RIPPLE SALVO… #643… Every generation has a haunting fear–the Chief Executive Officer has the authority to pull the trigger and “shoot on sight.”… It was major concern of the Congress and the people in 1967 and it remains a major concern fifty years later as North Korea, and others, rattle their swords and nukes… NYT, 10 Dec 67, page 46: Second thoughts about the Gulf of Tonkin resolution… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED FORTY-THREE of 1,000 second thoughts about the air war with North Vietnam coded Operation Rolling Thunder…
9 DECEMBER 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a perfect Saturday in New York…
Page 1: “Fulbright Scores War as Immoral’–Says World Doubts Motives–Dodd Defends Policies in Earlier Senate Speech”… “Senator William Fulbright said today that the greatest cost of the Vietnam war was a moral one–a betrayal of America’s own past and its own promise in the eyes of the world, and more importantly, in its own eyes…all said during a Senate speech marked by a ‘tone of sorrow rather than anger.”... Page 1: “Saigon Receives U.S. Reassurance on Issue of Talks–Washington Says it Will Not Shift Position on Vietcong Without Consultation–Past Contacts Backed–State Department Indicates Support For an Invitation by U.N. to Liberation Front”… “…a carefully worded policy declaration to calm worries of Saigon Government…a veiled effort to nudge the South Vietnamese Government into expanding its own political contacts with the Vietcong.”… Page 1: “Nixon Puts Civil Rights Ahead of Vietnam–Tells National Association of Manufacturers Fight Against Racial Injustice is Vital To Keep A Free Society”… “Richard M. Nixon said last night that unless a solution was found to the racial problem in the United States it will not matter what happens in Vietnam and elsewhere.”… “After his speech, Mr. Nixon was asked specifically whether finding a solution to the rift between Negroes and whites was a greater national problem than Vietnam. He responded: ‘Each is different, but a strong America is essential to peace and freedom. A strong America is essential if we are to win in Vietnam.’…” Page 1: “Enlarging UN Observer Force for Suez Approved by U.N. Security Council”… Page 4: “Six Months After War, Arabs and Jews Lead a Strained Coexistence–Political Bridge Up, But Cultural Gap Remains Large in Jerusalem”…
GROUND WAR (“War is a killing business.”) Page 1: “2 Battalions of Vietcong Crushed in Mekong Delta”... “South Vietnamese troops killed 365 Vietcong soldiers yesterday in the biggest battle ever fought in the Mekong Delta….A regiment-sized force trapped two Vietcong battalions and crushed them in the delta swamps…It was the largest number of Vietcong reported killed in a single day of fighting in the delta, long regarded as a guerrilla stronghold inaccessible to Government forces. Informed sources said the Government forces ‘tore the Vietcong battalions to pieces.’ Skirmishes continued throughout the night, and at dawn they flared again into heavy fighting as the South Vietnamese force closed tighter around the Vietcong….It was the second major defeat for the Vietcong in the delta this week. On Monday the United States Ninth Infantry Division troops and South Vietnamese marines reported that they had killed 235 Vietcong soldiers, pushing them into open rice paddies and directing a huge air and artillery bombardment on them.”… “U.S. Provides Air Support”… “No American ground forces were involved in yesterday’s battle in the Mekong Delta except for United States air support for the more than 2,000 South Vietnamese ground troops. The fighting was along the Kinhomon Canal, one of the thousands of canals in the delta. The Air Force tactical fighter-bombers and helicopters, gunships and artillery hammered relentlessly after the South Vietnamese troops had encircled the enemy. The number reported killed is almost the equivalent of an entire Vietcong battalion, which has 400 to 500 men.”…
Page 10: “252 Killed in Bindinh”… “About 1,500 American and South Vietnamese troops spearheaded by armored personnel carriers and helicopter gunships, pushed against the inner ring of North Vietnamese trenches and bunkers today on the third day of bitter fighting in the central lowlands of Binhdinh Province. A spokesman said the bodies of 252 enemy soldiers had been counted. American losses were put at 16 killed and 90 wounded….”… “Elsewhere, sharp action continued near Budop, district capital in Phuoclong Province about 90 miles north of Saigon and about five miles from the Cambodian border.”… Page 10: “Enemy’s Notes Say Coalition is Studied”... “A captured notebook made available by United States officials today said that the Vietcong had concluded that they could not deal allied forces a ‘lethal blow’ and were considering a coalition government as a means to victory American officials said the position was set forth in notes prepared by a leader of the National Liberation Front for lectures to political insurgents. the Front is the political arm of the Vietcong….The notes said: ‘A coalition government could be advantageous to our revolutionary goals. We don’t have to wait until the Americans completely pull out to form a coalition government. To all appearances, it will be a coalition government but the real power will be in our hands. Th coalition government may include a non-revolutionary as president, but basically it must follow the line of action of the National Liberation Front.”…
9 DECEMBER 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times: nary a word…”Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) there were n fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 9 December 1967…
RIPPLE SALVO… #643… Humble Host found the timing of this OpEd from the New York Times from 50 years ago a remarkable fit to the American dilemma of December 2017… Are we looking at going to war again without a declaration of war that includes the participation of the Congress representing the people?… The bombing of North Vietnam was authorized by a “resolution” that gave President Johnson the authority to not only bomb North Vietnam, but to deploy more than 500,000 American troops into South Vietnam, more than 58,000 of whom did not come home alive…. The Congress of 1967 was having “second thoughts” about what they had done back in 1964… The Congress of 2018 might want to brush up on their history…our history… and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, sans Presidential signature, that has been ignored ever since… (“You may fire when ready, Maddog.”)
“THE CONGRESS AND WAR”…
“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee resolution on the division of war making powers between the President and the Congress should stimulate a long-overdue national debate on the crucial issue early in the New Year. That is clearly what the Senators had in mind, rather than a petty attempt to embarrass the Johnson Administration in an election year. It is unfortunate that the President did not accept the committee initiative in that spirit.
“Haunting second thoughts in Congress and the country about the Gulf of Tonkin resolution of 1964–under protection of which the Administration has steadily expanded the American commitment in Vietnam–would alone justify searching debate. But the need is reinforced by enduring doubts about President Roosevelt’s ‘shoot them on sight’ orders to the Atlantic fleet prior to the formal American involvement in World War II; President Truman’s commitment of American forces to war in Korea without even a request for Congressional sanction, and the joint resolutions on Formosa, the Middle East and Cuba adopted on the initiative of President Eisenhower and Kennedy.
“The Senate committee believes strongly that the war powers granted to Congress by the Constitution have been eroded through neglect or through Presidential usurpation. It warns that the Chief Executive’s ‘virtually unlimited’ authority over matters of ‘war and peace’ threatens the American people with ‘tyranny or disaster.’
“In suggesting practical steps that might be taken to restore a healthy balance of power in an age when any President must retain flexibility in foreign policy and the capacity to act promptly in crisis, the committee report is alternately reassuring and disturbing.
“It properly recognizes that the President has ‘unchallenged authority to respond to sudden attack on the United States,’ Short of this, however, the Senators say that Congress alone can authorize war; they argue that, in sanctioning the use of armed forces, Congress is granting the President ‘power that he would not otherwise have.’ This is too restrictive an interpretation of the President’s constitutional role as Commander-in-Chief.
“The committee is on firmer ground in demanding greater precision in any future joint Congressional resolutions, but again it goes too far. In most military situations it would be neither feasible nor wise to try to specify in a joint resolution the kind of armed action to be undertaken, the ‘place and purpose of its use, and a cut-off date for the authority granted. Such an attempt would be at the opposite extreme from the unlimited authority granted in the Tonkin resolution; it would constitute an unjustified–and perhaps perilous–encroachment on the Executive.
“There is clearly an imbalance to be addressed, but the solution does not lie in an obstructionist role for Congress in matters of war, peace and survival. The hard fact is that a President today can maneuver the country into war without a declaration or resolution by the Congress, and the Senators can devise no foolproof deterrent against this.
“Chairman Fulbright hopes the committee’s resolution will simply help insure greater prudence and restraint in the handling of future grants of congressional sanction and the avoidance o ‘precipitate action’ of the kind taken on the Tonkin resolution. The committee documents and anticipated debate on them in and outside Congress might achieve these modest goals. The bigger question is how much more can be done to provide genuine balance on a basis that will diminish risks, not aggravate them.”…
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 resulted from the discord and lessons learned from our Korean “police action” and the undeclared Vietnam war. It provides that “the U.S. President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by congress.” How did that work out for the people of the United States?… It hasn’t stopped any of our Presidents from “firing at will.”… “On April 6, 2017, the United States launched 59 BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles at Shayat airbase in Syria in response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons. Constitutional scholar and law professor Stephen Valdeck has noted that the strike potentially violates the War Powers Resolution.” (see CNN April 7, 2017 report: “Was Trump’s Syria strike legal? An expert weighs in.)… Bottom Line: the issue is as open for debate in 2018 as it was in 1967… and the winds of nuclear war are blowing…
RTR Quote for 9 December 1967: President Richard Nixon as he vetoed the War Powers Resolution (24 Oct 1973):
“The Administration is dedicated to strengthening cooperation between the Congress and the President in the conduct of foreign affairs and to preserving the constitutional prerogatives of both branches of our Government. I know that the Congress shares that goal. A commission on the constitutional roles of the Congress and the president would provide useful opportunity for both branches to work together toward that common objective.” (On 7 November 1973 the House and Senate voted to override the President’s veto and the War Powers Resolution became law without the President’s signature…..) And the Presidents have ignored it ever since… “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” (Dewey, Manila Bay, 1898)…
Lest we forget… Bear