Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #816… THE RTR POST FOR 25 MAY, INCLUDING RIPPLE SALVO #811, CITED TWO REFERENCES FOR A 21 MAY 1968 MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE THAT WRAPPED UP WITH SECRETARY OF DEFENSE TELLING THE PRESIDENT THAT THE UNITED STATES HAD NO PLAN TO WIN THE VIETNAM WAR. Ripple Salvo #816 picks up the rest of the conversation conducted in Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s office on 24 May 1968… Secretary Clifford left that meeting thinking: “From my point of view, the struggle was for the President’s mind and heart, and Dean was always going to oppose me.”… but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED SIXTEEN of a return to Operation Rolling Thunder, the American air campaign that carried the bloody war from the battlefields of South Vietnam to the heartland of North Vietnam…
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on a rainy New York, Thursday, 30 May 1968 (Memorial Day 1968)…
THE WAR: Page 1: “COMBAT IS HEAVIER NEAR THE BUFFER ZONE–FOE’S RAIDS IN SAIGON AREA TERMED UNDER CONTROL”… “New and bitter fighting has fired up south of the demilitarized zone in this country’s northern provinces. The heaviest combat occurred two miles southwest of the Marine base at Khe Sanh yesterday where the United States command said 230 attacking North Vietnamese had lost their lives. In Saigon, however, enemy forays into the outskirts of the city are now under control, according to the South Vietnamese authorities, after four days of occasionally heavy fighting. South Vietnamese forces are conducting a cautious house-to-house search for snipers and the remnants of several enemy units that were forced to split up into small bands. Early this morning, four 122-mm rocket shells crashed into the Third Precinct just to the south of the heart of the city. Five civilians were killed and six, including three children, were wounded when two shells tore into a residential neighborhood. At least 49 enemy troops were reported killed yesterday in the Phulam residential section in the southwest section of the city. Four enemy soldiers were captured and a number of weapons were seized. The South Vietnamese said that four of their own men had been killed and 14 wounded. They also said that the enemy had burned a hundred houses in Phulam. In the northwestern part of the city around the Hngxuan Bridge, South Vietnamese troops are still searching for enemy snipers. About 8,000 people have been evacuated from the sections of the city where fighting is going on. Thus far, 19 civilians have been killed and 260 wounded. The heavy fighting in the northern provinces underscored the enemy’s continuing power to mount attacks in the north where the supply routes are shorter and heavy artillery just north of the DMZ can be brought into play.”…
PEACE CONVERSATIONS: Page 3: “HANOI SPOKESMAN ASSAILS JOHNSON–AIDE IN PARIS CHARACTERIZES PRESIDENT’S WORDS AS LIES”… “North Vietnam’s spokesman at the Paris peace talks accused President Johnson today of using “hypocritical, false, lying words’ in his comments yesterday charging Hanoi with obstruction of the talks. The spokesman, Nguyen Thanh Le, said at a news conference that ‘the obstinacy and perfidy of the American side’ were responsible for the lack of progress after five sessions of the talks. To blame Hanoi, he said, is ‘manifestly to substitute black for white.’ In Washington yesterday the President said the North Vietnamese were using the Paris talks for ‘fantasy and propaganda,’ while sending men and supplies into South Vietnam ‘at an unprecedented rate.’ He had just conferred with Cyrus R. Vance, deputy chief negotiator for the United States …SEES CRISIS IN CONFIDENCE… “There is a ‘crisis in confidence’ in Mr. Johnson, Mr. Le said, and continued: “Why this crisis of confidence? It is because American leaders have lied too much and too often. At some length, Mr. Le argued that it was the United States, not North Vietnam, that has escalated its military effort since the talks began. He cited a number of recent events as showing that the United States was ‘intensifying’ the war….” …Page 3: “VANCE NOT DISCOURAGED”… “Cyrus r. Vance said at the White House today that Americans negotiating with North Vietnamese in Paris are ‘not discouraged.’ Mr. Vance is at the White House for his second day of briefings to members of the Cabinet, leaders of Congress and other senior officials. Presumably, his statement to reporters contained the essence of the confidential accounts.”… Page 3: “JOHNSON STILL HOPEFUL”… “President Johnson said today he was hopeful of progress at the Paris talks on Vietnam peace, but conceded that ‘we haven’t made much to date.’ “…
Page 3: “DR. SPOCK SAYS DEAL LED TO HIS ARREST–Defense Contends At Trial That Mayor Lindsay Had Agreed”… “Boston: The arrest of Dr. Benjamin Spock at Whitehall Street Induction Center in New York last December 5 was prearranged by Mayor Lindsay, Dr. Spock, and the New York City Police Department, his defense counsel said today at the conspiracy trial for the famous baby doctor and four other prominent opponents of the draft. Dr. Spock’s involvement in the Whitehall Street demonstration has been cited by the Government in charging that he engaged in a conspiracy to help young men to resist the draft and to disrupt induction centers throughout the country.”… Page 1: “FLIERS HUNTING FOR SCORPION HEAR MESSAGE– SEARCH IS PUSHED–SCORPION’S CODE NAME RECEIVED ON BROADCAST 110 MILES OFF NORFOLK”… “A Navy patrol plane flying about 110 miles east of Norfolk picked up a radio message tonight that identified the sender by the code name of the missing nuclear submarine Scorpion.”... Page 1: “DE GAULLE GOES TO RURAL HOMME AMID SPECULATION HE WILL QUIT–Rival Factions Seek Successor–Early Move Seen–Left Appears To Back A Coalition Behind Mendes-France”… “President de Gaulle slipped away to his country retreat today, his authority virtually in ruins, as opposition political leaders struggle to fashion a replacement for his failing regime. There was widespread speculation that he would resign.”… Page 1: “ITALY’S SOCIALISTS TO LEAVE REGIME–Hurt By Losses In Election–They Force Moro Party To Seek New election”… “Italian Socialist leaders smarting under election losses, voted tonight to quiet the center-left Government and remain out until their partner=s agreed to a left-leaning program to win back working class support.”… Page 1: “KENNEDY PLEDGES TO QUIT IF BEATEN IN CALIFORNIA BID–Agrees To TV Debate This Weekend With McCarthy After Oregon Defeat”…
30 MAY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… No coverage of air operations north of the DMZ by New York Times… ‘VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES” (Chris Hobson) There were three fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 30 May 1968…
(1) LT J.S. KILLIAN was flying an A-4F of the VA-212 Rampant Raiders embarked in USS Bon Homme Richard in a strike group attacking an oil storage area 12 miles northwest of Vinh. On his first diving attack firing 2.75-inch rockets from LAU-60 Rocket Pods he incurred engine vibrations which increased in severity as he headed for the Gulf of Tonkin about 20 miles away. Lt. Killian was able to nurse his Skyhawk 30 miles to sea before having to eject as the engine failed. He was rescued by a Navy helo crew and returned to Bonnie Dick to fly and fight again… Humble Host bets at least ten U.S. Navy aircraft shot themselves down during Rolling Thunder using the Lau-60 pods. The pod of rockets came with a cover on the front of the pod that the rockets were fired through. As a consequence, the result was a sky full of debris immediately available for potential ingestion into the aircraft intakes. And we kept on using them…
(2) COLONEL N.P. PHILLIPS was flying an F-105D of the 469h TFS and 388th TFW out of Korat on a strike in Steel Tiger and found a set of trucks about 20 miles west of the DMZ. On an extremely low, fast strafing pass he was hit by automatic weapon fire . He converted speed to altitude and as the Thunderchief gave up the ghost he ejected into hostile country. He was rescued, at night, by Pararescue Specialist SGT. THOMAS A. NEWMAN….The heroic rescue is a story told in the AIR FORCE CROSS Citation for SGT NEWMAN… “…extraordinary heroism in military operations against an opposing armed force as an HH-3E Helicopter Pararescue Specialist in Southeast Asia on 30 May 1968. On that date, Sergeant Newman voluntarily descended into a hostile jungle environment to rescue a downed American pilot. With complete disregard for his own life, and hampered by darkness and concentrated enemy automatic weapons fire, he requested the rescue helicopter above him to enter nearby orbit, both for the safety of the crewmembers, and to prevent the hovering aircraft from establishing the survivor’s location for the hostile ground forces. When the rescue helicopter returned he secured the injured airman to the forest penetrator and protected him with his own body as they ascended to the helicopter.”
Sergeant NEWMAN also received the Airman’s Medal and Purple Heart. In 1969 he received the coveted Cheney Award for his heroism…. oohrah…
(3) CAPTAIN LEWIS PHILIP SMITH was flying an O-2A of the 20th TASS and 504th TASG out of Danang as a Covey FAC in a Steel Tiger area of southern Laos. On this day 50 years ago, 30 May 1968, CAPTAIN SMITH took off and flew out to do his duty–find the enemy and direct fighter-bombers to destroy the enemy– and didn’t come home. It is thought that he was downed by enemy ground fire 25 miles southwest of Kham Duc. Another aircraft in the area heard an emergency beeper but a lengthy search failed to find any trace of the young warrior who is presumed to have been killed in action but whose remains have not been recovered. CAPTAIN SMITH IS MISSING AND WAS LEFT BEHIND… The search goes on…
Added note: A 13 September 1968 statement by a Lao leader, Soth Pethrasi, commenting on a list presented by the Red Cross was monitored from Puerto Rico and mentioned “Smith, Christiano, Jeffords, and Mauterer” as being part of “several dozen captured American airmen’ whom the Pathet Lao were “treating correctly and who were still in Laos.” There were only three Smiths missing in Laos prior to 13 September … Lewis P. Smith is one of them.”… “Following the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements, 591 American prisoners were released from North Vietnam. Lewis Smith was not one of them. In fact, not one of the nearly 600 who were lost in Laos was released. Many of them survived their downing and some, like Smith sent emergency signals. Some were in voice contact and some were even photographed in captivity…. Among the hundreds of those unaccounted for is CAPTAIN LEWIS P. SMITH, who rests in peace, missing, but not forgotten, for 50 years and counting…
RIPPLE SALVO… #816…”THE STRUGGLE WAS FOR THE PRESIDENT’S MIND AND HEART”… Subsequent to the meeting on 21 May wherein Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary Clifford met again. Rusk suggested that the limit on the bombing of North Vietnam be moved north from the 19th parallel to the 20th parallel. Secretary of Defense Clifford saw a move to the 20th parallel as an escalation of the campaign at a time when we were striving for de-escalating of the war in the ongoing peace “conversations” in Paris. Clifford had referred to the 21 May meeting as “grim” in his memoir, COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT. Their meeting in Secretary Rusk’s office on 24 May went like this: Clifford’s memoir, pages 541-2, I quote…
“A few hours later (after the 21 May meeting), Rusk called me and, for the first time since I had become Secretary of Defense, asked to meet with me privately when it was convenient. When we met in his office three days later, there was none of the emotion that both of us had shown two days earlier. Rusk talked only about the need to bomb as far north as the 20th parallel. I listened to his suggestion that we send a few unannounced sorties north of the 19th parallel, and told him I still opposed the idea. Whatever his intention when he asked me for the meeting, he had decided he did not want to discuss any of the fundamental issues separating us. I saw no reason to raise them; I knew I could not convince him to change either his view or his style. From my point of view, the struggle for the President’s mind and heart, and Dean was always going to oppose me.”
(The issue of whether to expand the Rolling Thunder interdiction campaign from the 19th to the 20th was joined… Clifford: hold the line, Rusk: escalate to the 20th, which was where the President had originally drawn the line on 31 March.)
Clifford: “I suggested we call (Cyrus) Vance back from Paris to get his views. He returned to Washington May 27, and for the next three days he stayed at the White House and sat in every meeting. He was extremely negative about expansion fo the bombing. With his calm, methodical, unemotional style, he had an enormous effect on the discussions, visibly cooling down the hawks around the table. For the first time in almost two months I had an influential ally. After the first day of meetings, I half-jokingly told him he should come home much more often, as ‘it makes it so much less lonely for me here.’ In private, I explained to Vance why I opposed the relatively small step of bombing between the 19th and 20th parallels with such vigor: those supporting it, I said, would push for continued escalation if they got the first step. Vance backed by a cable from Harriman, succeeded in persuading Johnson to postpone any decision to move the bombing north to the 20th parallel again. The issue though, was far from resolved in the President’s mind.”…
UNITY OF COMMND…. NAPOLEON I : Maxims of War, 1831: “Nothing is so important in war as an undivided command.”…
RTR quote for 30 May: COMMANDER JAMES P. MEHL, USN: On 30 May 1967 Commander Mehl was nailed by a SAM a few miles from Hanoi and spent more than five years in the North Vietnamese prison system. He returned home March 1973 and contributed this comment on his POW experience to the book WE CAME HOME.
COMMANDER MEHL: “I was a Hanoi Hilton resident until March 4, 1973. Oh! great day! Life in Hanoi was long, hard, slow, and lonely. What sustained me, especially during those terrible first few years, were the happy memories of my life before capture. I had 38 good years in our wonderful country and figured that, no matter what would happen, I had received more than my share of good fortune on this earth and counted myself lucky even on the worst days in prison. I know now just how lucky I really am and I thank God for it. I have had the chance to compare the American way of life with those countries which are not as blessed as we are and I am absolutely certain that no sacrifice would be too great to protect it. My prayers are for a united, peaceful, and happy America.”
CAPTAIN MEHL passed away on 29 August 2017. Glory gained, duty done… Among his combat award were the SILVER STAR, the LEGION OF MERIT with COMBAT V, and the DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS. He was among the bravest of the brave…
Lest we forget…. Bear
