Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… INDECISION… but first…
Good Morning: Day SIXTY-NINE of a long look back at Operation Rolling Thunder…
7 May 1966 (NYT)… ON THE HOMEFRONT… A fair and breezy Friday in New York. All quiet in Washington with LBJ at his ranch in Texas…
Page 1: “Ky Says Military Will retain Rule at Least A Year” and makes clear that he will lead a fight to overturn any vote that results in a Communist or neutralist regime… “Inflationary Trend Shown In Job Rate and In Prices”… With the April jobs strong and the prices up slightly, and unemployment down from the prior month the Administration announced a “continuation of boom and some inflationary pressures in the economy.” This sustained the President’s concern and limited his options with respect to arresting the inflationary trend. ..Page 3. A large picture of an SA-2 surface-to-air missile on a launcher provided to the world press by North Vietnam (Jane Fonda was not in the picture)…
Page 3: “362 Of Enemy Reported Killed In 3-Day Fighting In Vietnam”… and an additional 84 in another engagement in the Mekong Delta for a three day total of 446 Vietcong and North Vietnam troops killed in violent fighting. American casualties were described as light. In the Air War, clearing weather in North Vietnam allowed Air Force and Navy pilots to return to their normal sortie rate of 46 multi-plane missions. The Air force pilots hit bridges, trucks, storage areas and river traffic in the vicinity of Dien Bien Phu, Hanoi and Dong Hoi. Navy pilots hit similar targets in Route Packages 2 and 3. A Navy A-4 Skyhawk and an RF-8 Crusader were downed by ground fire on Thursday May 5. The pilot in t;he Skyhawk went down in the South China Sea and was rescued. The F-8 pilot was downed 20 miles northwest of Vinh and was reported as missing in action…
Page 10: Senator Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut filed a $5 million lawsuit against muckrakers Drew Pearson and his aide Jack Anderson, who had published a series of columns alleging misconduct by the Senator. The Senator’s suit listed 14 counts of libel and conspiracy “for the purpose of deriving financial profit.”
Page 11: “Berkeley Called Red Infiltrated”… Five California State senators on the state Sub-Committee on Un-American Activities charged that the University of California at Berkeley had been infiltrated by Communists leading to left-wing domination of the campus. They cited obscene entertainment, marijuana smoking , homosexuality, and plotting, much of it against the war in Vietnam. University President Clark Kerr responded to the accusations by declaring that the sub-committee “was dealing in distortions, half-truths, and inaccurate statements on situations taken out of context.”
7 MAY 1966 ROLLING THUNDER OPS… There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in southeast Asia this date… providing me an opportunity to go back to 7 May 1965 to mark the loss of another photo reconnaissance warrior.
CAPTAIN ROBERT AUSTIN STUBBLEFIELD was Killed in Action while flying an RF-101 from the 45th TRS out of Tan Son Nhut on a BDA photo reconnaissance mission a few miles north of the DMZ near the NVA Vinh Linh barracks, a very heavily defended area in Route Package 1. A beeper was heard by other aircraft in the area and an extensive SAR effort was supported by F-105 and F-4 fighter-bombers, but the search was fruitless. After the war, CAPTAIN STUBBLEFIELD’s remains were discovered, recovered and returned to the United States in 1989. Gone, but never forgotten, and remembered here 51-years to the day after he died in the service of his country. RIP.
RIPPLE SALVO… ON THE FENCE…
Two months ago your Humble Host and neighbor here in Northern Utah, Doctor Brownbear Schaffert, Fighter-Pilot extraordinare’, made our last pass at the Utah state legislators in a vain attempt to persuade Utah to exempt retired military pay from personal income taxation, as has been accomplished in 35 other states. We were slam dunked with the words of one rude legislator ringing as louder in our ears than our respective acute cases of tinnitus. His explanation: “If we yield on this request and exempt your military retired pay, the offset will come out of the education budget and the teachers will call us pricks. And if we refuse you this exemption, you will leave this room calling us pricks. We are pricks either way.” I didn’t say it, he did. Not very politically correct either.
So it was with President Johnson in the spring of 1966. Damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t expand and accelerate the execution of Operation Rolling Thunder. Over the past two months of my blogging the history of Rolling Thunder I have highlighted the issues that put the President on the fence. The choice for gradualism in order to avoid disturbing the PRC and the Soviet Union. The persistent pleas of the JCS to “go for the throat” and bomb Hanoi and mine Haiphong. The cautious views of Rusk and Ball. The demand for more troops and the demonstrations spurred by draft calls of 30,000 per month. The cost of the war versus the desire to pump the Great Society. The instability of the South Vietnamese government versus promises of better days ahead. The splits in congress with more and more supporters like Fulbright switching sides. The dozens of offers to negotiate versus the silence from Hanoi. Poor LBJ. On the fence. Meanwhile, in the ready rooms at the bases in Thailand, South Vietnam , Guam and on the carriers at Yankee Station, warriors primed and ready, but hearing only the “uncertain trumpet” of a wavering President. Parade dress. And as we all know, the decision making doesn’t get much better as time goes on in 1966.
Here are a couple of paragraphs from Volume Six of the Secretaries of Defense Historical Series: McNamara, Clifford and the Burdens of Vietnam” that describe the President’s dilemma in May and June 1966. (pgs. 73-74)
“Popular dissatisfaction with the Saigon military junta, uneasy relations among the south Vietnamese officers, religious disaffection, and worsening inflation provided the tinder for the flareup. The spark was Prime Minister Ky’s February decision to solidify his hold on power by reshuffling his cabinet followed in March by his firing of a popular military commander. From mis-march through mid-June internal political turmoil racked South Vietnam. Buddhist uprisings in DaNang in May and Hue in June added to the combustion. Armed clashes in DaNang during May between pro- and anti-government troops left 150 Vietnamese dead, 700 wounded, and the ringleaders under arrest. Martial law was declared in Hue on 16 June to suppress the opposition and quell rioting. A week later Vietnamese troops and police rounded up hundreds of dissidents in Saigon and reasserted government control. Pending resolution of the crisis, the president (Johnson) withheld any decisions about escalating the air war. Meanwhile, McNamara and the Joint Chiefs wrestled with the details for the next large U.S. troop deployment to Southeast Asia, and Rusk exploited with international sponsors ways to restart settlement negotiations…
“The continuing split over bombing policy within the administration showed little sign of resolution. Rusk, apparently influenced by Ball’s aversion to the POL strikes, believed the attacks would increase international attention, a proposition recently installed national security advisor Walt Rostow, a strong supporter of POL bombing, challenged. Averill Harriman labeled any POL attack as ill-advised escalation, given the government’s tenuous hold in the south. McNamara recognized that Saigon seemed to become weaker by the day but believed Hanoi and the Viet Cong were hurting as well. In discussions with Harriman he held out the hope that the attacks on oil supplies might help set the stage for a settlement based on a coalition government in the South. The president thought, he later explained to British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, that approving the POL attacks would stem infiltration from the North and likely minimize U.S. casualties in the expected heavy fighting in South Vietnam during the approaching monsoon season.
“On 24 May McNamara told Wheeler that the single obstacle to attacking the oil targets was the political turmoil in the South; if this were remedied, the president would authorize the POL attacks. On the 27th Sharp called for a quick decision since the enemy was dispersing POL inventories and the main storage areas would soon lose their target value. Amidst a growing consensus, three days later Rusk and McNamara agreed to include seven POL targets ‘along the edge of the restricted circles around Hanoi and Haiphong’ in the Rolling Thunder package awaiting presidential approval.”
On 17 June President Johnson would state his position “on the fence” with respect to the POL targeting: “The POL attacks are a choice between accepting higher U.S. casualties and expanding the war.” Still on the fence.
After six months of soul searching at the highest administration levels, on 29 June Air Force and Navy aircraft struck POL installations located near Hanoi and Haiphong….”
Von Clausewitz: “Failure to act is worse than an error in judgment in selecting a course of action.”
Frost: “Every mistake in war is excusable except inactivity and refusal to run risks.”
Liddell-Hart: “In war, all turns on the time factor.”
Patton: “A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution ten minutes later.”
Du Picq: “He will win who has the resolution to advance.”
Foch: “In tactics, action becomes the governing rule of war.”
Halsey: “What ever we do, we do fast.”
Sun Tzu: “Unity of command is the most important thing in war.”
Patton: “Re-grouping is the curse of war and it is a boon to the enemy.”
Fred the Great: “Fortune favors the bold.”
Lest we forget… Bear …………. –30– ………….
