Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #768… CYRUS LEO SULZBERGER, “A PRIZE-WINNING FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES FOR NEARLY 40 YEARS and the author of two dozen books, most of them on foreign policy and world leaders in the cold war era” posted a column in March 1968 titled: “Giap of Arabia.” He succinctly made a case that the tactics of North Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap employed by the North in the fight in South Vietnam were from the enduring principles of “how to fight a guerrilla war” attributed to and practiced by T.E. Lawrence in the southwest deserts of Asia. Applicable in 1914-18 in World War I, in the mid-1960’s, and applicable in southwest Asia now….. but first…
GOOD MORNING: Day SEVEN HUNDRED SIXTY-EIGHT of a return to yesteryear when the skies over North Vietnam were full of Red River Rats, Yankee Air Pirates and tons of missiles and steel from thousands of guns defending the infrastructure of the North…
HEAD LINES from the OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER on Friday, 13 APRIL 1968…
THE WAR: Page 1: “YANKS JOIN FORCES, REPULSE 400-MAN ASSAULT BY REDS–FOES FLEE-LEAVE 128 DEAD”… “U.S. footsoldiers, artillery and dive bombers repulsed 400 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops who stormed an American bivouac area today and drove to within few feet of the GI’s foxholes. After five-hours of close quarter fighting in War Zone C 49 miles northwest of Saigon, Vietnamese and Viet Cong fled leaving 128 of their dead and more than 50 weapons on the battlefield. all of the bodies were found on the fringes of the American perimeter. AP photographer Al Chang reported from the battlefield that more bodies were probably farther out, victims of the massive air and artillery strikes. Sixteen U.S. troops were killed and 47 wounded. CLOSE RANGE FIGHTING. Chang said the fighting was at such close range that at one point the 25th Division infantrymen fixed their bayonets as their ammunition ran low. They didn’t have any. Two Americans were found dead inside their bunker. Around them were the bodies of eight Viet Cong, gunned down by the two Americans as they were killed”… “In the far northwest U.S. Cavalrymen reoccupied the Khe Sanh outpost of Lang Vei without resistance after a day of frustration. Troops moved into the camp Wednesday, then retired to the east for the night. When they tried to reenter Thursday they found the North Vietnamese had reoccupied the outpost. Three American attacks were repelled…. The U.S. command announced the loss of two more American aircraft in South Vietnam, a Marine A-4 and an Army UH1 helicopter.”… Page 1: “LBJ WILL FLY TO HAWAII WEDNESDAY”… “…to meet in Honolulu with President Chung Hee Park of South Korea to discuss peace negotiations (and USS Pueblo?) …he will leave from his texas ranch where he will spend the Easter weekend….Page 1: “THANT, HANOI DIPLOMAT DISCUSS PEACE ACTIONS”… Paris: “U.N. Secretary-General U Thant talked for an hour nd 20 minutes today with North Vietnam’s top representatives in the West presumably about the proposed meeting between representatives of Washington and Hanoi.”…
Page 1: “OPEN HOUSING IS LAW–LBJ SIGNS RIGHTS BILL”… “President Johnson, voicing outrage at the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and the violence that followed it, has signed a historic open-housing bill as a federal task force girded to enforce the new law. It is the third landmark civil rights bill to become law here since Johnson entered the White House. ‘all america is outraged at the assassination of King,’ the President told a crowd of civil-rights leaders, Congress members and government leaders in the east Room of the White House Thursday. ‘And America is also outraged at the looting and burning that defiles our democracy.’ We just must put our shoulders together and put a stop to both.’ “…. Page 1: “RIOT LOSSES PEGGED NEAR $50 MILLION–ESTIMATED 1,400 WITHOUT HOMES IN U.S. CAPITAL”… “Insurers put preliminary estimates of riot damage in Chicago at $10 million, in Baltimore at between $8 and $10 million. Washington officials estimate building damage alone at $13.3 million. The number of homeless in the many riot areas exceeds three thousand. “… Page 1: “EASTER AND PASSOVER EVENTS DRAW THONGS TO JERUSALEM”… “Thousands of Christians and Jewish pilgrims thronged Jerusalem today for Easter and Passover. …The Christians came for the annual Way of the Cross procession tracing Christ’s path to Calvary on the first Good Friday, and to celebrate the resurrection on Sunday. The Jews came to pray at the Wailing Wall before sundown start of Passover.”… Page 1: “FBI AGENTS CANCEL PICK-UP ORDER ON ASSASSIN SUSPECT”…”The FBI issued then withdrew a pickup order for Eric Starvo Galt, a Birmingham, Alabama, white man as the wide scale investigation of the assassination of ?DR. Martin Luther King, Jr. entered its second week. Federal agents refused to say why they were seeking Galt.”…
12 APRIL 1968…THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF (CIA TS/SI)… SOUTH VIETNAM: More signs are appearing that Communist main force units in several parts of the country are pulling back from areas that had until recently been of high tactical interest. In the Khe Sanh area, small-scale enemy rear-guard actions seem designed to cover withdrawals of major North Vietnamese combat units…Communications intelligence also points to withdrawals farther south in I Corps… NORTH VIETNAM: Hanoi criticizes US refusal of Phnom Penh as site for Contacts: the US was accused of finding illegitimate pretexts for refusing to meet in the Cambodian capital. The blast was transmitted early today on Hanoi’s radio international service in English.the broadcast claimed to be a translation of a commentary in today’s issue of the party daily Nhan Dan…The commentary concluded by stating that President Johnson had more than once declared that the US would go anywhere and at any time to meet North Vietnamese representatives. The US refusal to meet in Phnom Penh, it claimed, ‘shows that its acts do not match its words.”….NORTH VIETNAM–FIRST QUARTER SHIPPING REPORT: A preliminary review of shipping to North Vietnam during the first quarter of 1968 shows as 18 percent increase in cargo delivered over the same period last year. The increase can be accounted for by the continuing rise in food and petroleum products…Soviet deliveries to North Vietnam declined slightly in the first quarter compared to the corresponding period last year. Although food and petroleum deliveries of fertilizer and miscellaneous cargoes normally shipped out of Black Sea ports decreased sharply. The decrease in shipping from the Black Sea ports may be due largely to the closure of the Suez canal… Cargo delivered to North Vietnam aboard East European ships doubled…delivered cargo from Communist China rose significantly. However, the tonnage carried by Chinese ships dropped while that carried by Chinese free World ships increased…the upward trend in deliveries is expected to continue throughout 1968, and it is likely that an increasing portion of deliveries will be carried aboard Soviet ships. …a limitation on further increases is the discharge rate at the port of Haiphong….HANOI COMMENT ON US RIOTS: North Vietnam has praised the outbreak of riots in many cities in the wake of Dr. King’s death as a struggle against the racist system in the US. Hanoi claimed tht the revolt of the black people in the US demonstrated the loathsome nature of the US capitalist regime.”…..
12 APRIL 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER (AP/UPI) (13 Apr reporting 12 Apr ops) Page 1: “… FLY 90 MISSIONS… In all, U.S. pilots flew 90 missions over the North Friday and for the ninth straight day, stayed below the 19th Parallel and well south of the 20th Parallel boundary ordered by President Johnson. …. “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 12 April 1968…
From the compilation “34 TFS / F-105 History” by Howie Plunkett: 12-Apr-68: “Hatchet flight from the 34th TFS hit a road in southern Laos. The flight took off at 0910 and returned after flying for 2 hours and 55 minutes. The line up was: #1 LCOL Bob Smith 34 TFS CO; #2 Major Sam Armstrong; #3 Major Melvin Irwin: and, #4 Major Donald Hodge. …This was Major Armstrong’s 98th mission.”… From Lt Gen Armstrong’s 100-mission log. Commenting on the last 10 of the flights: “On one of these flights, Bob was leading and we were cleared into Pack I for a reconnaissance. We crossed into Pack I at about 18,000 feet which was enough to get a counter. But not enough for Bob. He told the other two to hold at that altitude and signaled for me to close in on his wing. We descended through the clouds toward the Gulf of Tonkin using our radar to denote the water. We broke out under the clouds over the Gulf at about 800-feet. We then spread out and turned around toward Pack I. We ran down Route #1 at high-speed. They were shooting at us and we were so low and fast there was no way we could attack any worthwhile target. After a few minutes I joined up on his wing again and we climbed out through the clouds to rejoin the other two guys and go back to Korat. I guess the extra excitement was OK.”…
Humble Host defines the General’s mission…Armed Reconnaissance: an air mission with the primary purpose of locating and attacking targets of opportunity, sometimes referred to as lucrative targets (LUCTARS)..trucks, material, personnel, and facilities in an assigned area or road segment with no specific target assigned… This mission is the ultimate ride for an attack or fighter-bomber warrior. You are the hunter where the hunted shoots back… The North Vietnamese had a lot of disabled trucks and the means to move them into place on a well-traveled route. Nearby out of sight they would locate one or two batteries of 37-mm antiaircraft guns. Flak trap… decoy for the unwary… There were no easy days…
Humble Host flew #140. Led a night section to Steel Tiger, but Hillsboro added me to the stack awaiting a radar controlled drop. Had me join on another flight of F-4s and the formation headed northwest to drop through the clouds on signal to hit “troops in the DMZ”… A cell of three B-52s preceded us dropping from higher altitude. Observed their hits as they exploded under the low overcast… Don’t think my 6 Mk-82s (total of 12 with wingman) added much to their mile long streams of destruction…
RIPPLE SALVO… #768… NYT, FRIDAY, 22 MARCH 1968: Page 46… “FOREIGN AFFAIRS: GIAP OF ARABIA,” BY C.L. SULZBERGER… I quote…
“Cairo–The techniques of General Giap’s South Vietnam strategy actually originated on the Arabian peninsula where T.E. Lawrence first codified Revolutionary Warfare’s rules. Mao Tse-tung is generally credited to fathering the combat theorem confronting U.S. forces in Southeast Asia’s luxuriant jungles, but actually, in World War I, Lawrence had arrived at similar conclusions for Southwest Asia’s arid desert.
ASTONISHING SIMILARITY
“These conclusions are astonishingly similar to those now governing Giap under extraordinarily different conditions. However, oddly enough, in the Middle Eastern area where Lawrence made his laboratory experiments and where there has been much subsequent fighting, this has been conventional and in violation of his credo.
“Lawrence (in ‘The Evolution of a Conflict’) stressed these lessons learned from campaigning with weak Arab irregulars against a superior, better equipped Turkish army:
(1) ‘Our war should be a war of detachment; we were to contain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast unknown desert, not disclosing ourselves till the moment of attack. This attack need be only nominal, directed not against his men, but against his materials.’
(2) ‘The corollary of such a rule was perfect intelligence so that we could plan with complete certainty.’
(3) ‘The third factor in the command seemed to be the psychological…. We had to arrange their minds in order of battle, just as carefully and as formally as other officers arrange their bodies…. the printing press is the greatest weapon in this armory of the modern command.’
(4) ‘We wanted the enemy to sty…in every other harmless place in the largest numbers so long as he gave us the other nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the Arab world…. We must impose the longest possible passive defense… (this being the most materially expensive form of war…. Our victory lay not in battles, but in occupying square miles of country.’
(5) “We never tried to maintain or improve an advantage, but to move off and strike again somewhere else. We used the smallest force, in the quickest time, at the farthest place.’
“Implication of this analysis can be applied to Vietnam despite vastly different circumstances, numbers and types of weapons. The same strategy of seeking to keep U.S. forces concentrated in cities and on ‘passive defense’ while occupying territory in between is evident from Khe Sanh to Saigon.
SEEDING THE OYSTER…
“Lawrence explained: ‘We used very few Englishmen in the field…. a larger proportion would have created friction just because they were foreign bodies (p[earls, if you please) in the oyster.’ Unfortunately, the U.S.A. had to seed the South Vietnamese ‘oyster’ with half a million American ‘pearls.’
“Almost fifty years ago Lawrence discovered certain precepts that obviously also serve Giap now. he considered irregular war ‘an exact science and inevitable success’ if certain rules were followed. He summarized these accordingly:
‘Rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack but from the fear of it’ (the appropriate position of North Vietnam despite U.S. bombing).
‘It must have a sophisticated alien enemy in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfill the doctrine of acreage; too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively for fortified posts.’ (The U.S.A. is made by Hanoi’s ‘greatest weapon,’ propaganda, to appear as ‘a sophisticated alien enemy of Vietnamese people).
“It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2-per cent active in a striking force and 98-per cent passively sympathetic.'(i.e., the Tet offensive.)
” ‘They (the insurgents) must have the technical equipment to destroy of paralyze the enemy’s organize communications’ (a role assigned to the Vietcong’s new equipment from Moscow.)
VICTORY FORMULA…
“‘Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraic factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain.’
“Washington does not assume Lawrence’s logic for Southwest Asia fifty years ago is immutable for Southeast Asia today–but surely Saigon itself must do more to aright the balance.”… end quote…
RTR Quote for 12 April: LAWRENCE of Arabia, The Science of Guerrilla Warfare: “The few active rebels must have the quality of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply . They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyze the enemy’s organized communication’s”…
Lest we forget… Bear
