Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #733… “POWER TENDS TO CONFUSE ITSELF WITH VIRTUE AND A GREAT NATION IS PARTICULARLY SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE IDEA THAT ITS POWER IS A SIGN OF GOD’s FAVOR, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations–to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God’s work.”… but first…
Good Morning: Day SEVEN HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE reviewing a lesson in foreign policy paid for by 58,200 American warriors among the nearly 3.5 million other human beings who died in the quagmire called the Vietnam war…
HEAD LINES from The New York Times on Friday, 8 March 1968, fifty years ago…
Page 1: “CRITICISM OF WAR WIDENS IN SENATE ON BUILD-UP ISSUE–Fulbright Demands Johnson Consult Congress Before Raising Troop Strength–Kennedy Scores Policy–Debate Produces Signs of Setting Off Revolt Over Further Escalation”...”Senate critics of the United States’ Vietnam policy opened a new offensive against the Administration today by demanding that Congress be consulted before additional troops were committed to the war. The offensive, led by Senator J.W. Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, showed signs of setting off a revolt in the Senate against any further escalation of the war. For the first time, some supporters of Administration policy expressed doubt publicly as to whether the Administration should commit more forces t Vietnam, particularly without first consulting Congress. Senator Fulbright, and Arkansas Democrat, touched off a rare extemporaneous debate where he took the floor. His speech provoked an outpouring of protest against President Johnson’s policy exceeding any previously heard in this session of Congress.”…
THE GROUND WAR and KHE SANH: Page 1: “KHE SANH AND DIENBIENPHU: A COMPARISON–GENERAL GIAP’S BOOK ON DEFEAT OF FRENCH REVEALS TACTICS”... (Picture page1: “Marines take cover as a helicopter prepares to land at the Khe Sanh garrison.”) “Almost three months have elapsed since the North Vietnamese began a massive build-up around Khe Sanh. If General Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam’s Defense Minister, intends to launch an all-out assault on Khe Sanh, as some experts believe, why the delay? Senior American military officers in Saigon indicated yesterday they believed that Hue’ rather than Khe Sanh, would be the next major enemy objective. Others disagree. Some clues to General Giap’s thinking may be contained on his book, “People’s War, People’s Army.” General Giap describes in the book how he conquered the French fortified camp at Dienbienphu in 1954 and brought the French Indochina war to a victorious conclusion. Recalling that he had spent five months preparing the attack, General Giap wrote that preparations to insure ‘certain victory’ are the first rule of fighting a revolutionary war against a Western power.”... Page 1: “U.S. DEAD IN WAR AT 542 FOR WEEK–TOLL IS ONE BELOW RECORD–New Command Set-Up In Northern Sector… “PENTAGON IDENTIFIES VIETNAM CASUALTIES–Families of 96 servicemen notified of the combat deaths of their sons, brothers, husbands and fathers… “... “The United States command announced today (7th) that 542 Americans were killed in Vietnam last week, one fewer than the record total of the war. In statistics underlining the enemy’s Lunar New Year offensive, the command also reported 2,191 American servicemen were wounded last week…. American losses were in comparison with the 3,849 enemy soldiers killed during last week’s fighting. The record American toll of the war–543 killed and 2,547 wounded–occurred in the weekended Feb. 17… Before January 30, the Americans had never lost more than 337 men in a week… During the three years of fighting in Korea, 33,629 Americans were killed in battle and 103,285 wounded, a total casualty count of 136,914. As of midnight Saturday (4th) 19,251 Americans had been killed and 117,375 wounded, a total casualty count of 136,586….
Page 1: “Fighting in South Vietnam”… Air Force (Navy and Marine) planes repeatedly bombed and strafed enemy troop concentrations near the embattled Marine encampment at Khe Sanh.”… Page 2: “NEW U.S. COMMAND SET-UP IN VIETNAM–ARMY GETS WIDER ROLE NEAR DMZ, UNDER MARINES”… Page 2: “The Enemy Strategist: Vo Nguyen Giap (short Bio)”… Page 4: “Mekong Delta Still Paralyzed 5 Weeks After Foe Offensive”… Page 8: “Excerpts From Debate On Vietnam War In Senate Over Administration’s Policy (Entire page)…
8 MARCH 1968…PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF… NORTH VIETNAM: First portion redacted, leaving… Chinese-built hydrofoil torpedo boat–the most modern craft of its kind because of greater speed and stability,…could be used against US Naval Forces in the Tonkin Gulf… DAILY REPORT ON NVN Eyes Only: North Vietnamese Combat Officer’s View of The War; Recently captured 76-page notebook, formerly the property of a North Vietnamese signals officer, is concerned with combat strength ratios. The writer states that if the ratio is 15 allied to one Communist, “the enemy wil win,” but “the enemy will lose if the ratio is five-to-one.” He believes that the ratio in April 1967, after the 1966-67 dry season, was two and a half to one. North Vietnam reinforcements continue to increase day after day in order to prevent the enemy from increasing the ratio. We presently have 400,000 troops.” The writer asserts that the Communists have the initiative in the current winter-spring campaign. He says that in 1966-67 “we succeeded in deploying the enemy in the strategic locations selected by us.” He feels this year’s campaign may be a good opportunity to achieve ultimate victory because opposing forces will be stretched thin. The writer’s views may not be an entirely accurate reflection of North Vietnamese strategic thinking, but they are illustrative of an apparently widespread Communist conviction that the balance of power favors them. In earlier phases of the war, Communists were instructed to believe in ultimate victory primarily because of the righteousness of their cause. Now the emphasis is on the superiority of Communist forces and strategy….
STATE DEPARTMENT, Office of the Historian, Historical Documents, 1964-68, Vietnam: DOCUMENT 112 is a message from General Wheeler, CJCS, to General Westmoreland in Saigon and Admiral Sharp in Pearl detailing conversation and guidance from the new Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford… Good reading at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d112
8 MARCH 1968…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (9 Mar reporting 8 Mar ops) Page 2: “American pilots made 109 raids in North Vietnam–the largest number in a little more than a month–attacking a military radio station 10 miles southeast of Hanoi and nine surface-to-air missile sites and radar positions near Hanoi and Haiphong. Pilots ranging through the region south of Hanoi reported having destroyed or damaged 30 supply trucks.” ...”U.S. Jets Bomb Airfield”… “United States fighter-bombers attacked supply areas at the Vinh airfield in North Vietnam yesterday and an industrial complex at Ninhgiang near Haiphong. NYT, 8 March, Page 8: “Navy is Using a New Plane Against Enemy At Khe Sanh”… “Navy planners report that a new plane has been thrown into the campaign against the North Vietnamese troops threatening the Marine outpost at Khe Sanh. The plane is the A-7A Corsair II, manufactured by Ling-Temco-Vaught, Inc. of Dallas. It can nearly carry its weight in bombs and missiles and appears destined to be one of the most-bought planes in years. The first 14-bomber squadron , which was sent to South Vietnam last November, has already flown more than 500 combat sorties over North and South Vietnam…although the A-7A weighs 17,000 pounds empty, it’s strong wings–which connect with the fuselage at the cockpit level–plus a high-thrust engine allow it to carry 10,000 pounds of fuel and 12,000 pounds of ordnance.”
“Vietnam: Air Losses” (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 8 March 1968…
RIPPLE SALVO… #733… In January 1967 Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas published a controversial book, The Arrogance of Power that was directed at the average Arkansan and provided an eight-point peace program that was an alternative to the Johnson Administration’ Foreign and Vietnam policies. Those eight points became Senator Fulbright’s guideposts as he chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to the consternation of LBJ. After a year of feedback on his book and ideas he wrote a short essay for The New York Times on 27 January 1968 that updated his concern for the future of America in the hands of proponents of an imperial America. He placed his hope for the survival of America in hands of “the youth”– “They are wiser than their elders.” The youth he was referring to were the generation we call “the Baby Boomers.”… The Senator was thinking Bill and Hillary (LA Times 18 Feb 1995: “(Bill) Clinton while a student at Georgetown University in the mid-1960s, served as a low-level clerk on Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee staff at the time that the senator was beginning to speak out against the Vietnam war.” The LA Times article–“President Eulogizes Former Mentor–William Fulbright” — Leads off : “President Clinton on Friday delivered the eulogy for former Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright, who gave his aspiring protege his first taste of national politics and warned him against the arrogance of power.” Too bad it didn’t sink in… arrogance: self-importance; egotism; narcissism; self-opinion… )…
Senator Fulbright’s anniversary essay was titled: THE UNITED STATES AND THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF POWER (NYT, 27-Jan-68) … I quote…
“In the vocabulary of power politics large nations are referred to as ‘powers,’ the assumption being that the truly important function of a nation is not the maintenance of law and order, nor the advancement of human welfare within its borders, but the exercise of power beyond its frontiers–to which function all others are necessarily subordinate.
“To that school of political thinkers who call themselves ‘realists’ it is irrelevant sentimentalism to question the primacy of power politics in terms of costs, purposes and human rewards. There is–so they tell us–no choice involved. A great nation, it is said, devotes its major energies to the exercise of power because its own inner nature requires it to do so; to ask why is as useful as asking why donkeys bray or why cats eat mice instead of cabbage.
“Power politics is practiced under different names. The British called it the ‘white man’s burden’; the French called it their ‘civilizing mission’; nineteenth century Americans called it ‘manifest destiny.’ It is now being called ‘responsibilities of power.’ What all these terms have in common is the assumption of involuntariness. “Realists” might call it a ‘law of politics’; romantics might call it their ‘mission.’ Both regard it as something outside of rational choice.
“History appears to support them. Powerful nations have always devoted the major part of their resources to building empires; only a few small nations, such as the Scandinavian, countries have devoted their main energies to human satisfactions, presumably for lack of other choice.
THE DECLINE OF EMPIRES
“Just as the great empires expanded, inevitably they began to contact, culminating, as in the case of ancient Rome or the Austria of the Hapsburgs, in total disintegration, or, as in the case of Spain, in a long, gradual decline. No empire stood stronger and prouder than the British Empire a hundred years ago, today we are witnessing its sad, final sunset.
“Can America escape the same fate? Accepting the gloomy determination of the ‘responsibilities of power,’ in effect our present policymakers tell us that it cannot. They do not, of course, predict our decline and fall, only the extension of power, the drain of material and human resources , and the neglect of domestic requirements that precede and precipitate the fall of empire.
“Our very best success condemns us to spend the lives of our sons in distant jungles, and to waste our substance on the costly horrors of modern weapons and the glittering vanity of trips to the moon and supersonic air[planes.
“I do not think we are condemned to this. History and psychiatry and religion tell us that, for all our human susceptibilities, we do have some choices. Experience suggests that we are well advised to join in collective measures–through the United Nations and our alliances–to prevent the arbitrary and unwarranted interference by one nation in the affairs of another.
“Beyond that we are free to use our vast resources for the enrichment of life, for the improvement and enjoyment of things, for the setting, if we will, of a civilized example in the world.
“Nations, like individuals, have some freedom of choice, and America of all nations is equipped to exercise it. Our nation was created as an act of choices; our Constitution was designed to protect and appreciate the right of our citizens to freedom of choice. Most of us are descended from people who came to America as an act of choice. Unlike any other great nation in history, we are a rich composite of cultures, united not by race or religion but by the choice made in becoming Americans.
“If ever a nation was free to break the cycle of empires, America is that nation. If we do not, it will because history assigned to us an imperial role. it will be because we chose to believe such pompous nonsense, because power went to our heads like a super dose of LSD, leading us to betray our history and the purposes for which this nation was founded.
WISDOM OF OUR YOUTH
“That, I suspect, is what the hue and cry is about. That is what the dissent and protests are about. Our leaders speak of our stars, of the travail to which we are condemned by the ‘responsibilities of power.’
“But our youth are wiser than their elders; they know that our future will not be shaped by some nonexistent ‘law’ of politics but by human choice or susceptibility. They see their country succumbing, sliding toward an imperial destiny and they are crying out against it. They are crying out for America to return to its history and its promise, and in their crying out lies the hope that it will.” End quote.
Humble Host notes with sorrow the failure of our country– over the last half-century– to recognize the wisdom of Senator Fulbright. Our nation continues to bite off more –at home and abroad– than we can chew. As a consequence, we continue to “betray our history and the purposed for which this nation was founded” and follow the historic examples of powerful empires that melted away in their arrogance…
RTR Quote for 8 March: EDWARD YOUNG, Night Thoughts, 1797: “Who venerate themselves, the world despise.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear
