Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #82…MAY 1966 DPM #2….
21 MAY 1966…(NYT)… ON THE HOME FRONT… A fair and warm Saturday in New York City…
Page 1: “Ky’s Troops Seize A Danang Pagoda: 2 Buddhists Slain,” and on top of that, government Skyraider aircraft strafed the defenders of the Buddhist sanctuaries, according to a wounded monk. The dissidents were also bombed as they were shelling the U.S base where 15 Americans were wounded at the Marine Headquarters. Four mortar shells hit the Marine building. Bitter fighting between the government Marines and the dissidents was sustained throughout the day after a dawn attack on the Tan Minh pagoda by Ky, who has ordered two more battalions of troops to Danang…. Page 1: “President And Aides Hear Bleak Report On Vietnam”… “Increasingly discouraging reports from South Vietnam were placed before President Johnson and his principal advisors at a White House meeting this evening (20th). The Western Alliance was the announced subject of the meeting, but officials indicated that the deterioration in Vietnam had concerned them for part of the time.” The concern focused on the threat of major violence in the next 24. New doubt that Ky could survive the conflict as the nation’s leader since he had provoked the fight with the Buddhist leaders, who want the General of the 1963 coup, Tranh Van Don, installed as Premier in place of Ky….Page 2: ” Buddhists Start Sit-down In Saigon”… “Thousands of Buddhists, including monks and nuns among 400 students have joined in the hunger strike. The young militants are a source of violence and in a clash with police tear gas was used to drive them back.” They had marched on Ky’s office and the U.S. Embassy prior to the confrontation…
Page 2: “Pacification Program In Hamlets Is Pressed By South Vietnamese” … The first class of 4700 South Vietnamese have completed a course in how to counter Vietcong propaganda. five thousand more will graduate from the 13-week course in the fall. The course is taught by a Revolutionary Development Cadre who have been schooled in anti-communist propaganda and political action. The Hamlet Pacification Program aims to install cadres of graduates in 300 of the country’s 15,000 hamlets in 1966. “The people have an important role in this type of war. The people are not allowed to be a neutral force. ( Mao: “The people are the sea in which the guerrillas swim,” and Alinsky would write: “The people are the sea in which the terrorists swim.”) The cadres have been taught how to gain the confidence of the people, meet their aspirations, and involve them in their own defense. The cadres will dress the same as the villagers, listen more than talk, and work together and share the people’s pleasure and sadness.” The concept is that “open arms and eventual amnesty” will lead to Vietcong converts…. Page 2: “LGEN Lewis Walt In Charge At Danang” and leads 30,000 Marines.
Page 4: “Sit-ins At Roosevelt University In Chicago” protesting the Selective Service providing college grade information to their draft boards. Twenty-five were arrested for trespassing. 250,000 more college students will take the deferment exms tomorrow. The results of the exam along with class standing and grades will be provided to draft boards. At a similar demonstration at Princeton the students presented their alternative to testing: abolish the testing; abolish deferments for graduate school students; install the lottery system similar to that used in World War II; and, don’t use the draft unless the requirement exceeds 30,000 per month and can’t be met by enlistees…
21 MAY 1966… PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEFING (CIA-TS sanitized)… “South Vietnam: Ambassador Lodge still trying to arrange a meeting between Ky and Thi with Lodge as mediator. At Danang fighting continues into the evening following the taking of the Tan Ninh pagoda this morning. There is still no indication what else “the struggle” forces may do to retaliate against this action. Saigon generally quiet.”
21 MAY 1966… ROLLING THUNDER OPS… NYT (22 May report for 21 May)… “Monsoon rains persisted over North Vietnam limiting the American air offensive north of the 17th parallel for the seventh consecutive day. the air Force flew 4 missions and the Navy 11… One aircraft loss in Rolling Thunder ops… LCDR FRED BALDWIN was fling an A-4C from VA-216 and USS Hancock on a coastal reconnaissance mission. During a strafing attack on a large barge 35 miles north of Vinh his aircraft was struck by ground fire. The minor damage led to cascading failures, including a fire, as he flew 90 miles back to the carrier. Unfortunately, the starboard landing gear would not extend and he was forced to eject. The Hancock helicopter rescued Fred and he returned to fly and fight another day…oohrah…
RIPPLE SALVO…#82… May 1966 DRAFT PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM cont…
The drafting of this memorandum is referred to in the Pentagon Papers as “The May DPM Exercise.” Anybody with a couple of tours in the Pentagon is familiar with the conduct of an “exercise.” Sometimes called a “drill.” Non-stop rushing to and fro by minions instantly responding to tasking by the heavy thinkers (Principals) who get the big bucks. Drafts lead to redrafts and continue ad infinitum. Copy machines never get a break. Heavies huddle around big mahogany tables and the air is saturated with words moving in every direction as the word-smithing creates diamonds out of old coal. Or so the authors think. Then comes most senior level participation–short discussion and a few blue pen corrections and Shazam… a document for further discussion in a room full of more important guys sitting around the table with a circle of back-benchers looking on in support of their respective heavies (sometimes called “Elephants,” those who reside in the E-ring of the Pentagon)…the Exercise moves to the next level…
Concurrent with McNamara’s civilians (Whiz Kids) under McNaughton working the Draft Memo, so too were the JCS, CIA, State and the President’s National Security Team led by Walt Rostow (a Hawk), who was taking inputs from McGeorge Bundy and William Ball (the Dove). Rostow and Bundy were old buddies and worked well together as they did on this drill. The purpose of the “air war in the north” was common ground, with general agreement: (1) to limit and harass infiltration and (2) to impose on the North sufficient military and civil cost to make them decide to get out of the war rather than later. The issue was how best to achieve these objectives. Rostow envisioned three alternatives, each with both advantages and disadvantages:
(1) Close the top of the funnel…mine the harbors and bomb the port facilities and perhaps establish a blockade. In addition, interdict the rail lines between Hanoi and China.
(2) Attack what is in the funnel, which is what Rolling Thunder had been doing into May.
(3) Concentrate on Route Packages 1 and 2.
“To Bundy’s way of thinking there were four broad target categories that could be combined into various bombing options:”
(1) Concentrate on supply routes below 20-degrees north.
(2) Restrike targets both above and below 20-degrees north.
(3) Add more targets in the “sensitive areas,” to include operational airfields.
(4) Level the tempo of ops at present level.
From “The Pentagon Papers”…
“The significant convergence of opinion on bombing strategy in the next phase of among key Presidential advisors could not have gone unnoticed…and the 19 May DPM did incorporate a bombing recommendation along these lines. Intervening before then to reinforce the views of civilian Principals were several CIA intelligence memos. Together they constituted another repudiation of the utility of bombing. The summary CIA view of the effect of the bombing on North Vietnamese thinking was:
“Twenty-seven months of US bombing of North Vietnam have had remarkably little effect on Hanoi’s overall strategy in prosecuting the war, on its confident view of long term Communist prospect, and on its political tactics regarding negotiations. The growing pressure of US air operations has not shaken the North Vietnamese leaders’ conviction that they can withstand the bombing and outlast the US and South Vietnam in a protracted war of attrition. Nor has it caused them to waver in their belief that the outcome on this test of will and endurance will be determined primarily by the course of the conflict on the ground in the south, not by the air war in the North.”
“By the 19th of May the opinions of McNamara and his key aides with respect to the bombing and Westy’s troop requests had crystallized sufficiently that another Draft Presidential Memorandum was written. It was entitled, ‘Future Actions in Vietnam,’ and was a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the war–military, political and diplomatic. It opened with an appraisal of the situation covering both North and South Vietnam, the U.S. domestic scene and international opinion. The estimate of the situation in North Vietnam hewed very close to the opinion of the intelligence community already referred to.”
The May exercise was over…sort of…
NEXT: The “air war” plan of the “Future Actions In Vietnam.”
Lest we forget… Bear ………. –30– ……….
