Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #350… ANGRY VOICES OR VOICES OF REASON?… but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED FIFTY of a trip back fifty years to a 20th century “charge of the light brigade”… it was called OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…
18 FEBRUARY 1967…HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy, cold and snowy Saturday in NYC…
Page 1: “Kennedy Predicts Abortion Reform”...”Senator Robert F. Kennedy told a high school audience here on Long Island today that: ‘There are obvious changes that have to be made in the state’s abortion law.’ It was the first time the Democratic Senator, a Roman Catholic, had spoken out on the subject since the introduction of a controversial bill on abortion reform in the current session of the New York state legislature. Last Sunday the state’s eight Roman Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter ‘most strongly’ urging all Catholics to fight ‘with all their power’ efforts in liberalizing the state’s abortion laws.”…Page 3: “Senator Kennedy Planning On Early Statement on Vietnam Policy”… “Senator Kennedy said today he would soon make a major statement on Vietnam…in the immediate future…probably in the Senate. He also told a gymnasium full of high school students: ‘I have serious reservations about the effectiveness of the military bombing in Vietnam.’…”…Page 1: London “Commons Favors Birth Control Aid”... “A measure to provide birth-control information and devices unconditionally to any woman, married or unmarried, who wants them received an unopposed second reading in the House of Commons today. This virtually assures final passage of the bill which was cheered by the members.”... Page 1: “Free City University Tuition is Backed By Mayor”… “Mayor Lindsay said yesterday that he still favored free tuition for students at the City University…his position was given as a new controversy developed over Lindsay’s surprise proposal to have the City University become an ‘autonomous unit’ of the State University so that the state would assume the cost of the local system.”…
Page 3: “Tito Sees Danger of World War III”… “President Tito of Yugoslavia told his Austrian hosts during his state visit here of his grave concern that a third world war might result from the combination of the war in Vietnam, the turmoil in China, and the possibility of a China-Soviet rupture. The Yugoslavia leader told the Austrian Chancellor Josef Klaus he feared the Chinese might cut off overland transport of Soviet military aid to North Vietnam. In this case, Marshall Tito said: ‘Moscow would have to supply the Hanoi regime by sea, raising the strong possibility of a serious incident between a Soviet ship and United States warships of planes seeking to blockade Vietnam.’ “… Page 3: “Goldwater Asks Increase in War”…”Former Senator Barry Goldwater accused President Johnson tonight of creating a ‘sanity gap’ in Vietnam. The Republican Presidential nominee in 1964 said that when the United States suspended bombing in North Vietnam during holiday truces, the enemy violated the truces to build up supplies and ammunition. Mr. Goldwater spoke to the Young Republicans National Federation–an audience of 500.”...Page 1: “Maoists Indicate Foes are Balking Push for Control”… “Reports from communist China indicated today that the opposition was slowing Mao Tse-tung’s drive to install a more rigorous system and leadership. Information from the Maoist controlled press and radio also indicated persistent uncertainties among Maoist partisans on how to cope with what was described as devious and stubborn opposition.”…
Page 3: R.W. Apple aboard USS Bainbridge in Gulf of Tonkin… “Tin Can Sailors Call Ships Off Vietnam Heaven”… ” ‘Coming here from an old-fashioned destroyer is like going from hell to heaven,’ said a young officer today. The Bainbridge constitutes one-third of the only nuclear powered task force in the world, which is now in the Gulf of Tonkin. She is a heavy destroyer, or frigate. In addition to the frigate in the nuclear powered group are the carrier Enterprise and cruiser Long Beach...The role of the Bainbridge in these kind of wars is undramatic. Day after day she cruises in the wake of the Enterprise ready to pick up a pilot who misses the deck or to repel any attack by a North Vietnamese torpedo boat…Sailors describe their job as ‘puppy dogging behind the Big E.‘ So far in 10 months she hasn’t picked up a downed pilot or seen a hostile ship.”…
18 February 1967… The President’s Daily Brief (PDB) …CIA (TS sanitized) SOUTH VIETNAM: Prime Minister Ky and Chief of State Thieu are eying each other like a pair of fighting cocks just before combat. This is the way one South Vietnamese politician describes the present relationship of the two leading presidential hopefuls in Saigon. The rivalry is, in fact, becoming increasingly open, though both men realize the dangers of a split in the military and will probably seek some kind of accommodation before it is too late. Meanwhile, we are again beginning to hear broad hints that Ky would like very much to visit the US this spring. Among other things, he thinks it will help him politically… SOVIET UNION: The Laotian Government has, as expected, granted the Soviets overflight privileges for several round-trip flights between Moscow and Hanoi. The flights–which are to bypass China–will be by way of Pakistan, India, and Burma. We have not yet heard whether these three have agreed to the flights… SOVIET UNION: The Soviets are harassing the two US Destroyers cruising in the Black sea Thursday. (Not to come within 40 miles of land) Aircraft–including supersonic bombers–have repeatedly overflown the ships, a Soviet tanker tried to force a collision yesterday, and today a Soviet destroyer is shadowing them. Both ships are due to exit the Bosporus tomorrow. (HUMBLE HOST notes: Ironically, on this day, 50 years later– the Soviets are harassing US destroyers in the Black Sea and have positioned a spy ship off the US mainland to eavesdrop)… Cold War II…
U.S. State Department Office of the Historian FRUS, 1964-68 Volume V, Vietnam 1967 Document #85. “Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State”... (Ambassador Thompson to Secretary Rusk)… This is pertinent and interesting report from Ambassador Thompson to Secretary Rusk that details a long conversation (3 pages) with Kosygin after he returned from Paris and the unsuccessful SUNFLOWER peace initiative… attached to this RTR for reference and continuity…The document is at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d85
18 FEBRUARY 1967…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (19 Feb reporting 18 Feb ops)… R.W. Apple aboard USS Enterprise… “On a Carrier: Butcher, Baker, Geiger-Count Taker”…”Only a handful (260) of the 5,000 men aboard the Enterprise (‘Airedales’) fly. the rest do jobs that are required to keep a floating city afloat: they cook, weld, guard, repair, clean, paint, shave, sell, pray, write and command.’…” The remainder of a three thousand word report profiles numerous sailors at their work stations… Page 15: “Foe Lists 3 U.S. Craft Down”…”Three United States aircraft, including an unmanned reconnaissance drone, were shot down over North Vietnam today according to Hsinhua, the Chinese press agency. There was no American confirmation.”… (Bear in the air: #s 32/33{n}: two Milkys DMZ/Tchepone)… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 18 February 1967:…
(1) CAPTAIN DAVID HENRY DUART and CAPTAIN JAY ROBERT JENSEN were flying an F-105F Wild Weasel of the 13th TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat in support of B-52 operations near the DMZ. No SAM activity led the SAM Killers to take their mission north into Route Pack II near Vinh where they found and attacked an active SAM site. Unfortunately, the site had a missile in the air that found their F-105 and knocked a wing off. CAPTAIN DUART and CAPTAIN JENSEN successfully ejected, but were captured and interned as POWs for six years. Both pilots were on their 13th mission when downed…
(2) An AC-47D Gunship was destroyed on landing at Binh Thuy. the crew of seven survived the accident.
(3) An RC-47 Radio intelligence aircraft was destroyed at its parking spot at Tan Son Nhut when a China Airline aircraft ground looped into the RC-47s revetment.
RIPPLE SALVO… #350… “THE LONELY VOICES OF SENATORS ERNEST GRUENING AND WAYNE MORSE”…
In March of 1963 I was a new student at the U.S.Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey. Housing was tight and I was late getting there with my wife and two babies. We took up residence in covey of rental cabins in Pacific Grove catering principally to the students at the Defense Language School. I was the only Naval Officer in the little neighborhood. All the other cabins were home to Green Berets getting ready to “advise” in South Vietnam. For the next two years I studied war, they went to Vietnam to live it. Not to worry, the war would go for another nine years and there was plenty of war in Vietnam for me and about 3 million other Americans.
Midway in my two years at Monterey Senator Ernest Gruening gave a speech on the Senate floor that is now called “the first full-length speech delivered in Congress criticizing the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.” His was a lonely voice. His voice was heard. In fact, the Senator, along with Senator Wayne Morse, were heard incessantly on the subject of the Vietnam War as dissenters of the first degree. Angry voices or voices of reason?… Heard but not heeded.
Senator Morse spent hours using an “open mike”– Senators can speak to their heart’s content every day at 5:00pm to get their remarks on the record– on the Senate floor to instruct in the rule of law, separation of powers and how the Gulf of Tonkin had given the power of the legislature to the President.
Humble Host submits that history has validated the remarks and voices of both Senator Gruening and Morse as voices of reason in the years of the Vietnam War. Their words of wisdom are equally applicable in the world of hurt our nation is in today. The following are extracted from the 10 March 1964 speech by Senator Gruening. Would that every member of congress and the new President ponder this timeless call for reason … I quote… Senator Gruening…
“The mess in Vietnam was inherited by President Johnson…The roots of the present dilemma of the United States reach back to 1955 and to the years of condoning corruption, misrule, and repression. Diem lost whatever support he had from the people through use of US money and US arms. Where do we turn now for our solution in South Vietnam?
“The United States must start with one basic truth which should be constantly reiterated: the fight in South Vietnam can only be won by the South Vietnamese. Even if the United States would or could, the fight in South Vietnam cannot be won my making of that country a colony of the United States. The French tried and failed, even though they used a quarter of million troops.
“The question is this: after 20 bloody years of conflict, have the people of South Vietnam and Government of South Vietnam the will and capacity to fight to win? Putting it in other terms, Mr. President, has the present Government of South Vietnam the ability and stability to wage the fight or is it obliged to look over its shoulder constantly in fear of another coup?
“If there is no heart to fight the people of South Vietnam, the sooner we face that fact the better off we shall be. Since a victory in South Vietnam can come only through a victory by the South Vietnamese themselves. If the people and the government do not want to continue the fight in a manner conducive to victory, it is contrary to the best interests of the United States to remain there.
“Some urge stepped-up military activity on the part of the United States, including carrying the war to North Vietnam. Even disregarding–which we should not–the grave possibility of drawing Red China into the fray in a Korean-type engagement, there are serious drawbacks to such a course of action. The first is the unwillingness of the South Vietnamese to follow such a course of action. The second, of course, is the fact that this is not solely an engagement between South and North Vietnamese. South Vietnamese are fighting South Vietnamese in a country divided within itself.
“In no area of our foreign policy is a reassessment of our foreign policy needed more than with respect to the policy we are pursuing in Vietnam. The United States should no longer permit the dead hand of past mistakes to guide the course of our future actions in South Vietnam.
“President Johnson, by virtue of the fact that his control of US foreign policy is so recent, is in the best position to make the reassessment of our foreign policy suggested by Senator Mansfield and not permit himself to be bound by a past made by his predecessors. The domino theory is not President Johnson’s–it is a theory advanced by Secretary Dulles during the Eisenhower administration and, as in the case of Cambodia, already proven fallacious.
“Had advice to withdraw been heeded 200 precious American lives would not have been lost. These are far more important than the billions of dollars we have now wasted in seeking vainly in their remote jungle to shore up corrupt dynasts or their self-imposed successors and a people that has conclusively demonstrated that it has no will to save itself. I consider the life of one American worth more than this putrid mess. I consider every additional life that is sacrificed in this forlorn venture a tragedy. Some day–not distant–if this sacrificing continues, it will be denounced as a crime.
“I would ask any colleagues and indeed American fathers and mothers this question: ‘If your son is sent to Vietnam and is killed there, would you feel that he died for our country?’
“I can answer that question myself. I would feel very definitely that he had not died for our country, but had been mistakenly sacrificed in behalf of an inherited folly.
“Let us do a little hard rethinking. Must the US be expected to jump into every fracas all over the world, to go it alone, at the cost of you youngsters lives, and stay in blindly and stubbornly when a decade of bitter experience has shown us that the expenditure of blood and treasure has resulted in failure?
“Shall we not, if taught anything by this tragic experience, consider that of the three alternatives. First, to continue this bloody and wanton stalemate; second, to go ‘all out’ for a full-scale invasion and the certain sacrifice of far more lives and scarcely less doubtful outcome; or, third, to pull out with the knowledge that the game wasn’t worth the candle. The last is the best of these choices.
“In the event of determining on that last and least happy alternative, we shall no doubt be told that the United States will lose face in Asia.
“I doubt whether w shall lose face, whatever that may mean. But if it be interpreted by some whose opinion should give us small concern. I say better to lose face than to lose the life of another American boy, or a score, or another 200 of them doomed in varying numbers as long as we stay on.
“Would South Vietnam go Communist if we get out? Probably, but it will doubtless do so in any event. What would the loss of a million men, or 2 million, or 5 million matter to the jam-packed nation of 700 million that is mainland China? Their lives mean nothing to their own bloody rules who have liquidated vast numbers of their own. but our own American boys lives would mean everything to our own Government and people if sacrificed in a cause in which we should never have engaged.
“Of course, it is a source of regret whatever a new policy entity appears to be falling behind the iron or bamboo Curtain. But why should we persist in seeking to prevent the inevitable, in impossible terrain, for a people who care not, in the most distant spot on the globe? It makes no sense.
“Moreover, there is considerable question whether South Vietnam, even if overrun by indigenous Vietcong, will not constitute another problem for Beijing as it was for the French, as it has been for the United states. It might well prove an aggravation of Red China’s considerable internal troubles.
“But surely we have no business there, if we ever did.
” I urge the President to take steps to disengage the United States immediately from this engagement.
“All our military should immediately be relieved of combat assignment. All military dependents should be returned home at once. a return of the troops to our own shores should begin.
“this is a fight which is not out fight into which we should not have gotten in the first place. The time to get out is now before the further loss of American lives.
“Let us get out of Vietnam on as good terms as possible–but let us get out.”… Unquote…
Senators Gruening and Morse were ignored for years. By the time our leadership heard and heeded, more than 58,000 young Americans had been killed in action and hundreds of thousands wounded. For what?… Then came Afghanistan. Did our experience in the Vietnam quagmire not teach us anything?… No. So now we are more than a dozen years into a war with no end in sight. America, are you listening? We have generals that want to add 5,000 more troops to the forces of freedom in Syria this month!! Syria? Another quagmire. Quagmire of quagmires… Are we stupid?
For a superb reference on the subject I recommend the 2011 doctoral paper (300 pages) of D. Wayne Beggs: “The Dissent of Senator Ernest Gruening and Senator Wayne Morse” available on-line at: http://etd.ohiolink.edu
CAG’s Quotes for February 18: Fred the Great: “The best battles are those where we force the unwilling foe to accept them.”… Patton: “A great politician is not of necessity a great military leader.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear
