Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #815… BALTIMORE, MAY 17…NINE OPPONENTS OF THE VIETNAM WAR, SIX OF THEM PRESENT OR FORMER MEMBERS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS ORDERS, stormed a draft board office in suburban Catonsville today and seized about 600 individual files. They burned the files in a nearby parking lot. The nine were arrested within a few minutes, including the Rev, Philip H. Berrigan… these culprits became known as the “Catonsville Nine.” Berrigan was their boss and at the time of the felony crime in Catonsville, he was awaiting trial for an earlier felony crime where he led the “Baltimore Four” in a daylight raid on the office in the United States Government’s Custom House in Baltimore and the office that was the headquarters for all 26 of the city’s draft boards. On that October 27, 1967 caper Rev. Berrigan and his three cohorts poured duck blood on the city’s draft records. On 16 April they were convicted of ‘destruction of Government property, mutilation of Government records and impeding Selective Service procedures. On 25 May Berrigan and two of his accomplices in the blood records case were sentenced to six years in Federal prison. And for Berrigan, another trial for his Catonsville (Humble Host’s draft board, by-the-way) theft and fire. The defendants pled “the immoral war defense.” NYT: “The defendants said their ‘sacrificial and constructive act ‘ was meant to protest the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Vietnam.’ Judge Edward S. Northrop told Berrigan and his cohorts at sentencing before a packed courtroom of more than 200: “You have transcended the limits of civil disobedience. You deliberately set out to use violent means to destroy the very fabric of our society. All of you hide behind words to accomplish your ends–to bring down this society.” Berrigan’s defense was based on moral grounds. He, and his co-defendants, had contended that it was a symbolic act of protest against an immoral war and argued that there was no evil or criminal intent….. RIPPLE SALVO, below, posts an essay by PROFESSOR ARTHUR I. GOODHART, a member of the bar in both England and New York and formerly Master of University College, Oxford and the International Law Association, entitled: “DRAFT REISISTANCE AND THE NUREMBERG DEFENSE”… This is a think piece helps explain why American leadership is afraid to wage wars to win. War is a killing business and on its face immoral. Our adversaries understand that Americans, with the exception of Harry S. Truman, have been and remain, reluctant, even gutless, to use the power it takes to defeat an enemy. Only the United States chokes when charged with overkill. Or waterboarding. While our enemies were firing rockets and mortars into Saigon, the Rolling Thunder aviators were taking intense flak while striking targets our Secretary of State had warned the enemy we were coming to destroy. His motivation: to reduce the possibility of civilian deaths. Our motivation: staying alive and destroying the capability and will of the enemy to resist, by killing if necessary. Immoral? Who is immoral? But first…
Good Morning… Day EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTEEN of a remembrance of the warriors of Rolling Thunder, who were the best of both the Silent and Boomer generations…
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on a windy Wednesday, 29 May 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “FIGHTING FLARES ON SAIGON’S EDGE–Major Offensive Doubted–Attack on Dalat Repelled”… “Enemy and allied troops fought house-to-house today on the outskirts of Saigon and the resort city of Dalat. By nightfall, the allies had repelled the assault on Dalat 140 miles northeast of the capital. High-ranking officers said that neither of the enemy’s attacks involved enough troops to pose a serious threat to the cities. They speculated that the enemy made both moves for psychological reasons and in an effort to create more refugee problems for the South Vietnamese Government. ‘He wants to show everyone he’s still around,’ a United States general said. ‘He probably sees some psychological value in this.’ Officers in the field tended to agree. ‘He doesn’t have enough troops here, or on the way here, to be carrying out any real military objective,’ said Major Arley Harper, an American advisor to South Vietnamese Rangers who were fighting on the southwestern edge of the city, ‘He just filters in, digs himself some holes and tries to stay. I think he’s trying to make points for the Paris peace talks.’… While the fighting in the cities was under way, the United States Army’s Fourth Division was moving out in a new offensive in the Central Highlands, between Dak To and the Cambodian border. The object of the offensive is to find and destroy the North Vietnamese Army’s 325C Division, which appeared in the area recently after making a 125-mile march from Khe Sanh in the northwestern tip of South Vietnam . It had withdrawn from Khe Sanh in early April after joining in an unsuccessful two and a half month siege of the Marine encampment there. Heaviest fighting was reported around the demilitarized zone. South Vietnamese troops said they killed 96 enemy soldiers in a day-long battle five miles north of Dongha only a mile from where United States marines said they killed 26 North Vietnamese soldiers yesterday. Allied casualties were light in both actions, according to military spokesmen…”… Page 12: “ENEMY DIRECTIVE SEIZED”… “Seventeen North Vietnamese battalions have a mission that is tied to the Vietnam talks in Paris. The mission is to harass Saigon and its suburbs. The information became available today from allied intelligence reports. The United States mission made public a captured Vietcong directive that said: ‘It is imperative to realize the necessity and objective of our diplomatic struggle, which is intended to bolster the military and political struggle and not to substitute for them. Thus, unless a major military victory is achieved, nothing can be expected from the diplomatic struggles. Diplomatic debates should be regarded as a means to confirm the enemy defeat and our victory. They are not intended to bring us final victory. Consequently, we must never let ourselves be lured by any peace illusions that the diplonmatic struggle may create; but instead, we must respond to and support our diplomatic struggle by ‘fighting harder in order to achieve more striking and more decisive victories.’… “…
PEACE TALKS: Page 1: “PRESIDENT PRODS HANOI ON PARLEY–ASKS END TO ‘FANTASY’ AND WORK TO BRING PEACE–HEARS VANCE REPORT”… “President Johnson said today that it was time for the Paris negotiations on Vietnam ‘to move from fantasy and propaganda to the realistic and constructive work of bringing peace.’ After hearing a first hand report from Cyrus R. Vance, the President pledged to keep searching patiently for agreement. But with Hanoi sending men and supplies into South Vietnam ‘at an unprecedented rate,’ he said, the United States will not allow itself to ‘be pressured’ into halting the bombing of North Vietnam. In Paris, an American spokesman indicated that recent enemy offensives and infiltration made it harder for the United States to assume, as President Johnson offered to do last fall, that North Vietnam would not take advantage of a complete halt in the bombing. Mr. Vance, who is the second-ranking member on the American negotiating team led by W. Averell Harriman, briefed the President and his senior advisors for two hours.”… The Historical Documents detailing the Vance briefings are at the following links;
253. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d253
254. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d254
Page 1: “McCARTHY BEATS KENNEDY IN OREGON PRIMARY UPSET–NIXON IS STRONG WINNER–ROCKEFELLER LAGS–REAGAN RUNS SECOND BUT TRAILS BADLY–WINNER McCARTHY JUBILANT”… “Richard M. Nixon rode a more commanding victory in the Oregon Republican Presidential primary today than was projected… Senator Eugene J. McCarthy won a stunning upset victory over Senator Robert F. Kennedy in te Oregon Democratic primary tonight. Senator Kennedy’s defeat, his first in three primaries, abruptly slowed the New Yorker’s drive for the Presidential nomination and threatened to endanger has chances in the California primary, which will be held a week from today.”… Page 1: “VAST SEARCH TO FIND SUBMARINE USS SCORPION–PLANES AND SHIPS TRAVERSE 2,100 MILE ROUTE IN VAIN”… “A vast at-sea search for the missing nuclear-powered attack submarine Scorpion passed the 24-hour mark today with increasing signs of doubts that her 99-man crew would be found in time.”… Page 16: “Fliers And Sailors From Norfolk Join Search”… “99 Member Crew Names”… Page 1: “FRANCE FORCED TO SPEND DOLLARS TO DEFEND FRANC”… “The Bank of France started to lose some of the $billion worth of gold and dollars that have piled up in its coffers as official reserves for the settlement of international debt….acting under instruction from Paris, the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland has begun to buy French francs that have been offered in the currency markets because of the economic paralysis gripping France.”… Page 4: “Israel Seals Off The Gaza Strip Borders After Disorders”… Page 17: “Campsites of Poor Swamped In Rain–Hundreds on Mall In Capital Driven Out In Worst Day”… Page 17: “TROOPERS AND NEGROES CLASH IN LOUISVILLE DISORDERS”… “National Guardsmen armed with bayonet-tipped rifles and tear gas clashed with crowds of stone-throwing Negroes in a 20 square block area of the West End of Louisville tonight…A total of 550 troops were mobilized…At least 42 persons were arrested.”…
29 May 1968….OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times and Associated Press: No coverage of air operations in the North. “VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 29 May 1968…
(1) A C-7B Caribou of the 458th TAS and 483rd TAW out of Cam Ranh Bay was hit by small arms fire on an approach to the runway at Dak To and landed short, shearing the landing gear and other parts as it skidded down the runway. The Aircraft was damaged beyond repair but the 26 passengers and crew survived…
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 29 MAY FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION IN THE SKIES OVER NORTH VIETNAM…
1965… NONE…
1966… NONE…
1967… NONE…
1968…NONE… oooohrah
RIPPLE SALVO… #815… Professor Arthur I. Goodhart’s “Draft Resistance and the Nuremberg Defense”…
“As World War II ended, the United States, Great Britain, France and the U.S.S.R signed an agreement establishing the International Military Tribunal. Attached to it was a Charter setting forth the procedure to be followed at the trial, and stating the principles of international law which bring the court. The most important of these principles can be found in Article 6, which provided that there shall be individual responsibilities for (a) Crimes against peace (waging a war of aggression); (b) War crimes (violations of the laws of war); and (c) had long been recognized to be international crimes.
“These principles were followed in the other war crime trials, and have been accepted by most of the authorities on international law, although there has been some doubt concerning crimes against peace. (In motions at the current conspiracy trial of Dr. Benjamin Spock and others for counseling draft resistance, the principles of Nuremberg have been raised as one defense.)
“The relationship between international law and state law cn only be understood if it is realized that they are two entirely separated systems with two different sources. The rules of the former are based on general international recognition, on international legal precedents, and on international conventions, such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928, to make aggressive war illegal.
“On the other hand, state law is found in the constitutional system of the state, which prescribes what body or bodies have the power to create rules that are binding on the courts.
WHEN TO OBEY ‘ORDERS’…
“The distinction between the two systems is illustrated by Article 8 of the Nuremberg Charter, which provided that ‘the fact that the defendant acted pursuant to the orders of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility.’ This gave rise to heated dispute, as it was argued that a defendant ought not to be punished because he had obeyed the law of his own country; on the other hand, if this was a defense, then a defendant whose country had a particularly brutal system of law could never be found guilty. How can this conflict be solved?…
“The answer under English law is a simple one, The British Constitution, which can be stated in a single sentence, provides that any statute enacted by Parliament, with the consent of the Queen, which is purely formal, is absolutely;y binding on the courts and all officers. The American Constitution is a far more complicated on, so that it is difficult to give a categorical answer to any question. It gives exclusive control over foreign affairs and the conduct of war to the President and to Congress (it does not matter here how these powers are divided), but it does not necessarily follow from this that the Supreme Court may not be able to place a limitation on the exercise of these powers.
“It has also been argued that the ‘due process’ clause of the Fifth Amendment can be used to limit war power’s of the United States on the ground that it is not due process to force a person to serve in a war which violates the three Nuremberg principles. If this were accepted, then the Supreme Court would have to determine whether the American action in Vietnam was an aggressive one, whether the conduct of the war was in violation of the laws of war and whether any crimes against humanity had been committed . Such a general inquest may be desirable, but it is difficult to believe it part of the due process. The consequences would be remarkable if such a power were attributed to the courts, because it would always be possible in any future conflict to delay all action while the character of the conflict was being debated. This is a question of state law; if the state law says that a person shall be conscripted it is a most doubtful answer to say that the war is in violation of international law, even if this were true.
“Whether a person is morally entitled to resist what he considers to be an immoral law is not a legal question at all. It is an ethical question which a lawyer has no greater claim to answer than anyone else.
1776 AND 1861…
“We Americans can point to one occasion when such resistance was clearly justified: in 1776 the American colonists refused to obey a law which at that time was legally binding on them. On the other hand, in the Civil War the moral conviction of the Southern states that they were entitled to secede was met by the moral conviction of the North that secession was wrongful.
“Which step a man should take when such a conflict arises depends on his conscience, remembering always that a breach of law in a particular instance may in time lead to a breakdown of the law in general. That however, is a consideration which may carry more weight with a lawyer than a layman.”… New York Times, 25 May 1968…
RTR quote for 29 May 1968… MAO TSE-TUNG, On Guerrilla Warfare, 1937: “The first law of war is to preserve ourselves and destroy the enemy.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
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