Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #763… “AMERICANS CANNOT SOLVE ALL THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD”… A Congressman responds to his constituents with a weekly “Washington Report” in a column published 7 April 1968 in Utah… but first…
GOOD MORNING: Day SEVEN HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE reviewing the lessons of history provided by the American experience of the Vietnam war and Operation Rolling Thunder, the air war with and over North Vietnam…
HEAD LINES from the OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER (Associated Press and United Press International) on Sunday, 7 April 1968…
Page 1: “BIG CITIES STILL FIGHT RIOTS, LOOTERS, FIRES–WASHINGTON, CHICAGO, BALTIMORE HARDEST HIT”… “Five thousand federal troops were ordered into fire-ravaged Chicago and five blocks were sealed off in downtown Baltimore Saturday night as Negro rioting again seared scattered areas of the United States. The three-day death toll since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination stood at 18, half of the victims in Chicago. Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew declared a state of crisis in Baltimore, where at least two stores were reported aflame. The proclamation is a necessary prelude to any callout of the state’s National Guard. Washington was also wracked by fire and pillage for the second day and armed paratroopers and Marines moved into the capital. … Federal troop strength in and around Washington was escalated to 12,500, more than have been holding Khe Sanh near the demilitarized zone in Vietnam…”… Page 1: “THRONGS MOURN SLAIN LEADER; LBJ MAY ATTEND FUNERAL RITES”… “A two-day public mourning period for Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. began Saturday after an announcement that President Lyndon Johnson would attend the slain civil rights leader’s funeral.”… Page 2: “WITNESS SAW SLAYER MOMENTS AFTER NEGRO LEADER WAS SHOT”… “A key witness said Saturday he saw–and talked to–the assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he fled his sniper’s post in a flophouse bathroom seconds after firing the fatal shot. Authorities were on the trail of the calm, sandy-haired man who killed King with a single rifle bullet Thursday… Page 4: “SUPPORT GROWS FOR LBJ RIGHTS BILL”… “Swelling support in the House for a civil rights bill in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination gave promise Saturday that it will pass this week with votes to spare.
Page 1: “PROPOSE GENEVA FOR PEACE TALKS”… “The White House disclosed Saturday night that in a direct diplomatic contact with Hanoi, the United States has proposed that U.S. and North Vietnamese envoys talk at Geneva.”… Page 4: “YOUNG U.S. ADULTS SHOW INCREASING POLITICAL INTEREST”… “Political leaders frequently write off the young adult as politically apathetic and therefore not worth courting for votes. But a major survey just completed confirms what was suggested in recent primary election campaigns–that the youth of the country are as interested in becoming politically involved as their elders–and in some aspects, more so.”…
THE WAR: Page 1: “YANKS REPULSE VIETCONG–TIGHTER GRIP AT KHE SANH–HIGH GROUND TAKEN”… “North Vietnamese troops Saturday counter-attacked the American forces marching across Communist positions on South Vietnam’s northern border. The U.S. units hurled back the attacks and widened their grip around the fort at Khe Sanh. The North Vietnamese, reeling back after the Operation Pegasus Thrust lifted the 76-day-old siege of Khe Sanh, unleashed their own heavy artillery in an attempt to block the Marine defenders surging out of the fort and the Army air cavalrymen grabbing strategic hills around the bastion…. To the south of Khe Sanh Air Force B-52s Saturday and Sunday pounded the North Vietnamese supply lines running from Laos into the A Shau Valley… For the first time allied troops landed inside Khe Sanh and others drove across ground to link up with the fort’s defenders. Marines who seized Hill 471 near Khe Sanh and threw back Communist suicide counterattacks swung out against a second strategic peak.”… Page 4: “USS NEW JERSEY SET FOR ASIA WAR TOUR”… “The battleship USS New Jersey, bound for Vietnam duty after 10 years in mothballs, was recommissioned Saturday in colorful ceremonies viewed by several thousand invited guests at Philadelphia Naval Yard.
STATE DEPARTMENT. OFFICE OF THE HISTORIAN. HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS. FOREIGN RELATIONS. 1964-68. VIETNAM: Document 186 dated 7 April 1968 is of interest. Notes of a Meeting of the President with General Westmoreland… Rapid fire questions on wide field of interest from the President and nimble responses from Westmoreland… A TWO Star read…
186. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d186
7 APRIL 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… OGDEN S-E Page 5: “HANOI CLAIMS STEPPED-UP YANKEE AIR PIRATE ATTACKS”… “Hanoi’s official news agency charged Sunday that the United States stepped up air raids over Nghe An province after President Johnson announced a partial halt to bombing of North Vietnam March 31. The Vietnam News Agency, monitored here in Tokyo, said ‘many people, including old folks and children, were killed or wounded’ in three consecutive days of air raids April 1-3 over ‘heavily populated’ areas in the province.’…’The number of U.S. air raids and American bombs dropped on these areas during these three days was one and a half times as many as that in the whole week preceding March 31, when Johnson declared ‘limited bombing’ of North Vietnam. The broadcast also charged that U.S. planes ‘savagely bombed and strafed’ Catholic inhabited areas and that 10 Roman Catholics were killed or wounded during a raid on a church…’ “…Page 1: “IN OTHER AIR ACTION, U.S. jets Saturday for the second day in a row limited their strikes against North Vietnam to below the 19th Parallel. President Johnson’s March 31 order limiting the strikes set the 20th parallel as the farthest point of bombing…President Johnson may have imposed further restrictions to the 19th parallel in order to further aid Johnson’s push for Vietnam peace talks.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 7 April 1968…
(1) MAJOR T.F. TAPMAN and CAPTAIN E.D. JONES were flying a Misty FAC F-100F of the 416th TFS and 37th TFW out of Phu Cat and controlling a strike mission just north of the Mu Gia pass when downed by 37-mm antiaircraft fire. They were diving on the target to mark it for the strike fighters when hit. The Super Sabre came out of the dive afire and MAJOR TAPMAN was able to fly the flaming aircraft about 20 miles west of the pass before having to eject. The two warriors were rescued by an Air Force SAR to fly and FAC again.
Humble Host flew #135. Briefed and led a flight of eight to strike a small bridge at Nam Dan about 10 miles northwest of Vinh. First in with my first Walleye of the cruise… Rolled in from 12,000′, locked up on south dock of bridge, released smart bomb at about 5,000′ as other bombers rolled in on my smoke… Bullseyes for all. Bridge obliterated. No noticeable opposition. Great 2-pointer…
RIPPLE SALVO… 7 APRIL 1968… United States Representative Laurence Burton (R), Utah, First District, wrote on 7 April 1968: (I Quote)…
“Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it,’ That fact is one of the great blessings of a free society such as ours. However, in the matter of the war in Vietnam it is difficult for most of us to know which lis ‘error’ and which is ‘reason’ and to find out who there is among us that can tell the difference. Every American war has had its dissenters. They have been given various names: ‘Tories,’ ‘Copperheads,’ ‘pacifists,’ and now ‘Doves.’
“In trying to separate ‘the error from the reason’ one needs the facts. The following facts, I think, are indisputable:
(1) Counting ground air and naval personnel directly involved there are over 500,000 American military personnel engaged in Vietnam and tens of thousands more being readied for action.
(2) We have now lost over 20,000 American lives and our wounded are many times (7X) that number.
(3) Aircraft losses in Vietnam are horrifying. We have lost (through March 12) 2,007 fixed wing airplanes and an additional 1,489 helicopters for total of 3,496. Compare these figures to aircraft lost during all of the Korean conflict of 3,001.
(4) It is not correct to say that present policy in Vietnam is based upon prior commitments made by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. In fact, both Eisenhower and Kennedy recommended against our country getting directly involved in a land war in Asia. When Ike left office, there were 700 American military advisors in Vietnam. At the time of the Kennedy assassination there were 16,000 American advisors and the South Vietnamese were doing all the fighting.
(5) Today there are no wage and price controls in South Vietnam. Wide spread corruption is a way of life. Until March 1, South Vietnam had never drafted any 19-year-olds and they still won’t call 18-year-olds.
(6) The war, in terms of treasure, now costs us close to $30-Billion annually.
(7) The war has seriously divided our people.
“Discouraging as these facts are, there is one further fact that ought to be weighed more carefully. That fact is: We are there!! All the debate, all the demonstrations can’t alter that. What we must now ask ourselves is: where do we go from here, and how can we best get there? Frankly, I have none of the glib, cute, pat answers that a few of my congressional colleagues now seem to have.
“Since September of last year, I have had before the House a resolution calling for a full-scale examination by the Congress of our policies and practices in Vietnam. Although that resolution has yet to be acted upon, a sort of de facto reappraisal is now being undertaken at a number of levels, both in and out of government. This is a much-needed and healthy thing.
“Some dissenters have even urged Congress to vote to shut off military appropriations, thus forcing the return of American troops. This I cannot do and will not do. It would be a tragic error to force a helter-skelter withdrawal. Whatever our future course is to be, it must be one based on reason and order.
“I fervently hope that President Johnson’s peace efforts are successful in bringing about an honorable settlement to an increasingly discouraging struggle.
“In order to get the peace effort moving, he has made a real personal sacrifice. We all, I am sure, wish him well in his new peace offensive.
“One thing we should have learned as a nation from this experience is contained in a thought expressed by President Kennedy. He said, ‘We must face the fact that the United States is not omnipotent or omniscient,’ that we are only 6 per cent of the world’s population, that we cannot impose our will on the other 94 percent of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity and therefore there cannot be an American solution to ‘every world problem.’ “… End quote…
OMNIPOTENT: “Having unlimited authority or influence almighty.”
OMNISCIENT: “Having infinite superiority, understanding and insight.”
When your ship-of-state is at war with itself; burdened by a National Debt of more than $21-trillion, and increasing, with no hope or plan to change; steams on an economy that relies on borrowed money and uncontrollable deficit spending; allows 47% of its out-of-shape, poorly educated, and lazy population to live on the government; and, fields a fighting force that is spread thin, over-committed, tired, and of doubtful readiness to fight on one front, let alone two, it is quite a reach to consider your nation to be either omnipotent or omniscient. John F. Kennedy was right– America, then as now, was not prepared or capable of solving “every world problem.”… Our country–a constitutional republic– is on a course of self-destruction that precludes an ability to solve tough problems, domestic or worldly…. Radical change is coming to America the beautiful. It will either be by design, or revolution… History is the teacher…
RTR Quote for 7 April: WENDELL PHILLIPS, Speech to Anti-Slavery Society, 1852: “Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. It’s foundations are laid far back.”…
Lest we forget… Bear
