Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… “BLUE CHIPS”…
Good Morning: Day THIRTY-SEVEN of a look back of fifty years to Operation Rolling Thunder… “the air war…”
6 APRIL 1966… (NYT)… ON THE HOMEFRONT… Sunny in NYC and partly cloudy in Washington…Page 1: “Ky Stays Hand at Danang and Recants Red Charge,” as the Buddhists pressed their demands for an election–soon. Also demanding that the military junta and Ky be replaced by civilians. Ky’s admission of his error, retreat from Danang, and failure to act presented the opportunity for Buddhists to seize the initiative… Also on page 1: “Mississippi State Police Rout 1,000 Negroes With Gas and Clubs.” Report said more than 3,000 men, women and children fled coughing and screaming into a wooded area near Lorman, Mississippi…Alcorn A&M students continued their sit-in in the college president’s office….Page 1: The FDA reported that more than 2000 colleges and universities were selling illegal drugs (LSD) to support studies in psychology, and that “concerted action” would be required to curtail the practice…Page 3: A report out of Hong Kong: “Peking called on the Chinese people today to be prepared for war with the United States this year, next year, or sometime in the future. It was noted that this was the “400th serious warning” announced by the newspaper organ of the Chinese Communist Party. “It is the United States imperialists and not we who want war…Therefore we must prepare for war.”…Page 7: Headline, “US Planes Attack Rail Line to China Within 25-miles of Hanoi.” Strikes occurred on April 4 and included railroad segments 52 northwest of Hanoi and northeast toward Nanking and were called retaliatory for the VC bombing of the barracks in Saigon… B-52s hit targets near Hue… Small box and small print item on page 7: “Defense Department announced 24 U.S. Troops Killed in Action”….Other news: Navy and Marines stopped delaying discharges as recruiting made goals… The 4th 20-megaton H-bomb from the Palomares midair was located in 2310-feet of water and recovery was ongoing…Financial news: Bankers were “…urged to ration credit as the best course for fiscal restraint, thereby heading off a raise in interest rates.”…
6 APRIL 1966… ROLLING THUNDER… Bad day on Hancock…LT DENNIS PHILLIP COOK of the VA-212 Rampant Raiders A-4E squadron was Killed at Sea on a combat mission when his aircraft suffered a “cold catshot” and crashed off the bow of Hancock. Today marks the 50th anniversary of his death and disappearance into the South China Sea. He rests in peace and today he is not forgotten…
RIPPLE SALVO… “BLUE CHIPS”… On 26 April 1966 the military advisor to the President, General Maxwell Taylor, sent a letter to the President entitled, “Assessment and Uses of Negotiation Blue Chips.” Rolling Thunder was a Blue Chip, In fact, General Taylor ranked “the bombing of North Vietnam” the President’s #1 Blue Chip in diplomatic relations with North Vietnam and efforts to settle differences in Southeast Asia. In the General’s view of “the art of negotiation” it wasn’t advisable to give up any Blue Chips just to get the NVN to the table to negotiate, and certainly not the #1 Blue Chip. In his letter Maxwell listed the chips available to the President: (1) Cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam, (2) Cessation of military operations against Viet Cong units, (3) Cessation of increases of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, (4) Withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam, (5) Amnesty and civic rights for Viet Cong, and (6) Economic aid to North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese chips: (1) Cessation of Viet Cong incidents in the South, (2) Cessation of guerrilla military operations, (3) Cessation of further infiltration of men and supplies from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, (4) Withdrawal of infiltrated North Vietnamese Army units and cadres, and (5) Dissolution of repatriation of Viet Cong. Taylor went on to suggest how the American Blue Chips should be played. He concluded that the President should not make the mistakes made in Korean War negotiations, where the negotiations and hard bargaining were conducted all the while the fighting continued and casualties mounted more rapidly than prior to the negotiations.
So, why bring up “Blue Chips” now? (1) I never considered my role as a Rolling Thunder strike pilot as a part of a Blue Chip; and dear reader, you probably didn’t either. To which I conclude, I should be selling T-shirts that say “I was a Blue Chipper,” (2) All those bombing pauses that gave the North Vietnamese a few days to restock all their AAA and SAM sites were in effect useless moves that were made by the President to encourage negotiations, a move that was tantamount to the cessation of bombing before any negotiation was agreed to. In other words, contrary to the Maxwell lesson in negotiating. (3) As I observe the current events in the world I now think in terms of Blue Chips and how many our country has stacked at the table as opposed to what our respective adversaries have going for them. And that’s the discouraging part. (1) The “Blue Chips” that matter are POWER, POSITION and RESOLVE, just as they were in 1966 in SEAsia. And our beloved country has sacrificed all three in spades over the past twenty years with the predictable result that our ability to influence the behavior of other nations is on the wane. Even the JV rascals of the world are now calling our bluff, or worse, ignoring our proposals. And, (3) the bloody lessons of history are deemed of little value to the “progressives” who lead 21st Century America, and we are thus fated to relearn an old lesson. IMHO: Dominant power, the ability to bring it to bear at the right place at the right time, and the readiness and willingness to employ that power to the degree necessary to prevail, with or without negotiations, are now inadequate to meet the threats to our national security that will be required this decade. History is the teacher. So is General Maxwell and his short “Blue Chips” course in negotiating.
Lest we forget…. Bear ……………………………………. –30–
