ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 8 NOVEMBER 1967

RIPPLE SALVO… #612… Today our President is bolstering our nation’s diplomatic efforts to avoid a war with North Korea by soliciting greater participation of the PRC in bringing North Korea to their senses. The “winds of war” are more than breezes… Humble host presents a letter to the editor of the New York Times that ran on this day 50 years ago. The writer, a professor at Berkeley concludes that if the authority to engage in war is judged illegal, dissent is justified… but first…

Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED TWELVE of a swim in the history of America 50 years ago…

8 November 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a sunny, cold Wednesday in New York…

Page 1: “Election Results…”First Negro Mayor Elected in Gary, Indiana”… “Cleveland Negro Apparent Winner–Stokes Democrat in Mayor Race Overcomes Early Lead of Seth Taft”… Page 1: “John N. Garner, 98, Is Dead; Vice President Under Roosevelt For Two Terms, 1932-1940″… Page 1: “Big New Missile in Soviet Parade–4 Other Types Are Unveiled in Anniversary Review Celebrating a Half-Century of Soviet Rule”… Egypt Asks Urgent Session of U.N. Security Council on Mideast”... “…to discuss what it termed the dangerous situation arising from a refusal of Israel to withdraw her forces from Arab territories conquered in June 1967.”...Page 1: “Hershey Pledges Draft Crackdown–Says Selective Service Will Induct or Help to Prosecute Those Violating the Law”.... “The decision, in the most obvious case, could result in the drafting of students who hold deferments but participate in anti-war demonstrations adjudged to interfere with selective service operations.”… Page 1: “Voters In San Francisco Reject Immediate Vietnam Cease-Fire”…  “San Franciscans rejected today a proposal for an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam. Joseph Aliota was the winner in the Mayor Race. The vote: against withdrawal-128,352; For-74,139.”… Page 3: “Hussein of Jordan in Washington Asks Israel to Make a Settlement Offer”… Page 3: “Israelis Mistrust Stand of Hussein”… Page 4: “Cairo Said To Back U.S. Plan on Peace–But It Stand is Linked to 2 Conditions”...”The conditions of acceptance are that Israeli troops withdraw from Arab territory and that Arab Palestinian refugees be repatriated or compensated for the loss of their homes in what is now Israeli territory.”…

8 November 1967…The President’s Daily Brief (CIA/Top Secret/SI then, Unclas with redactions now): SOVIET UNION: Full page of “Soviet Weapons Systems Unveiled in 7 November Parade” that highlight a block long ICBM (SS-9), a 2-stage MRBM/IRBM and a Naval Missile. …The big Moscow parade gave us the first close-up look at some Soviet missile hardware… NORTH VIETNAMESE REFLECTIONS OF US POLITICAL ATTITUDES ON THE WAR:  Hanoi Appeals to US Negro Troops: A recent broadcast in English to American servicemen in South Vietnam–purporting to be “especially designed for the Negro GI”– claimed that the “colored” troops in the South are becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that the war is “not their war.” The broadcast cited a number of examples of injustices by the military against the Negroes and concluded that “many-colored GI’s in South Vietnam are wondering for whom they are fighting and dying,” and that Stokely Carmichael, “well-known leader of colored Americans,” deal with the matter. A similar broadcast presents an appeal by Carmichael to Negro troops. Carmichael’s tirade contains assertions that the Vietnam war is the “white man’s war” and that Negroes should not fight in it…. VIET CONG CLAIMS US TROOPS ARE DISOBEYING ORDERS: The Communists have issued one of their periodic statements about the insubordination of US military units in South Vietnam. A clandestine Liberation Front broadcast orders to move troops to the northern provinces was reported that many US units stationed at various points throughout the I Corps area had violently participated in the anti-war movement and that “US Negro troops sharply struggled against orders” thereby sharply struggled into a confused state.”…

8 November 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (9 Nov reporting 8 Nov ops)... Page 1: “Navy pilots, kept aboard three carriers by rough seas wrought by a typhoon for a few days, returned to the attack against North Vietnam yesterday (8th). Jets from the carrier Constellation struck at two boat yards near Haiphong and against river traffic, highways, trucks, and the rail lines. Antiaircraft and missile defenses were described as unusually light. Air Force planes–an F-4 Phantom and an F-105 Thunderchief–were reported lost in the 125 missions flown yesterday with the three crewmen missing . An Air Force F-100 Super Sabre, used as a spotter plane, was shot down today near Donghoi, the spokesman said.”…

“Vietnam: Air Losses”(Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 8 November 1967…

(1) CAPTAIN C.B. NEEL and 1LT GUY DENNIS GRUTERS were flying a F-100F Misty FAC Super Sabre of the 416th TFS and 37th TFW out of Phu Cat on a mission near Dong Hoi. While approaching the POL target at 6,500-feet they were hit by enemy ground fire in the fuselage and a fire follow. CAPTAIN NEEL and 1LT GRUTERS turned east and when over the sea, ejected. They were rescued by an Air Force helicopter to fly and fight again… Sadly, 1LT GRUTERS would be downed again on 20 December and be imprisoned as a POW in Hanoi by Christmas…

(2) MAJOR WILLIAM S. GORDON and 1LT RICHARD CHARLES BRENNEMAN were flying an F-4D of the 555th TFS and 8th TFW out of Ubon and were providing CAP for strike operations 25 miles north of Yen Bai when they were engaged in a hassle with several MIG-21s. The dogfight covered many miles and came to an end when a MIG air-to-air missile took the tail off the Phantom about 25 miles from the Laotian border. Both MAJOR GORDON, who had bagged a MIG-17 in March 1967, and 1LT BRENNEMAN were forced to eject. The SAR effort was successful in finding and rescuing MAJOR GORDON, but could not locate 1LT BRENNEMAN, who was subsequently captured and imprisoned for the next five and a half years in Hanoi. He would survive the brutal experience to be released in March 1973…

(3) CAPTAIN LAWRENCE GERAKI EVERT was flying an F-105D of the 354th TFS and 355th TFW on a strike on the railway bypass at Dai Loy west of Phuc Yen and was hit by antiaircraft fire over the target in the attack. The aircraft continued into the ground without a chute or beeper to indicate CAPTAIN EVERT was able to leave the aircraft before collision with the ground at the target. The young warrior’s remains were recovered and returned to the United States in October 2001, and identified in January 2001… Oohrah to the Joint Recovery troops…

RIPPLE SALVO… #612… A Letter to the Editor of the New York Times dated 20 October 1967, published 8 November 1967, written by Dwight J. Simpson, Professor of Political Science University of California, Berkeley titled: “DISSENT AGAINST WAR”…

“The Constitution and relevant statutes are very clear about the authority by means of which our country may engage in war. The only authorized means which is to say the only legal means, is for the congress to declare war and then for the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to prosecute it. There is of course, another means. The step-by-step, piecemeal involvement planned and directed by the President, so that after a given period of time the result is the same–the nation is at war.

“This second means, of course, is possible only if the President, for reasons of his own, ignores or suspends the controlling constitutional and statutory provisions while the Congress and the Federal courts either supply him or at least acquiesce in this illegal manner.

“What of the usual political and judicial channels and remedies and what are their utility in this problem? A majority of members of Congress, to whom one would normally turn to seek changes through political pressure, have either supported President Johnson in his illegal maneuvering or they have been enveloped by him because they acquiesce at those times resistance ws called for. therefore they can or will do nothing.

“Similarly with due process of law. The Federal courts, under long-held doctrine, have always stood aloof from this problem., holding that since the declaration of war is purely a political act the problem is thus outside judicial jurisdiction. Consequently Federal courts will not receive a citizen’s suit against the President on this problem nor will they issue injunctions barring him from further steps along his present course of action.

“Therefore the normal channels of discussion and negotiation–the political and judicial–have either been effectively closed off or rendered irrelevant. Thus the dissenting citizens, of whom there are tens of millions can either stand mute and helpless, as most of them are now doing, or they can take to the streets.

“But let us be clear about one thing. If unfortunately, the streets become filled with dissenters it will be because the people will have seen this problem with greater clarity and perception than their so-called political leaders. The dissenters understand that we are where we are because of a series of ghastly mistakes, during which the political leadership was unwilling to admit even the possibility it was in error. these mistakes led to a undeclared and thus illegal war which in turn has given rise to atrocious moral crimes.

“Finally, we must remember who we are. We are the United States of America, not some banana republic in which political leadership can suspend or ignore the legal and political rules in order to engage in a foreign military adventure.

“I think that the majority of our citizens will eventually come to this understanding.”

Humble Host posts this letter as an articulate and clear statement of the position of the legions of dissenters who began to emerge in 1967 and came forward in 1968 by the tens of millions to hopelessly divide the country against itself. The dissenters used the argument of Professor Simpson’s letter to justify their dissent. Dissent that signaled the North Vietnamese and the world that American resolve and the will to sustain a long war of attrition made the United States vulnerable, despite its overwhelming status as a “super-power.” Unfortunately, power without resolve– the requisite will to win– is no way to fight a war.

RTR Quote for 8 November: Elbert Hubbard, The Philistine : “The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these enemies are ignorance, superstition and incompetence.”…

Lest we forget…     Bear