Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #365… WHAT WAS THE SECRET CODE NAME FOR THE AIR WAR?…but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED SIXTY-FIVE of a review of the air battles of the Vietnam War…
5 March 1967… HEAD LINES and LEADS from The New York Times on a rainy Sunday in NYC…
Page 1: “Johnson’s Panel Asks Draft By Lot, Beginning at Age 19”…”A radical reorganization of the military draft altering the methods and standards of selection has been proposed to President Johnson by the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service. The panel calls for a virtual lottery among all eligible 19-year-olds, which would work without impartiality throughout the country and determine a young man’s fate at an early stage of his career. The panel would also replace the nation’s 4,100 neighborhood draft boards with no more than 500 area centers applying uniform policies of classification and appeal…The President is expected to endorse most of the panel’s recommendations…”… Page 1: “Pentagon Hopes To Reduce the National Guard by 15 Divisions”…”The Pentagon is putting the final touches on a major reorganization of the Reserve forces that is likely to include the elimination of 15 National Guard divisions…the Joint Chiefs will recommend a sweeping recasting of the Reserves with the deactivation of several old units, the creation of some new ones, and the modernization of the resulting force, both in organization and equipment.”... Page 1: “Kennedy Disputes Rusk and Defends Peace Bid as New”... (This item is a follow-on from my 3 March RTR wherein Kennedy proposed a 3-step plan toward peace)… “Senator Robert F. Kennedy challenged today the government’s contention that last month the United States had tried without success–a peace approach with North Vietnam ‘substantially similar’ to the proposal he made Thursday. ‘This has not been tried before,’ he said, ‘because we have so far refused to accept the offer of Kosygin and Pham Van Dong to go to the negotiating table if we stopped the bombing of North Vietnam…Rusk said that an approach like the one presented to the Senate by Senator Kennedy had been tried last week and the week before.”… EdPages: James Reston: “Washington: Johnson and Kennedy on “Vietnam”…”The debate here on ending the war in Vietnam is now lost in a tangle of politics, ideologies, words and personalities, and this subjective war about Vietnam is getting in the way of the objective facts.”… Page 7: “Hanoi Says Growing Opposition Embarrasses U.S. Government”…“North Vietnam asserted today that the United States Government was in an awkward and embarrassing position after Senator Kennedy’s speech Thursday on Vietnam.”
Page 1: “Thant Sees No Basis Now for Optimism on Vietnam”... “..said today after talks with North Vietnamese representatives in Rangoon (Burma) that is now difficult for anyone to be optimistic about peace prospects in Vietnam.”... Page 1: “Marines Report 271 of Foe Killed”...”The United States Military Command announced today that a force of American marines had killed 271 North Vietnamese soldiers in two days of fighting along the demilitarized zone. At the same time it was announced that a 150-man company of Army 173rd Airborne Brigade had suffered heavy losses in fighting near the Cambodian border. Also reported: four American caused accidents killed 18 civilians and wounded about 45. All but 8 of the total were South Vietnamese.”... Page 5: “151 U.of Texas Faculty ask Bombing Halt”… “151 of 800 full time faculty members signed a letter to the President: “…many of your undertakings have made us proud to be your neighbors. We support your desire for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Vietnam. It is on this issue that we have been moved to speak our minds publicly at a time when you are faced with decisions of crucial significance to the entire world. We strongly urge you to order an immediate halt to the bombing of North Vietnam.”… Page 5: “Science Federation Urges Bombing Halt”... “The 2,000 member group issued what it calls a position paper that urges the United States to take steps that have the possibility of leading away from escalation towards a peaceful resolution of the Vietnam war.”…
Page 2: “Red Guards Influence in Maoist Cultural Revolution Found to be Waning”…”Communist China’s Red Guards ares still a significant force in Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution but reports indicate their activities and influence have diminished far below the peak level attained a year ago. Under increasing insistent ‘go home’ orders from officials, most of the out-of-town Red Guards have been slowly and reluctantly making their way back to the smaller cities and countryside from where they came. Surging by the millions across the face of China and congregating in the main cities the Red Guards have been the instrument for a wide scale purge of officials, the spreading of Mao’s revolutionary message and a reordering of government and party agendas, economic enterprises and social institutions. ‘We must establish a period of red terror and big disorder because only in this way is it possible to create a new world of Mao’s ideas.” (Humble Host: Hey, fellow citizens of the United States, read that last two sentences again– the game plan for OFA???)
5 March 1967…The President’s Daily Brief… CIA (TS sanitized) COMMUNIST CHINA: The army is playing an increasingly important role in restoring order. Besides knocking Red Guard heads together, troops have taken over administration of good-sized portions of the transportation network. It is also clear that Peking is counting on the army to get the crucial spring planting drive launched. Even an army drawn from peasantry, however, may not be able to clear up the mess left in the rural areas by the “cultural revolution.”
5 MARCH 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER...New York Times (6 Mar reporting 5 Mar ops)…Page 12: “Air Force and Navy jets flew 110 strike and armed reconnaissance missions Saturday. They hit mostly at supply routes and storage areas in the southern panhandle. Bad weather had limited air strikes to about 50 missions per day since January. In clear weather the United States planes fly about 120 missions per day… “Vietnam: Air Losses”(Hobson) There were no fixed wing losses in Southeast Asia on 5 March 1967…
RIPPLE SALVO… #365… Help… The air war over North Vietnam–the bombing campaign– was coded “OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER” and the code name was classified and remained classified from 1965 until the operation was terminated on 1 November 1968. In 1967 I wrote a short story about the air war and submitted it to the Chief of Information for approval for release. In the story I referred to the air war as ROLLING THUNDER. Everybody in the “chop chain” leaped all over my submission for including the ROLLING THUNDER label in my fictional tale. CINCPACFLT said, “If LCDR Taylor persists in his attempt to have this short story published, appropriate courts-martial action will be taken.”… I burned all copies... For the last 50 years I have wondered when “ROLLING THUNDER” went from being classified to unclassified. For the past year, in researching for this blog, I have been perusing the pages of the NYT and hundreds of periodicals, always with an eye for “Rolling Thunder.” Nada… The ground operations in the war made the press identified by their respective code names the day they kicked off. Not so with “Rolling Thunder”–why? While I continue my search for “Rolling Thunder” in the open press, scanning another 650 NYT over the next 20-months, if anybody out there has a clue, please share it… When did the code name “Rolling Thunder” become unclassified?… Thanks…
CAG’S QUOTES for 5 March: “GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST: “Get there fuhstest with the mostest.”… PATTON: “The real hero is the man who fights even though he’s scared.”…
Lest we forget… Bear.
