Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #613… Out of the President’s 2 November “mini-Delphi” muster of Wise Men… a summary by McGeorge Bundy that includes this conclusion concerning “civilian casualties“: “…airmen just do not give the kind of attention to this issue that any civilian would wish, if he were watching the matter himself.”… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIX HUNDRED THIRTEEN of marking the fiftieth anniversary of the air war that began in 1965 and was hard fought until 1 November 1968…
10 November 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a fine fall Friday in New York…
Page 1: “SATURN 5 PLACES APOLLO IN ORBIT IN A SMOOTH TEST–GOALS ACHIEVED–FLIGHT SUCCESS CALLED MAJOR STEP TO MOON LANDING BEFORE 1970″…“The nation’s Saturn 5 rocket, believed to be the mightiest space machine ever tested, made a thunderous earth shrinking debut today in a successful test of the vehicle that should some day take men to the moon.”… Page 1: “Survey 6 Gently Lands On the Moon and Sends Pictures... of areas never seen before.”… Page 1: “General Hershey Opposed By U.S. Lawyers–Plan For Inducting Protesters is Temporarily Held Illegal By Justice Department”… “…tentatively concluded that the plan would be unconstitutional for General Hershey to have students and others who interfere with draft procedures or military recruitment have their deferments canceled and to be inducted as a consequence of the interference…”…Page 1: “20% Rise Backed in Social Security–Senate Panel in Party Vote, Calls For Higher Payroll Taxes to Meet Costs”... vote was 11-6. “20% increase in cash benefits and progressively higher payroll taxes meet the added costs.”… Page 1: “Defection Of A Soviet Spy Viewed As U.S. Windfall--American Intelligence Exploiting Runge Case to Counter Those it Believes Are Belittling Russian Espionage”… “…defector is Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny K. Runge, a 39-year old Soviet Intelligence officer.”... Page 1: “Johnson Rebukes Vietnam Critics–At Dinner Here He Likens Issue Southeast Asia To Those in Middle East”… Page 11: “Vietcong Kill 111 Civilians”…Vietcong terrorists killed 111 South Vietnamese, wounded 236 and kidnapped 45 others last week, which brought the totl for 1967 to 2,897 murdered: 5,846 injured and 5,846 kidnapped.”… Page 13. “McCarthy Fears Invasion By U.S.–Says there Is a Possibility of Drive Into North Vietnam”…
10 November 1967…The President’s Daily Brief… SOUTH VIETNAM: The new cabinet appears to be a competent one. Of the 17 ministers named, nine have served in the previous government. All key posts–defense, interior, revolutionary development, foreign affairs, and economy–are held by generals or those who served in the Ky government….ISRAEL: U.S. defense attaches who visited the Suez Canal area this week say the Israelis are really dug in. Their positions have been hardened with extensive revetments, additional water pipelines are being constructed, and they appear ready to stay until the Arabs agree to negotiate…NORTH VIETNAM: Ho Misses Celebration: Ho Chi Minh played no role in the rather elaborate Hanoi ceremonies surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution. His only contribution to the occasion was to write a bland article on the revolution for the Soviet part paper…Ho’s absence from the festivities is unusual and suggests that illness may have prevented him from attending…. Hanoi On Antiwar Activities In US: A Hanoi Vietnamese language broadcast of 8 November reports that a group of writers and journalists have signed a statement expressing their determination not to pay 23% of their taxes as a protest of the war….“War Crimes” Trial: The second session of the Bertrand Russell “War Crimes” tribunal will beheld 20-29 November in Roskilde, Denmark, a suburb of Copenhagen. The tribunal held its first session in Stockholm earlier this year…..
10 November 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times…Air war coverage limited to following article:
Page 3: “HANOI SAYS McCAIN’s SON TERMS U.S. ‘ISOLATED’ ” Dateline: Hanoi, North Vietnam, Nov.10 (Agence France-Presse)…”Lieut. Cmdr. John Sydney McCain 3d, son of Admiral John S. McCain Jr., commander of United States naval forces in Europe, was quoted by the Hanoi press today as having said that the United States appeared ‘isolated’ because of the Vietnam war.
“Commander McCain, who was captured after his plane was shot down over Hanoi Oct 26, was said to have been interviewed by North Vietnamese journalists along with another captured pilot, John Peter Flynn, identified as an Air Force Colonel whose plane was shot down over the capital on Oct. 27.
“Commander McCain was quoted as having said: ‘The morale of the Vietnamese people is very high, the Vietnamese people are very strong, present events are moving to the advantage of North Vietnam and the United States appears to be isolated.’
“Commander McCain, 31 years old, said he had carried out 23 raids over North Vietnam, including five of six over Haiphong. He was shot down on his first raid over Hanoi from the aircraft carrier Oriskany.
“The newspapers reported both McCain and Colonel Flynn had said they were impressed by the density and accuracy of the antiaircraft fire over Hanoi.
“Colonel Flynn, 45, a veteran of the Korean war with 23-years of active service, said he had flown from the United States air base at Korat, Thailand. The papers quoted Colonel Flynn as having said that the young pilots at the Korat base, despite an outward show of bravado, were frightened at the idea of having to fly over North Vietnam and particularly Hanoi.”
“Vietnam: Air Losses”(Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 10 November 1967…
(1) MAJOR JAMES SHEPPARD MORGAN and 1LT CHARLES JEROME HONEYCUTT were flying one F-4C of the 389th TFS and 366th TFW out of Danang and LCOL KELLY FRANCES COOK and 1LT JAMES ALLAN CREW were flying another. The two F-4s launched from Danang on a radar controlled drop through an overcast that covered the entire area of the DMZ and northward. The section of Phantoms climbed to 26,000-feet and under radar control were steered from one target to an alternate when the primary was unsuitable. Somewhere in the maneuvering 10-miles radar contact was inexplicably lost with the two aircraft. Fifty years later, to the best of my knowledge, only the remains of 1LT HONEYCUTT have been recovered and returned to the United States for identification and interment. All four are remembered on this anniversary of their sacrifice–the rest of their lives–and gallant combat service for our country…
10 Nov 67 from the Howie Plunkett “34 TFS/F-105 History“...The 18th combat mission over North Vietnam flown by Major Spence Armstrong… “The target was a railroad siding up on the northeast railroad, 20 miles down from China. The weather was forecast to be problematic and it was. We crossed solid undercast on the eastern edge of Thailand and seldom saw the ground again until we came back into the same area. We dropped off the tankers, proceeded up to the ‘island’ and the ‘wart’ and inbound. The ‘Iron Hand’ flight ahead of us said that there was no way to see the target. We made a left turn and got out of there when about 3 minutes out from the target. We came back and dropped our bombs just north of the DMZ on a spot target by an O-2 FAC. The target was in the sandy area of the beach. We didn’t hit it too well because of working under an overcast of 7,000-feet and a poor dive angle.”… Humble Host recognizes the scramble that occurs when the weather diversion from an assigned target to the alternates… and the weather over North Vietnam goes bad for visual dive bombing in October and doesn’t get better until March. Major Armstong’s mission log entry provides a superb testament to the scramble to get ordnance on target–some target–when Mother Nature spreads a blanket over the enemy’s heartland…
RIPPLE SALVO… #613… On 2 November 1967 the President chaired a “mini-Delphi”–guys in flight suits called to a muster in the Ready Room to solve a problem would call this “a brainstorming session”– to address the Vietnam war policies of his administration.
Prior to the first meeting of his Foreign Affairs Advisory Council since 1965, he had forwarded to each of his 20 “Wise Men” five questions he wanted them to be prepared to answer. He wanted each to be heard by the others at the table. As a consequence, the three and a half-hour session was focused and fertile with opinions and constructive ideas and suggestions. He invited and expected the participants to mull over the collective responses to the five questions for a few days after the mini-Delphi and submit their “final” answers to the questions. The President hoped to achieve consensus on the questions…
By 10 November the process was achieving worthy advice… The five questions: (1) Should we pullout of North Vietnam?… (2) What should we do about negotiation?… (3) What should we do about the bombing of North Vietnam?…(4) What more can we do in the South?… (5) What can we do to pull the home front together? Several of the responses from the Wise Men have been made available by the State Department Office of the Historian as “historical documents.”…
McGeorge Bundy was one of the Wise Men. He was President of the Ford Foundation in 1967, but had been Presidents Kennedy’s and Johnson’s National Security Advisor before Walt Rostow. He knew what President Johnson was looking for and he provided it in a lengthy Memorandum to the President on 10 November 1967. This memo is not only informative and interesting to Red River Rats and Yankee Air Pirates, who survived the skies of North Vietnam, it provides a brilliant example of useful paperwork by an accomplished staffer in Washington, or anywhere… Of course, fighter-bomber warriors may get ruffled feathers with some of the aspersions thrown in toward the end of his advice to the President…The document is a significant addition to the nation’s archives… read at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d393
RTR Quote for 10 November: GOETHE: “The first and last thing required of genius is the love of the truth.”
Lest we forget… Bear
