Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… #766… “THE BOOM OF THE FIRST AMERICAN BOMB IN NORTH VIETNAM IN 1964 SIGNALED THE MUSHROOMING TROUBLES AT HOME AND ABROAD THAT FINALLY DROVE LYNDON B. JOHNSON OUT OF THE POLITICAL ARENA”… So concludes Associated Press Writer Willard Mobley. “One way or another the divisions in the nation, which the President gave as the reason for his decision not to run again, represent swelling reverberations from that blast. The list is nearly endless–accusations of fraud following the administration’s stated reasons for the first bombing, complaints of a credibility gap in administration reports of war progress, immorality charges over U.S. participation in the war, trouble in the streets and protests that war money should be used instead to solve problems at home. The first bombs fell on Communist shore installations in retaliation for a reported attack by North Vietnamese for a reported attack on American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.”… That is Mr. Mobley’s hypothesis as posted across the country on 10 April 1968… continued below in Ripple Salvo…
GOOD MORNING…Day SEVEN HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX of a 1,000-blog remembrance of the warriors and the fight over North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder…
HEAD LINES from the OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER for Wednesday, 10 April 1968…FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY…
Page 1: “100,000 TROOPS LAUNCH OFFENSIVE AGAINST REDS–Resistance Only Light, Allies Say”… More than 100,000 troops of five nations fanned out today over the Saigon area and 11 provinces around the capital in the biggest allied offensive of the war. Only light, scattered action was reported, and a general lull in the ground fighting in Vietnam continue for the second day. The U.S. Command announced that the big new sweep around the capital, Operation Complete Victory, began Monday. Its objective is the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops who got away from the 50,000 American and South Vietnamese troops is Operation Resolved to Win.”… END SWEEP… U.S. headquarters announced Tuesday that Resolved to Win, a sweep of five provinces around Saigon, had ended with 2,658 enemy killed. But when it began in early March, a force of 13,000 Viet Cong and units of two North Vietnamese regiments were reported maneuvering around the capital, possibly for a renewal of the Tet offensive against the city…. The U.S. Command said the aim of the new drive is ‘the elimination of enemy forces throughout the 11 provinces in the 3rd Corps tactical zone. NO MORTAR FIRE… No major ground fighting was reported elsewhere in Vietnam for the second straight day for the first time in nearly three months not a single artillery, mortar, rocket round landed on the shell scarred Marine combat base at Khe Sanh over a 24-hour period… The 20,000-man allied force that relieved the Marines at Khe Sanh last week continued finding bodies of North Vietnamese killed in the relentless air and artillery bombardment with which U.S. forces had pounded the hills and jungles around the base in the northwest corner of the country.”… INCREASE POTENTIAL… In Saigon, President Nguyen Van Thieu asked the National Assembly to vote general mobilization of the country. ‘While preparing for peace,’ he told a joint House-Senate session. ‘We must increase our fighting potential more than ever.’… Page 1: “LITTLE PROGRESS IN PEACE MOVE”… Thurmont, Md…”Prospects for peace in Vietnam appeared cloudy as ever as President Johnson wrapped up a marathon war and peace strategy talks at the Camp David mountain retreat.”... Page 4: “SOUTH KOREAN GENERAL RIPS PATCH-UP PEACE”… “The commander of South Korean forces in Vietnam warned today against a settlement of the war in the pattern of the Korean armistice. ‘Another patch-up settlement in dealing with the Communists will eventually lead to a second Vietnam war elsewhere.,’ Lt. Gen. Chae Myung-shim said in an interview. He mentioned Latin America as possibilities of a second war.”…
Page 1: “BIG CITY RACE VIOLENCE CONTINUES–DEATH TOLL HITS 34, DAMAGE RISES”… “Racial violence struck in major American cities for the sixth consecutive night since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., raising the national death toll for the period to 34. All but 5 were Negroes. While some of the worst hit cities cooled to the point where curfews were relaxed and patrols decreased, fresh outbreaks hit Tuesday in Trenton, Jacksonville and Kansas City…. Page 1: “HOUSE VOTE LOOMS ON RIGHTS BILL”…The Chairman of the House Rules Committee, a Mississippi Democrat opposed to the civil rights bill, says enactment of the measure would be a direct result of Dr. Martin Luther King’s slaying.”… Page 2: KANSAS CITY RECORDS 1 DEATH, 35 INJURED IN RACE VIOLENCE”…”One Negro was killed, at least 35 persons and 175 were arrested in a night of shooting, burning and looting in the wake of what began as a Memorial March for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr….About 2,200 Missouri National Guardsmen, 900 city police and 200 state police were thrown into an effort to entice a curfew but could not control outbreaks of violence until after midnight.”… Page 3: “CAPITAL EASES TOWARDS NORMAL AS TROOPS CONTINUE PATROLS”… “The nation’s capital moved closer to normal routine today with an easing of the curfew and other being imposed when disorders hit five days ago. Some 14,000 federal troops still patrolled the streets but there were indications they soon may be withdrawn. Mayor Walter Washington said the curfew will be imposed tonight from 10P.M. to 5 A.M.”…
10 April 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER… Associated Press and United Press International skipped the air war in the North in their Vietnam war coverage… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 10 April 1968…
From the compilation “34 TFS/F-105 History” By Howie Plunkett: 10-APR-68: “Pistol flight from the 34TFS hit a rod in South Vietnam and some boats in North Vietnam The flight took off at 0730 and returned to Korat after flying for 2 hours and 10 minutes. The lineup was: #1 LCOL Bob Smith; #2 Olin Everett; #3 Major Dean Ingvalson; and #4 Major Sam Armstrong. This was Major Armstrong’s 96th combat mission” and this is his 100-mission logbook entry: “We hit a road segment in South Vietnam very close to the position we bombed yesterday. This time our bombs were right on target. Afterwards we went up north of the DMZ and found some long boats underway south of Dong Hoi. Rog Ingvalson and myself made one strafing pass apiece on one each.”…
Humble Host flew # 139. Briefed and led 12 plane strike on SAM site northwest of Vinh. Sent two pouncers a minute ahead as we went feet dry about five miles north of Vinh. No visible opposition. Pouncer lead reported the site and target empty of hardware, a possibility that had been briefed. Broke up flight and sent them on prebriefed armed recce routes to look for the mobile SAM battalion. Took my four down Highway 15 toward Mu Gia (Happy Valley) to look for SAMs and trucks. Dry run. Put 3 MK83s x4 on the road at a small bridge. Hits all over the place but road cratered two places and bridge was gone… Other division went down Highway 1 through Hatinh and bombed a couple of trucks in the trees… Cockpit, on-site targeting versus the group grope at the Tuesday luncheon in the White House…oohrah…
RIPPLE SALVO… #766… “FIRST NORTH VIETNAM BOMBING BEGAN NATIONAL DISUNITY”… (continued)
SPLIT EMERGES… “The national split showed up–just a small crack initially–in the first event that followed. That was Senate adoption of the Tonkin Resolution to back the President in ‘all necessary measures’ to resist attack and deter aggression. Only Senators Wayne Morse, D-Ore., and Ernest Gruening, D-Alaska, opposed that measure. They argued the United States had no right to make war in Vietnam and had no national interest to serve there.
“That and similar points of view have been gaining backers ever since. But the Johnson administration has cited the Tonkin Resolution as its commission for whatever measures it felt necessary to meet the stated goal of od deterrence for the Communists. Ane the ballooning of the war effort on that basis has been matched, almost step by step, by the rising din of protest.
TAKES HELM… “Leadership in that movement has been taken over by Chairman J.W. Fulbright, D-Ark., of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. He shepherded the resolution through to adoption in 1964 but now contends it was never intended for the uses to which it was put. Of late Fulbright has argued the evidence as to what actually took place in the Gulf of Tonkin has turned out to be at least dubious and in many case the U.S. reaction against North Vietnam was too drastic.
“Morse has carried that argument further, labeling the whole operation a ‘snow job’ and contending that no matter what took place, the American vessels were there on a ‘provocateur’ mission. The issue moved into the even broader forum of national politics when first Senator Eugene J. McCarthy and then Senator Robert F. Kennedy opened presidential drives with the war their overriding platform issue.
READY FOR PEACE… “The administration contended throughout that it was acting ‘to meet the common danger and was ready for peace any time on reasonable terms. Johnson coupled his political pull-out with a new bombing pause offer as a bid for talks, and right up to the time when the Communists made some movement toward acceptance last week, the administration was insisting there had been no sign of willingness on the other side.
“Despite such contentions, the ranks of opposition continued to swell in almost precise proportion to the degree of American involvement in the war. The time when the widening break became a chasm can almost be pinpointed as last August when U.S. forces in Vietnam went past half a million.”… End quote…
The AP writer makes a case for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the first retaliatory raid as the first seed of disunity that we have seen grow over the decades as the Boomer Generation has transformed our nation into the multiple camps and tribes we have become in 2018. Could be. What is your defining moment for the origin of the divided nation the Un-United States we have become?… A case can be made that our current condition was birthed under Woodrow Wilson …. I am with the guy who declared 1968 was “the year the dream died.”…
RTR Quote for 10 April: CORETTA KING, 8 April 1968, Steps of City Hall, Memphis: “How many men must die before we can really have a free and true and peaceful society? How long will it take?”…
Lest we forget… Bear
