Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #760… THE SEVEN DAY BATTLE REPORT … AND… A REQUEST FOR “ARDENT PRAYER” by Senator Robert F. Kennedy… but first…
GOOD MORNING: Day SEVEN HUNDRED SIXTY of remembering the events, participants and the bravery, sacrifice and service of “the other generation”–the non-Greatest Generation– that fought and won the Vietnam war fifty years ago. At what cost? …
HEAD LINES from the Ogden Standard-Examiner for Thursday, 4 APRIL 1968, THE DAY DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DIED…
Page 1: “PEACE QUEST CALLS LBJ TO HAWAII–EARLY TALKS LOOM IN SOVIET UNION”… “President Johnson has agreed to direct contacts on peace between North Vietnamese and U.S. representatives and will fly to Hawaii late tonight to discuss peace and war prospects with top American officials from Saigon. Washington is understood to have messaged Hanoi informing the government of President Ho Chi Minh of U.S. readiness to meet for initial contacts on peace talks.”… Page 1: “REDS EXPECT SESSION IN MOSCOW”… “Soviet informants said today they expect preliminary Vietnam peace talks to begin in Moscow next week. They said the North Vietnamese have already assured the United States privately they will launch no major offensive if all American bombing attacks are halted.”…
Page 1: “U.S. RELIEF COLUMN NEAR KHE SANH; SIEGE LIFTED?”… “Advance elements of a big U.S. relief force drove through light enemy artillery and mortar fire today to within a half mile of the besieged Marine combat base at Khe Sanh. With resistance continuing light, Soviet informants in London said the North Vietnamese were lifting the long siege of Khe Sanh as evidence of good intention in preliminary peace talks. However, about 80 rounds of enemy artillery and mortar fire hit Khe Sanh and Marines striking out from the base were reported engaged in fighting with the North Vietnamese in hills to the west. A U.S. spokesman said he expected some of the 20,000-man relief force to link up with the 6,000 Marines inside Khe Sanh by nightfall for the first breakthrough in the siege of the fortress, now in its 11th week. Marines and helicopter-borne cavalrymen were pushing in three prongs toward the base. Reports from the field said they were encountering sporadic artillery and mortar fire but little resistance.”… Page 3: “KHE SANH MARINES RELAX AS RELIEF COLUMNS NEAR”… “With field glasses you can see the allied relief column approaching this besieged U.S. Marine base. But even though a combined relief force of U.S. Marines and Army air cavalry had not arrived late today, there was an air of relief in Khe Sanh. Weary Marines, who have lived through three months of almost continuous artillery, rocket and mortar siege, lounged in bunkers. They watched as helicopters from the advancing relief force fired rockets and machine guns at suspected enemy positioned around Khe Sanh…”
Page 1: “KENNEDY AND NIXON EVEN AMONG BRITISH BOOKIES”… Page 1: “Peace Bid Boosts Humphrey Stock”… Page 2: “Asia Peace Aides Offer Experience”… Page 1: “TWISTERS, DOWNPOURS PUMMEL WIDE-REGION–13 PERSONS DIE”… Page 5: “Peace Bid Stirs World Hope”… Page 4: “Senators To Hold New Hearings On F-111 Aircraft”… Page 5: “Pentagon Studies New Proposal For Airborne Antimissile Defense”…
4 APRIL 1968… PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF (CIA, TS-SI) VIETNAM: A Moscow domestic broadcast early today carries the first public Soviet reaction to Hanoi’s official statement of yesterday. It said the significance of Hanoi’s step, “taken with positive intentions for peace, is difficult to overestimate.” Hanoi’s move, the statement goes on, “creates real prerequisites for the liquidation of tension on Southeast Asia.” Now it is up to the US to respond, Moscow said….NORTH VIETNAM: Foreign Shipping to North Vietnam in February. Ship arrivals dropped sharply in February after the record high in January. 92,500 tons of seaborne imports in February (on 29 foreign ships) were less than half the January figure (46 ships)… (THE UNTOUCHABLES: ALL SAFE AND SOUND IN HAIPHONG AND CAM PHA ANCHORAGES AND HARBORS…)
STATE DEPARTMENT. OFFICE OF HISTORIAN. HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS. FOREIGN RELATIONS. 1964-68. VIETNAM: Four documents of note are dated 4 April 1968. Document 179, to quote Rostow as he bucked this memo from General Maxwell Taylor to the President, “Herewith as usual Gen. Taylor produces a lucid and cogent memo on the first phase of the negotiations with Hanoi.”… Rolling Thunder remains a leading topic for discussion… Three STARS… Document 180 is a summary of a phone conversation between Harriman and Clifford discussing who the participants will be in the first round of peace talks… Good old General Goodpaster gets the nod for the military side… One STAR… Document 181 is a phone conversation between U Thant of the UN and the President…mutual admiration but interesting…Three STARS… Document 182 is a very short telegram to get the State Department’s choice for the initial meeting for talks and proposed Geneva on 8 April… Three STARS…
179. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d179
180. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d180
181. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d181
182. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d182
4 APRIL 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… OGDEN S-E (AP/UPI)… No coverage of air war to north… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 4 April 1968…
From the compilation “34 TFS/F-105 History” by Howie Plunkett: 04-Apr-68… Pistol flight from the 34TFS flew a non-counter mission into Laos. The flight took off at 0725 and returned after flying 3 hours and ten minutes. The line-up: #1 Major Roger Ingvalson; #2 Major Seymour Bass; #3 Colonel James Stewart; and #4 Major Sam Armstrong… Major Armstrong recorded in his logbook his second non-counter combat mission. ” Major Armstrong’s log: “We were sent on an O-1 FAC down in southern Laos to cut a road. We made good passes a though visibility was less than 2 miles down low. We all hit real well and caused a dirt slide onto the road. Afterward we swung up north and asked Cricket for clearance into Pack I. They would not clear us into NVN so we came home with a non-counter. Don’t know if this has to do with LBJ’s announced bombing pause.”…
Humble Host flew #132…led a flight of four to work with FAC in South Vietnam. We bombed his smoke with 5 MK-82s each on 5 runs in a race-track pattern on a target the FAC labeled supplies… “Obliterated a chunk of jungle… on target but no secondaries… just a great day for flying and bombing… Almost like a bombing pattern on the ranges at Fallon and Yuma” (this was note on back of my kneeboard card for #132) … Only Day/VFR mission in log that bombed in South Vietnam.
RIPPLE SALVO… #760… OGDEN S-E, 4 APRIL 1968, PAGE 1:
“SEVEN DAY BATTLE REPORT–U.S. DEATHS DIP, INJURIES RISE IN WEEK OF VIETNAM WARFARE”…
“The number of Americans killed in the Vietnam war dropped slightly last week, but the total of U.S. wounded soared to the highest for a seven-day period during the conflict. At the same time, the U.S. troop strength increased by 5,000 to 516,000, the highest number ever listed for American forces in South Vietnam. South Vietnamese government casualties were up sharply from the previous week, while the listing of enemy killed was in the same range as a week earlier.
“The U.S. Government said 330 Americans were killed in action last week as compared with a week earlier. The number of wounded was 3,886, spokesmen said, as compared with 1,965 wounded in the week ending March 23. Of that 3,886 total, 1,829 were hospitalized but 2,057 did not require hospitalization, the Command said. A spokesman said there was no immediate explanation of the sharp rise in the number of wounded, and that a study was being made in an effort to determine why the total had gone up so sharply.
“The U.S. Command, in its weekly summary, said 3,289 enemy were killed last week by allied forces as compared with 2,223 a week earlier. The South Vietnamese command reported 2,872 enemy were killed last week but a week earlier, the South Vietnamese had listed enemy dead at 3,428. The total of enemy killed each week often conflicts in the separate reports issued by the two commands… The latest casualty reports from the U.S. Command raised to 20,775 the number of Americans killed in action in the Vietnam war since January 1, 1961, taken by authorities here in Saigon as the starting date of the conflict. The number of American wounded in the war increased to 127,868. Of that total, the command said, 67,346 were hospitalized and 60,522 did not require hospitalization.”
Humble Host reminds: The Vietnam War claimed 47,434 Battle Deaths with an additional 10,786 “other deaths” in the theater. Total in-theater deaths: 58,220… Total non-mortal woundings: 153,393. (VA #s) Five years of war in the Vietnam quagmire to go… Draft call per month running about 30,000 to maintain force of 525,000 in Southeast Asia…
Humble Host adds to the record of 4 April 1968.. As the sun was setting that day…
4 APRIL 1968, 6:01 P.M. MEMPHIS TIME… DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. ASSASSINATED… Senator Robert F. Kennedy, on the campaign trail for the Democratic nomination for President, was sitting in a charter aircraft on the ramp at Muncie, Indiana about to takeoff for Indianapolis and a large street rally in one of the cities black wards when he was advised that Dr. King had been assassinated. Upon arrival in Indianapolis his staff confirmed that the first word was the final word–Dr. King was gone.
Arriving at the rally, it was immediately apparent that the crowd of about 1,000 mostly black folks had not heard the news. I quote from “The Year the Dream Died” (Witcover)…
“The candidate, hunched in a black topcoat against the night chill, climbed out and told the event organizer that he wanted to speak at once. After a perfunctory introduction, he began with somber and wavering voice: ‘I have some bad news for you, for all our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world. and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.’ A gasp ran through the crowd, and some isolated screams of ‘No!’ But not everyone grasped at once what Kennedy had said, and the mood of celebration continued among some, wh applauded and cheered incongruously as he pressed on. Finally, by his own grave demeanor as well as by his words, he got through to them what had happened. The extemporaneous remarks, delivered from the few scanty notes Kennedy was able to assemble on the sober ride from the airport, provided one of the most poignant moments of the eventful year.” … RFK spoke…
“Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black–considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible–you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization–black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.
“For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed,but he was killed by a White man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
“My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ‘In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.’ What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
“So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, That’s true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love–a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We’ve had difficult times in the past. We will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder. But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want justice for all human beings who abide in our land. Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentile the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.” End quote…
RTR Quote for 4 April: YOUNG, Night Thoughts: “Prayer ardent opens heaven.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
