Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #703… LEADING CANDIDATES FOR THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON and GOVERNOR GEORGE ROMNEY OF MICHIGAN are on the campaign trail and taking shots at PRESIDENT JOHNSON’s VIETNAM POLICY and ROLLING THUNDER… but first…
Good Morning… Day SEVEN HUNDRED THREE of living the dream— swimming in the pages and archives of historical events and the makers of history, especially warriors, and specifically, the intrepid aviators of Rolling Thunder…
6 FEBRUARY 1968… HEAD LINES from The New York Times on a cloudy Tuesday in the big city… In “the year the dream died.”…
TET OFFENSIVE/KHESANH: Page 9: “The Department of Defense announced today the names of 151 American servicemen killed in action in Vietnam (identified 400 U.S. KIA yesterday)… Page 1: “STREETS OF SAIGON SHELLED IN DRIVE TO ROUT VIETCONG–BOMBERS POUND FRINGES OF CITY–A Police Precinct Overrun By Enemy–Foe Said To Lose 21,330–U.S. Puts Total Of South’s Dead At 1,169 and U.S. Toll At 546″… “South Vietnamese artillerymen shelled a small but densely populated area of Saigon last night and bombers pounded other areas on the fringes of the city in attempts to dislodge Vietcong forces. The attacks did not prevent the guerrillas from overrunning the city’s Eighth Precinct police station, South Vietnamese sources said. About 60 policemen had been defending the station. They apparently escaped the guerrilla encirclement… In Saigon an informed source reported that South Vietnamese paratroopers were in heavy contact with a guerrilla force estimated to number 500 men only a mile and a quarter north of Tan Son Nhut …using heavy supporting weapons…In Hue, 400-miles northeast of Saigon, Vietcong units were still holding out in part of the huge walled inner city known as the Citadel, as well as in the streets of more modern sections… in northern South Vietnam, the Marine outpost at Khesanh near the DMZ was struck by heavy artillery and rocket bombardment. Several hundred marines on the treeless, shell-pocked dome of Hill 861, which overlooks Khesanh to the northwest, threw back a strong North Vietnamese ground assault. Marines casualties on Hill 816 were described as light….The Vietcong’s Liberation Radio said in a broadcast that the present offensive would continue until the ‘final victory.’… Page 1: “U.S. Marines In Hue Drive wedge Into Enemy Units”… Page 1: “Ky Says Regime Will Arm Public–Loyal People To Get Special Training”… Page 14: “Civilian Toll High In Mekong Delta–Mytho and Cantho Hard Hit During Vietcong Offensive”...
Page 1: PUEBLO: “South Koreans Protest To U.S. Over Pueblo Talks With North–Secret Contact Cited–No Progress Reported”… Page 12: “Pamnunjom, Once Source of Peace Hopes, Is A Battlefield In War Zone”… Page 13: “Soviet Intrusions Near U.S. Listed–State Department Recalls Violations By Spy Ships”… Page 13: “U.S. Acting to Avert New Ship Seizures”…
Page 1: “President Seeks To Restrain Costs In Education aid–Message To Congress Urges Support For A New Goal–Freedom From Ignorance”… Page 15: Hanoi Indicates It No Longer Expects Washington To Accept Offer–Foe Asserts U.S. Wants No Peace–Administration Demand for Response to Halt Raids Against North Is Rejected”… Page 15: “Washington Blames Hanoi”… Page 27: “Chicago Worried By riot Potential In Conventions Summer As Racial Unrest in the Slums Increases”… “An already sizzling racial climate is worrying city officials pledged to maintain peace and tranquility during the Democratic National Convention here in August. Developments and conditions contributing to the volatile atmosphere include: (1) For the sixth consecutive school day, seven Negro eight graders who have transferred to a less crowded neighborhood white school were forced today to pass a gauntlet of white adults whose taunts have included ‘Kill the nig…s. (2) Hearings forced by segregationists were started tonight after noisy and heated white opposition last month forced the Board of Education to reconsider a plan to bus slum pupils to distant white schools with classrooms clear across town…(3) A South-side vocational school in a Negro neighborhood was sealed off by a police today after 400 students joined in demonstrations protesting cancelation of a shop course and transfer of its teacher…. ‘Chicago is as racist as ever, and as segregated as ever,’ said Reverend C.T. Vivian, a former aide to Dr. King. ‘Look at the bigoted reaction to the school busing plan. Look at the treatment of the seven little kids who transferred last week. A decade after Little Rock, we still have Little Rock in Chicago.’ “… Page 28: “Dr. King Rejects President Johnson’s Appeal”…”The Rev. Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr. rejected today an implied appeal from President Johnson to abandon a planned poverty protest march on Washington in April. He told a news conference that what he called the refusal of the country and Congress to respond to the needs of the poor made the march essential to dramatize the plight of the underprivileged. President Johnson told a news conference Friday that he hoped the leaders of the march would direct their talents and concerns in a more productive and effective manner. Dr. King came to Chicago to join other civil rights leaders in backing a planned march by one million mothers in American cities on Mother’s Day, May 12. The aim is to force the President and Congress to increase welfare payments and other aid to the poor…”
STATE DEPARTMENT, Office of the Historian, Historical Documents, Foreign Relations, 1964-68, Vietnam: Volume VI: Document 57: A memo from Walt Rostow to the President dated 6 February 1968 that summarizes the interrogation of prisoners and documents captured in the week of the Tet Offensive. This human intelligence leads to a conclusion “the virtually total absence of the usually elaborate VC withdrawal plans, as well as the ‘no-retreat’ instruction given to the units concerned, strongly suggests that it was believed that all they would have to do was seize their objective and hold it a brief period of time while the masses of the people and defecting South Vietnamese Army could be mobilized for their support.”… This is an interesting read, if you have time… at…
Doc. 57: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d57
6 FEBRUARY 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times: Page 14: “Hanoi Says It Downed Plane”...An American pilot was captured early today when the plane was shot down north of Hanoi, the Hanoi radio reported. It did not name the pilot…” (CAPTAIN CARL WILLIAM LASITER, USAF, POW)… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 6 February 1968…
(1) An O-1E Bird Dog of the 19th TASS and 540th TASG at Bien Hoa took a direct Vietcong mortar hit on the ground at Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border.
From the Compilation “34TFS/F-105 History” by Howie Plunkett: 06-Feb-68: “Major David Dickson from the 34 TFS, 388th TFW at Korat flew his 81st mission, an armed reconnaissance mission on Route 7 in Route Package III…
RIPPLE SALVO… #703… ON THE 1968 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN TRAIL WITH NIXON and ROMNEY: And their common target–The President.
NYT, 6 Feb 1968: Page 16: Albany, New York: “Romney In Albany With Rockefeller Says Johnson Leads to Ruination”… “Governor George Romney denounced President Johnson tonight for ‘leading this nation to ruination.’ the Michigan Republican, a candidate for his party’ Presidential nomination, attacked the President in some of the strongest terms he had ever used against him. With Governor Rockefeller one of his strongest supporters for the nomination, looking on and smiling his apparent approval, Mr. Romney, told the New York State Society of Newspaper Editors that, in 1966, the President had said that ‘a great nation breeds a great people.’… ‘This is a false philosophy,’ Mr. Romney said, departing from his text in a rising voice, ‘On the contrary, it is not a great nation that breeds a great people; it is a great people that builds a great nation. That is the difference between my philosophy and that of the man in the White House, who, in my opinion, is leading this nation into ruination.'”
Additional quotes: “The events of the past week have shown that the real strength of the enemy is in the extra support being given them by the people in South Vietnam. You can’t win a military conflict on a defensive basis, and if you limit your action, you’re on a defensive basis. What I want to say is that it is time for the President of the United States to level with the people of the United States and to tell them the truth.”
NYT, 6 Feb 1968: Page 17: Green Bay, Wisconsin: “Nixon Criticizes Curb On Bombing–Says U.S. Must ‘Prosecute War More Effectively'”... “Richard M. Nixon, accelerating his attack on President Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam war, said today that the Administration had been wrong to suspend the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong before the recent Communist offensive The former Vice President also said that Congress should not accept the Administration’s request for a tax increase until $8-billion had been cut from the Federal budget. It was the first time he had placed a figure on his cuts for calls in cuts in government spending…. at a news conference here, Mr. Nixon was asked whether he thought the Administration had been wise to halt the bombing of North Vietnamese targets in an effort to encourage peace talks. The bombing pause, which began January 18, was revealed Sunday by Secretary of State Dean Rusk. ‘No, I do not,’ Mr. Nixon said. He went on to suggest that the fact that the bombing pause had been followed almost immediately by a renewed Communist offensive merely demonstrated the folly of attempting to win over the Communists through peace overtures. Referring to the recent Vietcong attacks in Saigon, he declared: ‘I believe that these latest actions, the most aggressive of the war, coming on top of the recent peace offensive–cutting back on bombing, and softening the San Antonio formula (for ending the war)–points to the fact that the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong are not going to change their attitude by virtue of the U.S. protesting for peace.’ Mr. Nixon went on to say that ‘the only effective way to convince Hanoi that peace is in their best interests is to prosecute the war more positively.’
“The former Vice President has often said that he shared the Administration’s commitment to the war in Vietnam but disagreed with its methods of prosecuting the war. His comments today represented the sharpest and most specific presentation of that general thesis. Mr. Nixon also said that Vietcong attacks had exposed what he suggested was the fraudulence of the Administration’s own public statements on the war. The Administration, he charged, has too often told the country that the ‘war is going better’ and that ‘peace is around the corner.’ ….’Mr. Johnson would be much better advised to tell the truth,’ the former Vice President said.”
RTR Quote for 6 February 1968: NAPOLEON I, Maxims of War, 1831: “War is composed of nothing but surprises. While a general should adhere to basic principles, he should never miss an opportunity to profit by such surprises. It is the essence of genius. In war there is but one favorable moment: genius grasps it.”
Humble Host will always wonder why, after weathering and rolling back the Vietcong’s Tet offensive, we didn’t follow and finish the fight. The enemy was hurt bad, out of position, demoralized, and on the run back to Cambodia and Laos. Hot pursuit would have been the excuse to track him down and annihilate him… Find, Fix, Fight, Follow, Finish… or fail…
Lest we forget… Bear
