Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #397… One down, thousands to go… A turning point in protestation… but first…
Good Morning: Day THREE HUNDRED NINETY-SEVEN of a return to “the most concentrated bombing campaign in the history of air warfare”…
6 APRIL 1967… HEAD LINES and LEADS from The New York Times on a Thursday of April showers…
Page 1: “President Seeks Rise in Mail Rates and Federal Pay”... “President Johnson asked Congress today to increase the pay of Federal employees, both civilian and military by an average of 4.5-per cent. He also gave details of a requested increase in postal rates. Johnson on the pay raise: ‘The gap must be closed.’… Johnson on postal rates: First class and air mail rates would be raised by 1-cent to 6- and 9-cents, respectively.”... Page 1: “Cornell Fire Kills Eight Students and Professor”... “Eight Cornell University students and a 37-year old English professor died early today, asphyxiated by smoke from a fire in a two-story brick residence hall just off campus. It was the worst disaster in the 101-year history of Cornell University…The professor who died had escaped from the building but ran back to help rescue dozens of students. He succumbed to smoke inhalation.”… Page 1: “U.S. Is Proposing To Reduce Forces in Europe By 12,000”... “It is the first major troop cut in Europe since 1951 and would be part of a 3-nation accord. U.S. to redeploy 2/3 of one of six divisions in Europe. West Germany is non-committal on the proposal to withdraw the American troops.”… Page 1: “U.S. Relaxes Visas To Attract Visitors”... “The State Department announced today a relaxation of American visa requirements for foreigners. It is designed to stimulate travel to the United States in 1967–designated International Travel Month by the United Nations. A State Department spokesman said that nationals from 24 countries would become eligible April 15 for indefinite multiple entry visas to this country–good for a life time–provided the nationals met other requirements. Immigrant visas will not be affected by this new policy.”… Page 2: “A Mock Funeral of Liu Is Staged”… “Red Guards staged a mock funeral procession for President Liu Shao-chi today while wall posters announced that Mao Tse-tung’s widely circulated book of quotations was to be corrected to omit a five-line reference to President Liu.”…
Page 6: “Thant Asserts Peace is Distant and Warns of Wider War”... “Secretary General U Thant of the United Nations said today that prospects for peace in Vietnam ‘are as distant today as they were years ago.’ He warned anew that ‘because of the increasing intensification of the war there are more prospects of the war widening into a larger war and spilling over the frontiers.’ “…“Thai Premier Optimistic on War”... “Premier Thanon Kittikachorn of Thailand said today in Seoul that if the current allied military effort in Vietnam were kept up North Vietnam would agree before long to peace talks on terms that would be favorable to the allied nation.”… “Vietcong Reject Thant Plan”... “The Vietcong is rejecting Secretary General Thant’s three stage peace proposal saying it is beneficial only to the United States. The rejection which was announced on the clandestine Vietcong radio was reported by the official North Vietnamese news agency. The broadcast was monitored in Tokyo. The United States has accepted the Thant proposal, which was made public 28 March. It called for: (1) a general standstill in the fighting; (2) preliminary talks, and (3) the re-convening of the 1954 Geneva conference.”… “Willing to Hold Talks”... “The South Vietnamese Chief of State Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Thieu said today that if North Vietnam sincerely wanted to talk peace he would be willing to meet with President Ho Chi Minh at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnamese.”…
6 APRIL 1967…The President’s Daily Brief…CIA (TS sanitized): CAMBODIA: The government is moving fast to smash opposition activity which recently broke out in Battabang Province…We cannot be sure yet just what the trouble is. Sihanouk calls it a “pro-communist rebellion.” We knew that the government’s oppressive economic measures had sparked public resistance in the area earlier this year. Sihanouk may use the trouble to justify a crackdown on leftists who have recently been causing him political headaches in the capital. They want him to drop the moderate Lon Nol government, but Sihanhouk seems to be backing Lon Nol….LAOS: There has been a sudden and large increase in truck traffic from North Vietnam toward the Plaine des Jarres in Northern Laos. We do not yet know the reason for this increase. However, the dry season will end soon in northern Laos and the Communists may be stockpiling for the bad weather. There are no other signs of build-up for a Communist military operation….
6 APRIL 1967… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (7 Apr reporting 6 Apr ops) Page 4: “American jet bombers flew through heavy clouds over North Vietnam yesterday to attack an arc of missile sites on the outer fringes of Haiphong. A-6 Intruders from the carrier Enterprise had bombed missile sites 5 miles northeast and 7 miles west of Haiphong. They also struck at a fuel shipment point 6 miles to the northwest. Pilots reported that heavy clouds and darkness had prevented a damage assessment.”…
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were four fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 6 April 1967…
(1) CAPTAIN WILLIAM GEORGE SIPOS and CAPTAIN JOHN ROBERT MINUTOLI (US ARMY) were flying an O-1E Bird Dog of the 20th TASS and 504th TASG providing cover for a special operation 15 miles west of Danang and were downed by ground fire. Both CAPTAIN SIPOS, the pilot, and CAPTAIN MINUTOLI, an Army observer were Killed in Action on this day fifty years ago. They died going forward on the battlefield in the service of our country. Two brave hearts stilled…
(2) and (3) Two O-1E FAC aircraft were destroyed by enemy mortar fire on the ramp at Quang Tri. Aircraft assigned to 504th TASG.
(4) An F-4B of the VF-114 Aardvarks embarked in USS Kitty Hawk was lost on a training flight when the aircraft entered a high-speed stall/spin and the pilot was unable to recover from the spin. Both aviators ejected and were rescued to fly another day…
RIPPLE SALVO… #397… Catalyst: An agent that provokes significant change… Example: College students burning their draft cards. A series of draft card burnings between 14 December 1966, when Cornell University student Bruce Dancis burned his draft card amidst Cornell faculty and a crowd of 3,000, and 15 April 1967, when about 200 students, more than 50 from Cornell, burned their cards in a Central Park ceremony to the cheers of thousands, opposition to the war escalated from protest to demonstration, from challenging official government policy to dissociation with the government.
The following is quoted from Thomas Powers’ “Vietnam: The War at Home” (pages 188-89)
“On March 2, 1967, five other members of the Cornell group issued a formal call proposing that at least five hundred students pledge to burn their cards in New York on April 15 as part of the Spring Mobilization (led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Dr Benjamin Spock). The idea was that students afraid to act alone wold be prepared to burn their cards as part of a larger group. If five hundred students failed to agree, the pledge would be nonbinding. The Cornell group’s call marked the beginning of an entirely new stage in the opposition to the war. They did not simply protest official policy, but disassociated themselves entirely from the government, and, if need be, the country that sanctioned the policy.”
Powers quotes from Ferber and Lynd’s “The Resistance”...”The armies of the United States have, through conscription, already oppressed or destroyed the lives and consciences of millions of Americans and Vietnamese. We have argued and demonstrated to stop the destruction. We have not succeeded. Murderers do not respond to reason. Powerful resistance is now demanded: radical, illegal, unpleasant and sustained.”
There was another draft card event in this time frame that provided energy to the “radical resistance.” On 6 April 1967 (NYT: 7 Apr Page 6) the following: “Draft Card Burner Sentence to 2 1/2 Years in Prison”... “David Miller 24-year old convicted draft card burner was sentenced today in Federal Court to 2 and 1/2 years in prison for failing to get a new draft card. Miller had received a three-year suspended sentence for burning his draft card on the condition that he would get a new draft card within 15-days, a condition he failed to perform.”… Federal Judge Harold Tyler, Jr. said he understood Miller’s position but added: “I must be concerned for the thousands of our men in Vietnam, many of whom, I am sure, are just as opposed to this war as you are.”
In April 1967 the draft eligible college students across the country were presented an opportunity to take the “Cornell Pledge” to join the mass to burn their draft cards as a united group–united against the government. Humble Host will keep you posted with RTR daily posts on how this specific group of resistors fair in 1967 and 1968 following the “rules for radicals” of the times: “We have argued and demonstrated to stop this war. We have not succeeded. Powerful resistance is now demanded: radical, illegal, unpleasant and sustained.”
CAG’s QUOTES for 6 April: BERTRAND BARERE: “The tree of liberty only grows when watered with the blood of tyrants.” ... PATTON: “To be a good soldier, a man must have discipline, self-confidence, self-respect, pride in his unit and in his country.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
