Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #351… THE POST-TET DEBATE AND THREE JCS PACKAGES… but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-ONE of a look-back of 50 years to the air war called ROLLING THUNDER…
19 FEBRUARY 1967… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a clear cold Sunday in New York City…
Page 1: “Crime Panel asks Sweeping Reforms in Study”:...”The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and administration of Justice called today for sweeping changes in criminal administration throughout the nation…the changes are necessary to achieve a reduction in crime…the 18-month study proposed 200 recommendations that varied from controversial demands for birth control programs and a guaranteed income to non-committal positions on the death penalty and wiretapping…” Page 1: “Governor To Seek Widened Subsidies For the Poor”... “Governor Rockefeller will ask the legislature tomorrow to extend the states rent subsidy program to permit more low income families in state aided middle income housing…”… Page 1: “J. Robert Oppenheimer, Atom Bomb Pioneer, Dies”… “Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist died here in Princeton, N.J. tonight at age 92…The physicist took part in the development of the first atomic bomb.”… Page 6: “Optimism Wanes On Atom treaty as Parley Nears”… Geneva…”W.C. Foster and Aleksie A. Roshchin, the Chief United States and Soviet Union negotiators held their second meeting today in preparation for the resumption of negotiations Tuesday on a treaty prohibiting the further spread of nuclear weapons. Much of the earlier optimism about the prospects for an early agreement has been lost as a result of the state of Soviet-American relations.”…
Page 1: “Vietcong Shells Hit City, Airfield and Army Posts”... “The Vietcong fired mortar shells at targets in or near provincial capitals today but the surge of heavy fighting subsided for the first time since the lunar New Year holiday truce ended Monday. It was a three pronged attack on Bentre, 40 miles southwest of Saigon, a nearby airfield, and a Government Ranger position…100 mortar rounds were fired, killing 3 civilians and wounding 31. Meanwhile, B-52s carried out a record total of 12 bombing raids in the past two days; seven in the central highlands.”... Page 10: “Albania Adapting Red Guard Tactic”…”Enver Hoxta, the Albanian Communist Chieftain has launched a youth movement somewhat similar to the Red Guard of Chairman Mao Tse-tung in China…A campaign using wall posters to attack officials acting against the party line was opened by Mr. Hoxta, who said in a speech on 8 February: ‘The declared aims of the Chinese revolution center on replacing old habits, culture, customs and ideas with new ones attuned to Chairman Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.’ “
Page 8: “Kosygin Confers with U.S. Envoy in Moscow”... “Llewellyn E. Thompson, the new U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union met in the Kremlin today with Premier Aleksei Kosygin to discuss the future of Soviet-United States relations. The meeting came as Moscow and Washington faced crucial decisions on the war in Vietnam and on further deployments of costly anti-missile defense systems…Angry Soviet reaction to the United States resumption of bombing last Monday clouded peace hopes. Nevertheless, the Soviet stand seems to have thawed slightly, opening the possibility that Moscow will take a more active role in reaching a settlement of the war in Vietnam.” (Humble Host note: the Ambassador’s summary of this meeting was transmitted to the Secretary of State in a letter dated 19 February and referenced in RTR 18 Feb 2017)…Letter at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v50/d85
U.S. State Department Office of the Historian … Document 86. “Letter From the Ambassador to Vietnam (Lodge) to President Johnson.” On 19 February 1967 Ambassador Lodge submitted his letter of resignation to the President. Lodge tells the President he “has already achieved great things.” It is an enlightening letter. I found this paragraph of particular interest as an assessment of how the “containment of China” was going in 1967…I quote: “Outside of Viet-Nam that whole great area of islands and peninsulas reconstituting the edge of East Asia, going from Korea south, then west to Burma, and southeast to New Zealand (and containing 370 million people) is denied to the expansionism of Peking. To be sure, the current situation is dangerous, but if we had been pushed out of Viet-Nam, or if we had abandoned Viet-Nam, the tide would have turned towards Peking and a catastrophe of global dimensions would have ensued. This would have involved us in a far more acute danger. Thus your policies, looked at in their most fundamental sense, actually tend away from escalation and towards peace, even though the other side is not yet ready for negotiations.”… the letter is at…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v05/d86
19 FEBRUARY 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (20 Feb reporting 19 Feb ops) Page 14: “In the air war over the North continuing poor weather limited the number of missions to 82. North Vietnam gunners were credited with shooting down a F-105 F just north of the DMZ. Both crewmen are listed as missing. (CAPTAINS DUART and JENSEN captured/POWs, see RTR 18 Feb)… The loss brings to 475 the number of aircraft shot down in the North.”...
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) there was one fixed wing aircraft lost on 19 February 1967…
(1) CAPTAIN D.B. COUCH was flying an F-100D of the 614th TFS and 35th TFW out of Pham Rang and engaged a VC target 10 miles south of the base when hit by small arms fire. CAPTAIN COUCH turned seaward and ejected to be rescued by an HH-43 from Tuy Hoa.
RIPPLE SALVO… #351… The President hosted a meeting on 16 February with Secretary McNamara and Gen Wheeler to discuss targeting. (see RTR for 17 Feb). Out of that meeting SecDef and CJCS went to the drawing boards to come up with what the President requested: every possibility for accelerating action in the South and the North with alternatives and possible consequences of each possible action. The following is from “The Pentagon Papers (Gravel edition),” pages 144-146... I quote…
“More Targets: The Post Tet Debate…
“The failure of the Tet diplomatic initiatives once again brought attention back to measures which might put more pressure on the DRV. CINCPAC’s January targeting proposals were reactivated for consideration in the week following the resumption of bombing. In early February, before the pause, CINCPAC had added to his requests for additional bombing targets a request for authority to close North Vietnam’s ports through aerial bombing. Arguing that,’a drastic reduction of external support to the enemy would be a major influence in achieving our objectives…,’ he suggested that this could be accomplished by denying use of the ports. Three means of closing the ports were considered: (1) naval blockade; (2) air strikes against port facilities; and (3) aerial mining of the approaches. The first was rejected because of the undesirable political ramifications of confrontations with Soviet and third country shipping. But air strikes and mining were recommended as complementary ways of denying use of ports. Closure of Haiphong alone, it was estimated would have a dramatic effect because it handled some 95% of North Vietnamese shipping. In a related development, the JCS, on February 2, gave their endorsement to mining certain inland waterways including the Kien Giang River and seaward approaches.
“In the week following the Tet pause the range of possible escalator actions came under the full review. The President apparently requested a listing of options for his consideration because on February 21, Cyrus Vance, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, forwarded a package of proposals to Under Secretary Katzenbach of State for comment. Vance’s letter stated, ‘The President wants the paper for night reading tonight.’ The paper Vance transmitted gives every indication of having been written by McNaughton, although that cannot be verified. In any case, it began with an outline ‘shopping list’ of possible actions with three alternative JCS packages indicated.”… Unquote…
This, of course, was the response to the President’s request made on the 16th. The package of proposals listed eight categories of action for accelerating (escalating) action against North Vietnam and Laos: (1) Destroy modern industry ( Thermal power, steel and cement, machine tools), (2) Destroy dikes and levees, (3) Mine ports and coastal cities, (4) Unrestricted LOC attacks to include-eliminate the 10-mile Hanoi prohibited areas, ditto Haiphong, ditto everything else except the China buffer zone, four ports of Haiphong, Hanoi, Cam Pha and Hon Gai, selected rail facilities (5) Expand Naval Surface operations (6)Destroy MIG airfields (7) SHINING BRASS ground ops in Laos (8) Cause interdicting rains in Laos. In addition, the package included a variety of miscellaneous actions like artillery into and over the DMZ, and a short-range of accelerating actions in the South. An analysis of each action taken singularly and in conjunction with other actions produced an estimated impact for each course of action. then the estimated result of increased action(s) was compared with current actions to produce a chart that showed the overall increase of doing any one of dozens actions. Whiz Kids at work… The conclusion of the proposal paper with respect to crippling Hanoi’s will to continue the war:… “the North Vietnamese would decide to continue the war despite their concern over the increasing destruction of their country, the effect on their people, and their increasing apprehension that the United States would invade the North.
The paper was read by the President in his “night mail” and he approved mining the inland waterways, an action that was taken by the carriers in the Gulf a two weeks later when the weather permitted.
Pentagon Papers: “The President approved only a limited number of the measures presented to him, by and large those that would incur little risk of counter-escalation. He authorized naval gunfire up to the 20th parallel against targets ashore and afloat, artillery fire across the DMZ, a slight expansion of operations in Laos, the mining of rivers and estuaries south of 20-degrees, and new bombing targets for ROLLING THUNDER 54. The latter included the remaining thermal power plants, except Hanoi and Haiphong, and a reiteration of authority to strike the Thai Nguyen steel plant and the Haiphong cement plant. The President was neither ready nor willing, however, to consider the mining of ports, nor for the moment, the removal of the Hanoi sanctuary. On 24 February the Secretary of Defense told a news conference that new targets might be added to the strike list, thereby preparing the public for the modest escalation approved by the President two days before (22 Feb) On 27 February U.s. planes began the aerial mining of rivers and coastal estuaries of North Vietnam below 20-degrees. …
Pentagon Papers: … “The slow squeeze was once more the order of the day with the emphasis on progressively destroying North Vietnam’s embryonic industrial capability…. But the President intended that the pressure on the North be slowly increased to demonstrate the firmness of our resolve. The President perceived the strikes as necessary in the psychological test of wills between the two sides to punish the North, in spite of near-consensus opinion of his advisors that no level of damage or destruction that we were willing to inflict was likely to destroy Hanoi’s determination to continue the struggle…”
The strategy of gradual defeat…
CAG’s QUOTES FOR 19 FEBRUARY: HUGO VON FRETAG: “the real secret of leadership in battle is the domination of the mass by a single personality.”… PATTON: “The Third Army alone with very little help and with damned few casualties could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear
