Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #99… AMERICA: an INCUBATOR….but first
Good Morning: Day NINETY-NINE of a review of the Vietnam “air” War years: 1965-1968, Rolling Thunder…
6 JUNE 1966…ON THE HOME FRONT… (NYT)… Mostly sunny and hot in New York City….
Page 1: “Vietnamese Seek Lawmaking Rights In New Assembly”… by pressing for civilian election law plan that will allow the current chamber to act as the nation’s legislature until elections are held n September. Premier Ky would remain as the leader of the country for one year…”the civilians drawing up the South Vietnamese election law have recommended that a constitution drafting assembly to be elected in September be given legislative functions and be allowed to transform itself into a National Assembly.” The recommendation goes to the ruling junta tomorrow and Premier Ky and Chief of State LGEN Nguyen Thieu have reserved the right to amend the committee’s suggestions, but this would certainly cause political problems, reports Charles Mohr…
Page 1: “Congress Joins Bomber Issue Again”…Hanson Baldwin article: “Congress has just written another chapter in what is coming to be called in Washington the “great bomber controversy.” Once again the legislative branch, as it has so often in the past, is urging the expenditure of more funds for bomber development than Administration had asked for, and once again Congress has stressed the importance of the manned bomber to the future security of the nation.
“In the age of technology change–of bomber versus missile, of man versus machine-– congress, with support of most of the nation’s senior military officials, is urging the development and production of both missiles and bombers and is pleading the case for military man, even in the machine age.
“After world War II, it was often predicted that war would prove to have been the last war of the pilots, that the missile, the robot, would supersede him.
“Korea and Vietnam and a host of smaller conflicts, proved these predictions to be erroneous; now looking a decade ahead, Congress and most military men foresee a continuing need for the military man in a flying machine.
“But what kind of flying machine and what numbers the nation should maintain are at the heart of the controversy. It is a controversy clouded by technological uncertainties and the impossibility of forecasting the nature of future war. And at least the current chapter of it is somewhat narrower in its basic elements than the broader issue of man versus machine. For all concerned agree there is, and will be, continuing use for piloted military aircraft for various programs, including the tactical delivery of bombs.
“These tactical airplanes, called by the Air Force fighter-bombers, or light-bombers by the Navy, and strike airplanes by the British. The type of bomber that is the focus of the current debate is the so-called strategic bomber.”
Page 35: “Royal Commission In Britain to Study Future Of Battleship”… “The commission after long study reported in essence that if Britain had not built battleships and they were not needed, they would have wasted money. If she failed to build them and they were needed she would have lost the Empire.”
Page 6: “Meredith Begins Mississippi Walk To Combat Fear”...”James H. Meredith, pith-helmeted and a little apprehensive, stepped off today on the beginning of a 220-mile march down Highway 51 to the heart of his native Jackson, Mississippi calling it a homecoming to register to vote.” Meredith was the first Negro to attend the University of Mississippi and he did so under guard. His walk is intended to spur Negro voting registration…
Page 2: “Gates Calling the Draft Unfair, Urges Universal Service,” …”We require some kind of a program that will involve all of our young men in government service for a period.” Tom Gates, the Secretary of Defense under President Eisenhower, said in a speech in San Francisco, “Our present draft system, while it succeeds in filling manpower quotas, is warping the whole national attitude toward civic responsibility. Evasion of duty has become respectable; the system itself provides procedures for it; parents encourage their sons to find a way out. The system is unfair and divisive and sowing seeds of bitterness in our society that we will be harvesting for years to come. It is essential to pursue some fairer, more popular, more effective method than we now have for drawing upon young manhood for its contribution to the nation’s difficult work. Where the stakes in many cases are going to be life or death, a lottery of any kind is not right.” …Page 6: …a small box, small print, bottom of page: “The Defense Department has identified 42 American troops killed in Vietnam this week…”
6 JUNE 1966…PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF…CIA(TS sanitized)…South Vietnam: Tri Quang, who was interviewed by US journalists over the weekend, is said to have become exceedingly bitter because the US failed to support the Buddhist struggle in Da Nang. Quang is still adamant that the confrontation between the government and the Buddhist Institute can be resolved only by the resignation of Thieu and Ky. As for the election, Quang repeated that he is now opposed to the whole idea… In Hue’, Buddhists responded to an appeal from Tri Quang today and began putting family altars–which believers will hesitate to desecrate–in the streets… main roads and bridge approaches have become badly blocked. This new tactic is said to have the sympathies of many South Vietnamese troops in the area.
6 JUNE 1966… ROLLING THUNDER OPERATIONS… NYT (7 June reporting 6 June Ops): Page 6: “47 Missions Flown In North”…”In North Vietnam Air Force and Navy pilots flew 47 missions, mainly in the panhandle. Navy pilots noted one SAM airborne 20 miles northwest of Vinh that exploded harmlessly. Air Force pilots also dropped 2.8 million propaganda leaflets over the Red River Valley west of Hanoi. The leaflets carried messages informing North Vietnamese soldiers they would be given good treatment if they surrendered to allied forces in the South.” “Vietnam Air Losses” reported no fixed wing losses in Southeast Asia on 6 June 1966….
RIPPLE SALVO… #99…. INCUBATOR OF DISCONTENT…
My response to a writer who opines that “the war in Vietnam helped save the world from communism.”…
“I think you might have better luck with your piece if you switched it around and argued that the many failures and unintended consequences from our Vietnam defeat without honor have made the spread of communism, Marxism and socialism more likely. That applies even in our own country. The war in Vietnam, that was allowed to drag on while pursuing a “strategy of gradualism,” provided an INCUBATOR for DIVISIVE FORCES to grow and flourish in America to the point where national unity has been permanently blown… Gone forever… Our beloved country has had a great fall…
“The counter to communism and all forms of totalitarianism requires an equal or greater force driven by the principles of truth, freedom and justice to contain and destroy them. The Vietnam war allowed our American progressives to seize our economic, educational and cultural (and most recently our national defense) systems and transform our nation into what you see today. A nation in extreme distress. We even have a Marxist running for Commander-in-Chief who is polling tens of millions of Americans — our kids and grandkids– to his side…. Sorry, Ned. Our sacrifices in Vietnam were so badly mismanaged that we became and remain our own worst enemy. As we enter the long, explosive summer of 2016 and discontent fueled by a Presidential campaign, we are as likely to see as many symbols, flags and faces of Marxism as we are a flag that Nathan Hale would wave…..”
“The counter to communism and all forms of totalitarianism requires an equal or greater force driven by the principles of truth, freedom and justice to contain and destroy them. The Vietnam war allowed our American progressives to seize our economic, educational and cultural (and most recently our national defense) systems and transform our nation into what you see today. A nation in extreme distress. We even have a Marxist running for Commander-in-Chief who is polling tens of millions of Americans — our kids and grandkids– to his side…. Sorry, Ned. Our sacrifices in Vietnam were so badly mismanaged that we became and remain our own worst enemy. As we enter the long, explosive summer of 2016 and discontent fueled by a Presidential campaign, we are as likely to see as many symbols, flags and faces of Marxism as we are a flag that Nathan Hale would wave…..”
The summer of 1966 is instructive for current national and world leaders. While history does not repeat in detail, history does provide coincidental lessons for use in current planning for the way ahead and finding solutions to problems in the real world. Summers 1966 and 2016 have much in common and our leaders should be applying lessons learned, or not, fifty-years ago. At the very least, those lessons should not be ignored. After two and a half generations our country remains an incubator for divisive forces. United we stand, divided we fall. Any doubt about that?There are two ways to become united: one man rule by force or all men rule by law. Our nation is in the process of moving from one state of unity to the other. The President calls it “transformation.”
Lest we forget….. Bear. …..30…….
