacrifice of the millions of aging Americans who are thinking about the 58,200 who didn’t come home from a twelve year war that didn’t turn out well for our side…
HEAD LINES from The News York Times on Monday, 8 July 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “ALLIES INTENSIFY PATROLS ON SAIGON RIVER TO PROTECT SAIGON–Additional U.S. Navy Boats And Crews On Duty Around the Clock to Counter Infiltration–B-52s Make Five Raids–Bombs Pound Jungle Area Close to Capital–Buffer Zone Targets Also Hit”… “…the B-52 raids have ranged from 13 miles southeast of the capital to 75 miles north of it… B-52s have also struck targets in the demilitarized zone and north of the buffer…the new river operations began two weeks ago…The Saigon curfew was relaxed somewhat today and shortened to the period 10P.M. to 6 A.M.” …PEACE TALKS: No coverage…
Page 1: “CONGRESS OF RACIAL EQUALITY DISSENTERS QUIT CONVENTION–Brooklyn Leaders, Setting Revolutionary Goals Say 16 Chapters Have Left Convention in Columbus, Ohio”… “A deepening idealogical split whithin C.O.R.E. surfaced here today when dissidents stalked out…The walkout was led by Robert C. Carson of Brooklyn who returned to New York and announced that the disgruntled CORE chapters would move to form their own organization. ‘They have negated their responsibility to black people,’ Mr. Carson said of the national body. ‘They’re in trouble, not me,’ he said. ‘We’re going on to pursue our goals.” At the base of the dispute is the question of whether CORE is to lead Negroes in America in a reform of revolutionary movement.”… Page 1: “CONGRESS MOVING TO TIGHTEN CURBS ON WAR PROFITS–Life Of Renegotiations Unit Is Likely To Be Extended–Vietnam Inquiry Asked”… “Congress is quietly laying the basis for tightened restrictions on profiteering from defense contracts.”… Page 3: “DEAL IN KREMLIN SEEN BEHIND STANCE TOWARD U.S.– Recent Soviet Policy Moves Linked To Campaign To Curb Youth At Home”… “… Soviet young people wasting their time instead of studying Marx and Lenin.”… Page 3: “CZECH PROGRAM SCORED IN SOVIET–Workers at Rallies Condemn Anti-Moscow Element”… “A disclosure in Czechoslovakia last night that the Communist party’s governing Presidium would be summoned to discuss messages from the Soviet Union, Poland and East Germany came amd a nationwide campaign here to harden sentiment against Czechoslovakia’s program of democratization. Workers at thousands of Soviet factories, farms and other enterprises have been holding rallies for more than a week to condemn ‘anti-Socialist and anti-Soviet elements in Czechoslovakia.'”… Page 6: “ALGERIANS IN FRANCE FEARFUL OF IMMIGRATION BAN–New Quotas, A Bitter Blow To Workers, Cut Entries To 1,000 a Month From 3,000″… Page 14: “PROTESTANTS SAID TO EASE SEX VIEW–Breakthrough In Atttude Is Disclosed In Study”… “…most of the denominations involved in the study…agreed that the primary responsibility for sex education should rest with parents. However, most of the churches probvide programs aimed at helping parents understand their own sexuality and at promoting open discussions between parents and children.”… Page 32: “NIXON RATED EVEN AGAINST HUMPHREY”… “ROCKEFELLER 60 TODAY–Starts Final Drive Today In San Francisco”…
8 JULY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (9 July reporting 8 July ops) Page 5: “United States Air Force, Navy and Marine pilots flew 138 multi-plane missions into North Vietnam wrecking ten warehouses, 7 trucks, 2 bridges and 8 supply boats. The pilots described the anti-aircraft fire as moderate to heavy. No planes were shot down.”… VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 8 July 1968. The B-52D of the 22nd Bomb Wing out or Anderson AFB on Guam crashed on an emergency landing at Danang and all six in the crew were killed. (see RTR for yesterdy 7 July)…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 8 JULY FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… NONE…
1966… 1LT RALPH THOMAS BROWNING, USAF… (POW)…. Refer: RTR 8 JUL 2016 (RS #130)…++ Hobson: “This was an ironic case of history repeating itself as his father, an Eighth Air Force B-17 navigator-bombardier during the Second World War, had also been shot down and spent 19 months in a Germnan POW camp… After release, Ralph Browning resumed his Air Force career and became an instructor in an aggressor squadron. He later commanded an F-15 squadron and eventually rose to the rank of Brigadier General in 1988 when he took command of the 5th Wing at Luke AFB, Arizona. …retired from the USAF in 1992.”…
1967… NONE…
1968… NONE…
RIPPLE SALVO… #855… VIETNAMIZATION AS A HISTORY LESSON… Peter Braestrup was invited by Al Santoli to contribute to his anthology of about 50 essays. Braestrup spent many years as a correspondent in Saigon and could have contributed commentary on any subject. He chose “Vietnamization” to leave his mark. I quote:
“There was a certain amount of overoptimism fostered by Nixon for political reasons about the South Vietnamese capacity to militarily hang on without us, the Vietnamization policy. In 1972, the South Vietnamese army did a fine job of repulsing the North Vietnamese Easter offensive. I was running around in the field with U.S. marine advisors. And I saw that the glue for the South Vietnamese marines and airborne that wouldn’t talk to each other, was the U.S. advisors. The U.S. marine advisor and the U.S. airborne advisor would talk and get the job done.
“Without the advisors present, it would have been chaos. They were the reinforcing rods in the cement. Partly because of the American firepower and logistics they could bring in. But just as much because they supplied the vertebrae and command structure–the teamwork notion–that the South Vietnamese, because of their fragmented society and history, had not developed.
“Oppositely, the North Vietnamese in seventy-two had one command focus, concentration, abundant supplies. The vertebrae were much stronger with the totalitarians, who had an enforced, unified structure.
“From 1971 to 1973, our logstics, airpower, and advisors–those three elements–offset the long-term strategic advantage of the North Vietnamese, which was the sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia and the Ho Chi Minh Trail. If Laos and Cambodia had been truly neutral, there’s no way that the South Vietnamese with a little advisory help couldn’t have held on indefinitely. It was the geography. Even had the South Vietnamese army been the Israeli army supplied the same way with the same kind of leadership, the geography would have killed them.
“With that six-hundred mile frontier where the Communists had a free shot at South Vietnam, a safe place to retreat to and a secure supply line on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, there was no way the South could hold. The geography was against them. And of course, Lyndon Johson and Richard Nixon preferred to make us all think about the war as if South Vietnam was an island.” End Braestrup…
Dear President Trump and “Mad Dog”, sir … Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are not islands, and in each case their respective enemies–our enemies–continue to enjoy strategic–and geographic–advantage and sanctuaries from which to terrorize those fragmented societies and hopelessly corrupt, dysfuntional governments. As a consequence, these three foreign and undeclared wars proceed in accordance with policies akin to Vietnamization– a failed policy, a proven loser. The choices are clear: either clean out the sanctuaries in bordering nations, withdrawal or endless war. Mr. President, our armed forces are being drained dry. None of your options is easy, but expanding the wars into neighboring states would enflame the region, and possibly the world, into an uncontrollable world war. Further, you are the President of the UN-United States and support for escalation is a non-starter. That leaves you two options, similar to the dilemma of Johnson and Nixon in Vietnam. Endless war or withdrawal. In my humble opinion, our nation –$22-trillion in debt and faced with angry and powerful nations that have sworn–and are working toward– our destruction, it is time to pull back and realign our defensive perimeter. Draw the line. Plan and execute a withdrawal to that defensible perimeter that is in our best national interests, interests that have changed since 9/11. RTR readers: Comments invited…
RTR quote for 8 July: EDMUND BURKE: “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear