Bear Taylor 
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Good Morning: Day SIXTY of a Bear’s marathon review of Operation Rolling Thunder…
28 APRIL 1966 (NYT)…ON THE HOMEFRONT… Page 1: “Kennedy Assails Sanctuary Policy”…Senator Robert Kennedy wasted no time taking issue with the previous day State Department statement that “there is no sanctuary” for aircraft that attack our aircraft over North Vietnam. The Senator expressed concern over Red China’s response to our air attacks. “The New York democrat also criticized the dispatch of United States fighters and bombers over North Vietnam where, he said, they invite attack by Communist planes and thus increase the danger of escalation of the conflict.” Bottom of page 1: “U.S. Aides Doubt Downed MIG Was Peking’s”…One of the American pilots in the 2 v 2 engagement reported that one of the two MIG21s carried the markings of China. However, there was no evidence that was the case and it was concluded that the enemy fighters were North Vietnamese, but were possibly flown by Soviet pilots… Page 2: “Kennedy Statement On Bombing in Vietnam”…”We must face the fact that what we need most is a unified effort within South Vietnam. We must have some certainty that the people of South Vietnam can engage such a unified effort that they have the will and the ability to organize their society and their government to continue the fight. This is where we should now be devoting our best efforts and talents. We must face the fact that there is no quick or easy answer to Vietnam. There is some agreement with our overall course in Vietnam. But even accepting our basic policy, it appears to me neither prudent nor wise to under take risks of a still wider war until some progress has been made in achieving the stability that is essential for the successful prosecution of our efforts in Vietnam.”…Page 4: “U.S. Fliers Says 2 of His Missiles Struck MIG21 Over Vietnam”… USAF F-4 pilot MAJOR PAUL T. GILMORE and his GIB, 1LT WILLIAM T. SMITH, related their kill at a press conference. MAJOR GILMORE: “We sere attacked by the MIG, I maneuvered to his six, and fired my first AIM-9 (Sidewinder heat seeker). I did not notice that the MIG pilot ejected at that point and fired a second missile that missed. My third missile went up the tailpipe and it went down.”…Also page 4: “Vietnam War Curbs Nation’s Science.” Dr. James E. Wiesner of the President’s Science Advisory Committee stated that the U.S. will spend $15 billion in 1967 an increase of less than 2% from 1966 and that “we need a 6-per cent growth in research every year just to stand still…to keep up with inflation, equipment and instrument costs, and the salaries of people you want to keep in the laboratory.” The impact of the underfunding will result in a “knowledge slowdown.”… Page 5: “4000 Officials Lost to Vietcong in 2 Years”…Vietcong terrorists killed or abducted leaders at all levels of both government and communities and it is estimate that it will take generations to replace the senior level officials. The total number of Vietcong victims in 1965 was 11,000 killed, wounded or abducted. Thus far in 1966 the total is 4,338…
28 APRIL 1966…ROLLING THUNDER OPS… Light schedule…Only aircraft lost: An F-4G from VF-213 embarked in USS Kitty Hawk. LT R.A. SCHLITZ and LTJG C.C. LEWIS were executing a rocket attack on WBLCs 15 miles northeast of Thanh Hoa when hit by small arms fire from the junks and an engine fire ensued. The aircraft was flyable but the fire and engine problems led to the crew to eject to be rescued by a Navy helicopter 60 miles from shore…
RIPPLE SALVO… The Messina Straits… I had the great honor and privilege to command two great :United States Navy ships, the replenishment oiler USS Kalamazoo (AOR-6) and the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CV-43), and in the course of my cruises in the Mediterranean, to steam through the Straits of Messina several times. These are historic waters made famous first by Homer and his cruises. The Messina passage from the north to the south put Homer between Scylla on the port and Charybdis on the starboard. And as the Greek myth goes, the passage was very difficult because Scylla was a monster that protected his shoals and great rocks (the toe of Italy) and devoured men who came too close. On the starboard side (the northeast corner of Sicily) Charybdis was equally dangerous arising from great whirlpools that overwhelmed craft of the era. It was my routine to invite the crew (who were not on Special Sea and Anchor Detail or other duties) to come on deck for these passages through historic waters. I took pleasure in taking my sailors back to Homer’s travels and retelling the story of a “rock and a hard place” over the ship’s intercom. Everybody lives through tough times caught between “a rock and a hard place,” but few get to actually sail through that historic patch of water shoals and crossing traffic–non-stop ferries– that gives another name to a difficult dilemma.
Relevance??? President Lyndon B. Johnson was between a rock and a hard place in attempting to lead our nation in a full scale war in Southeast Asia and holding off the PRC and the Soviet Union on the one hand, and nurturing his “Great Society’ into being on the other. Guns and /or butter? But LBJ didn’t refer to his dilemma as “a rock and a hard place,” he had a better way to describe his predicament. This quote is from Presidential historian Doris Kearns interview with LBJ shortly after his retirement…
” I knew from the start that I was bound to be criticized either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved–the Great Society–in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs. All my hopes to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. All my dreams to provide education and medical care to the browns and blacks and the lame and the poor. But if I left the war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser, and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.”
History is the teacher. Ponder this: It matters not who “wins” the Presidency in November. He or she better come on the bridge with a skilled Special Sea and Anchor Detail at the ready, because the same dilemma that LBJ faced for his entire presidency remains dead ahead where the shoals and whirlpools await our battered and broke ship of state….
Lest we forget…. Bear ………… –30– …………
