Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #730… “IN HIS SEVEN YEARS IN THE PENTAGON, MR. McNAMARA NOT ONLY SERVED LONGER BUT ALSO UNDOUBTEDLY ACCOMPLISHED MORE THAN ANY OF HIS PREDECESSORS IN REVAMPING THE HUGE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT…. If the praise was accompanied by criticism, it was because there was one area–relations with Congress–that Mr. McNamara never mastered or completely understood.”…. but first…
Good Morning: Day SEVEN HUNDRED THIRTY of a remembrance of the events and participants of Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing of North Vietnam fifty years ago…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Tuesday, 5 March 1968…
THE WAR IN VIETNAM Fifty Years Ago Today: Page 3: “PENTAGON IDENTIFIES MEN KILLED IN WAR”…”The Defense Department today (4th) identified 188 American servicemen killed in Vietnam. Included in the list were the following men from New York and New Jersey…. NYT, 6 Mar, Page 5: “U.S. IDENTIFIES MEN KILLED IN VIETNAM”… “The Pentagon today (5th) identified 120 American servicemen who were killed in combat in Vietnam…” Two days of war and 308 young warriors– Gone! –names for a wall… Brave souls to be remembered.”
Page 1: “G.I.s AND ENEMY BATTLE 8 HOURS NORTH OF SAIGON–FOE LOSES 10 MEN IN ATTACK IN AREA OF EARLIER AMBUSH–Planes Aid U.S. Troops–Government Forces Kill 42 In Turning Back Another Thrust ;Near Capital”… “United States troops sweeping north of Saigon near the scene of an ambush in which 48 Americans died were attacked yesterday afternoon with rocket-grenades and automatic rifles. (An American Major General explained the enemy ambush: “This engagement was a classic example of a properly executed ambush.”) Jet fighter-bombers and helicopters armed with machine guns swarmed in to support the Americans, but the enemy held them in combat for eight hours, withdrawing only after nightfall…. Three Americans were killed and 12 wounded in the action about five and a half miles northwest of Saigon’s Tansonnhut air base. Ten of the enemy were killed….. Three miles north of the air base, about a mile from where the troops of the United States 25th Infantry Division were ambushed two days ago, other Americans opened fire in the early afternoon and killed three of the enemy….In another action, A Government battalion repulsed a ground and mortar attack on a town 12 miles north of Saigon early today. They killed 42 enemy troops with light own casualties… Some 240 miles northeast of Saigon at Tuyhoa, allied troops repulsed two attacks yesterday on a government post, killing 206 of the attackers… About 100 miles farther north, American infantrymen reported killing 59 enemy soldiers in seven hours of fighting. Eighteen Americans were wounded….Enemy troops have attacked more than 30 South Vietnamese cities and hamlets and allied combat bases and air strips throughout the nation yesterday and today… In an attack on a hamlet called Ducduc, 345 miles northeast of Saigon, enemy forces killed 24 persons, wounded 84 and destroyed 150 homes. Most of the dead were civilians… The Marine outpost at Conthien 2 and a half miles south of the DMZ is being shelled daily. Allied intelligence believes that a North Vietnamese Division is in the DMZ within a few miles of Conthien and another enemy division is believed to be in the middle and western parts of the zone and two other divisions have been identified in the vicinity of Khesanh, to the southwest and near the Laotian border.”…. The enemy fired 100 rockets and mortar shells at the Marines on Khesanh yesterday. Meanwhile, B-52s and dozens of smaller fighter-bombers bombed the approaches to the base.”…(Many of these sorties were diverts from Rolling Thunder)…”
Page 1: “HANOI SAYS DRIVE OPENED NEW PHASE”...”North Vietnam says that the Lunar New Year offensive throughout South Vietnam was a ‘new step forward in controlling the battlefield’ and the start of a ‘new situation’ both politically and militarily, in the ear. As a result of the offensive, Hanoi contends, the United States military effort in South Vietnam is at a turning point. These views are set forth in a lengthy appraisal of the Vietnam situation that appeared Wednesday in the North Vietnamese Army newspaper. The 2,500-word editorial, entitled ‘Big Victories,’ was distributed today at the United States Mission.”…
Page 1: “JOHNSON RECEIVES A PUEBLO LETTER–IT IS PURPORTED TO BE FROM THE CREW AND URGES U.S. TO APOLOGIZE FOR INTRUSION”… “…members of the captured intelligence ship appealed for ‘assistance in our reparation’ by a public apology to North Korea. The State Department announced that the 800-word letter, apparently signed by a majority of the 82 surviving crewmen was handed to United States negotiators at a meeting at Panmunjom last night. The session was the tenth in a series of private conferences with the North Koreans in the stalled effort to negotiate release of the Pueblo and her crew….” Page 1: “Senate Cuts Off Debate On Rights By Scant Margin–65-322 Vote Clears The Way For Bill On Open Housing and Protection of Negroes–Several Curbs Beaten–Backers Predict Passage of Strong Plan, But Outlook In House Is Gloomy”… Page 1: “Johnson Health Plan Asks Stress On Doctor Training”… Page 1” Vice President Humphrey Doubts A Riot Panel View–Says Idea That U.S. Moves Toward Two Societies Is Open to Challenge”… Page 1: “Nasser Concedes Error In Accusing U.S. In June War–Remark That He Had Faulty Data On Planes Helps Open the Way To Renewal of Ties With U.S.”… Page 9: “Political Unrest Persists In Persia–Posters Reflect Struggle of Extremists and Moderates”…
5 MARCH 1968…THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF (CIA/TS)…North Vietnamese Reflections of US Political Attitudes On the War: Hanoi Assays the U.S. Position: Senate Robert Kennedy’s remark about the South Vietnamese Government as a ‘government with no support’ was featured last Friday in another of Hanoi’s lectures on why the US cannot win. All this came in the Vietnamese language broadcast of an article by military theoretician Chien Binh. Binh’s thesis essentially was the Tet campaign put the US on the defensive and the Americans cannot recover no matter how many more troops are brought in. Interwoven through this was a recitation of the theme that the Thieu government was collapsing (here Senator Kennedy was quoted). Aside from the senator, Binh buttressed his arguments with liberal citations from western press items opposed to the war or pessimistic as to its outcome….
State Department, Office of the Historian, Historical Documents, Foreign Relations 1964-68, Volume VI Vietnam: Document 105: The Notes from the Lunch Meeting on Tuesday, 5 March 1968, the first such muster without Secretary McNamara present. The President: “It appears we are about to make a rather basic change in the strategy of this war.” Worth a look: Read at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d105
5 MARCH 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (6 Mar reporting 5 mar ops) Page 1: American pilots flew 71 combat missions over North Vietnam. In one of them, Air Force bomber pilots struck for the first time at the Hadong shipyard six miles southwest of Hanoi. There was no report on damage… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were two fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 5 March 1968…
(1) CAPTAIN W.T. ABBEY was flying an O-1F of the 21st TASS and 504th TASG out of Nha Trang and was downed by ground fire while en route to an assigned target area to conduct visual reconnaissance. CAPTAIN ABBEY put the aircraft down and was rescued with minor injuries… Up and ready…
(2) An EB-66E of the 41st TEWS and 355th TFW out of Takhli suffered an engine failure during an electronic jamming mission and crashed in Thailand with all 3 crewmen surviving to fly and fight again…
Among the 71 missions flown were 20 A-6 Intruder missions into the heartland, in the weather, at night. One carrier– the Enterprise– was on the noon to midnight, and the other big deck–Kitty Hawk– was on the midnight to noon. …Humble Host logged two flights on 5 March: a 1.8 A-4F test flight (I was the squadron aircraft maintenance officer and reserved the test hops for self) and I led a wingman on a twilight Directed Air Support mission under FAC control to put 5 Mk-82s, each, on a 37mm flak site north of the DMZ as the sun was setting. Returned to ship in the dark for #113… Major Davis Dickson of the 34 TFS out of Korat flew his 94th to a target in Route Pack III on Route 7… the 34th’s “Pistol” flight, led by Bob Moore logged a similar mission over North Vietnam.
ROLLING THUNDER… #730… The Sunday New York Times, 3 March 1968, Page 3E, Essay by John Finney…
“McNAMARA LEAVES ON A NOTE OF SADNESS”… I quote…
Washington — “Despite a chorus of accolades from President Johnson on down, There was a note of personal sadness–even of personal tragedy– in the departure last week of Robert Strange McNamara as Secretary of State. In his seven years in the Pentagon, Mr. McNamara not only served longer but also undoubtedly accomplished more than any of his predecessors in revamping the huge military establishment.
“Implementing a move begun by his predecessor in the Eisenhower Administration, he established firm central control over the previously warring military factions in the Pentagon. In a $75-billion-a-year budget and programming. At considerable cost, he succeeded in recasting the military forces so they had a conventional as well as nuclear capability..
‘BOB’ AND CONGRESS…
“It was as an administrator that Mr. McNamara made his reputation. It was primarily as an administrator that he was praised on his departure. If the praise was accompanied by some criticism, it was because there was one area–relations with Congress–that Mr. McNamara never mastered or completely understood. One Democratic Senator, a personal friend of the Secretary, summed up the situation by quoting Al Smith’s observation that in business you can tell people what to do, but in politics you have got to sell them. ‘Unfortunately, Bob, as a former business executive, never understood the latter point,’ the Senator said.
“In a system where Congress is a sometimes cantankerous board of directors, Mr. McNamara came to annoy Congressional committees with an assertiveness that at times seemed to border on arrogance. The glibness with which he could cite figures seemed at times designed more to obscure an issue than to clarify it. His unwillingness or inability to admit a mistake rubbed the politicians the wrong way. It was the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy that put the first dent in the seeming infallibility. Using Mr. McNamara’s own cost-effectiveness approach, the committee proved that the Secretary was wrong in opposing construction of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and forced him to reverse himself, although too late to include nuclear power in the carrier John F. Kennedy.
“The Senator John McClellan’s Government Operations Committee inflicted more political dents by questioning the Secretary’s judgment on the selection of a contractor for the experimental TFX fighter plane. Meanwhile the Home Government Operations committee was challenging his cost saving claims.
“But the real good that he was in deep political trouble on Capitol Hill came when Senator John C. Stennis, a respected member of the ‘Senate Establishment,’ began questioning Mr. McNamara’s military budget judgments in the Vietnam war. With his Senate Preparedness subcommittee, Senator Stennis set out to prove that Mr. McNamara, to finance the Vietnam operations, had dangerously drawn down conventional military forces and supplies in the rest of the world.
BOMBING ISSUE
“In hearings last summer Senator Stennis also brought our into the open a policy split between Mr. McNamara and the military chiefs over the value of the bombing of North Vietnam. When President Johnson sided with the military and approved new bombing targets recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr McNamara’s political credit seemed to start going down at the White House s well as on Capitol Hill, and the wise ones in Congress began suggesting it was only a matter of time before the Secretary departed from the scene.
“The misgivings that started on Capitol Hill gradually spreading to the business community and the public at large. When Mr. McNamara underestimated the 1967 defense budget by $10-billion, his infallibility was further damaged. But in the opinion of some of his Senate friends, Mr. McNamara’s biggest mistake came in the final week of the job., in dealing with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in its inquiry into the Gulf of Tonkin incidents in 1964. Showing little political sensitivity, he released his statement against the committee’s advice. He offended the committee further by the didactic way in which he refused to acknowledge that perhaps in 1964 he had not fully informed Congress about the details of the Tonkin incidents–in particular, that the destroyers were on an intelligence gathering mission.
“Robert McNamara found himself trapped by his own personality and the system he helped create. He probably could have stopped the Foreign Relations Committee inquiry long ago if he had only disclosed that in addition to the conflicting battle reports from the destroyers, the Administration possessed intercepted North Korean (Vietnam???) radio messages demonstrating that there was an attack. But he was unwilling to acknowledge that the evidence initially presented to Congress was insufficient proof. Furthermore, he was dissuaded from making the radio messages public on the grounds this would compromise the vast electronic intelligence gathering system he helped to create.
DAMAGE DONE
“In essence, the Administration and Mr. McNamara had to weigh the damage to the intelligence system against the damage to his and the Administration’s credibility if the committee inquiry proceeded. In the end both were compromised. The intelligence information was made public, but not soon enough to prevent the Senate committee from raising serious charges about the incidents that got the nation into his war against North Vietnam. And in the process, Mr. McNamara left the scene with his image as a decision-maker tarnished and his personal integrity challenged.
“With such criticism ringing in his ears and the Vietnam war weighing on his mind, it was little wonder that the normally fast-spoken Secretary should have choked with speechless emotion when President Johnson, at a farewell White House ceremony, described him as a ‘brilliant and good man.’ It was a judgment even his critics would second.”… End Quote…
RTR Quote of 5 March: SUN TZU: “Anciently the skillful warriors first made themselves invincible and waited the enemy’s moment of vulnerability”…
Lest we forget… Bear…
