ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED 3 JUNE 1968

RIPPLE SALVO… #820… NYT, 26 MAY 1968: “CONFLICTING PRESSURES…This year the weariness has been compounded by frustration. Congress is caught between conflicting pressure–between the evident need, for example to raise taxes and the political reluctance to take such a step in an election year; between the demands of Negro demonstrators, poised like a threatening army on the flats of Washington, and the growing resentment of the white community over the Negro demonstrations. Whichever way it turns Congress sees little chance of doing anything constructive that will please the constituents back home”…… but first….

GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED TWENTY of a look back of fifty years, to the roots of America’s 2018 issues… (“1968: The Year That Changed America,” is the title of the series currently showing on CNN on Sunday night… As I draft this post, episode III “Summer” is on the tube)…  )

HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on a cloudy Monday, 3 June 1968 in New York City… (A young Jordanian named Sirhan Bishara Sirhan spent the day at the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club test firing his new .22-cal revolver)…

THE WAR: Page 1: “SAIGON EXPLOSION KILLS 7 OFFICIALS–MAYOR WOUNDED–AMERICAN MISSION CONCEDED ‘POSSIBILITY’ U.S. COPTER’S ROCKET COULD HAVE CAUSED BLAST…Ky Allies Among Dead–Aircraft and Tanks Move to Dislodge Enemy Units Holding On In Capital”… “The Mayor of Saigon was seriously wounded and seven other high-ranking officials, including the city’s police chief, were killed yesterday while touring the Saigon battlefront…. Soon after the explosion, an investigation got under way American officials said there was a ‘strong possibility’ the explosion was caused by a rocket fired by an American helicopter… The battle sites in Saigon remained widely separated–a few blocks in Cholon, which is three miles southwest of the central business district, and a suburban section two and a half miles northeast of the center of the city. Soldiers and refugees crowded in the streets into two areas. In the larger part of the city, families attended churches, window shopped an d relaxed on their terraces with cool drinks…. Before the allies could advance in the Chinese section they hammered for four hours at enemy soldiers in two blocks of two-story to four=story concrete buildings. When the allies finally moved through the shattered and burning buildings only a few enemy snipers remained. ‘This city fighting is hell,’ said Sgt. Paul Clayton as he looked over the fires in Cholon from the roof of a five-story building where he had been firing a 90-mm recoilless rifle. ‘You’ve got to protect yourself. In the boonies you just have to look out for yourself.’… No one is certain how many enemy soldiers have been involved in the fighting, which began 25 May, but the number is probably low. The allies say that more than 500 enemy soldiers have been killed and only about 30 remin…The United States command continues to maintain that the enemy is carrying out the harassment campaign in Saigon to influence negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam in Paris. P{rivtely, the command says they do not have a quick solution to eradicating the harassment…. the fighting in the last week had added 3,000 refugees to the 112,000 who lost their homes in May…from May 5 to the beginning of June 386 south Vietnamese civilians were killed and 3,498 were wounded in the met area of Saigon. 16,242 homes were destroyed.”…   (and Rolling Thunder planners and bombers were worried about homes in the North???) … Page 3: “A HAMLET SHATTERED BY COMBAT MAKES A TORMENTED RECOVERY”… “The midday sun quivered over the parched rice fields in this tiny hamlet as children picked through the rubble of shacks and brick home th were shattered four months ago”… “Nhoman has perhaps suffered more severely than other hamlets. With fighting around the hamlet and air strikes shattered rows of homes, most farmers and their families fled to other hamlets of coastal province Binhdinh, the birthplace of the pacification effort.”…

STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of the Historian. Historical Document 258 is a timely telegram from the President’s Special Assistant Rostow to the President at The Ranch in Texas that relays a request from Ambassador Bunker in Saigon: “As you know,” Rostow writes, “Ellsworth Bunker has warned us rather solemnly of the effects on South Vietnamese morale of continued attacks on Saigon while we leave Hanoi-Haiphong unmolested.”… etc. Good read at…

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d258

PEACE TALKS… No coverage or comment in NYT, but STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of the Historian. Historical Document 259 is a second telegram from Rostow to the President. This one is from Ambassador Harriman in Paris telling the President that a postponement on moving the Rolling Thunder bomb line from the 19th to the 20th parallel is in order. Short and interesting read at…

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d259

Page 1: “G.O.P. LINKS RIOTS TO JOHNSON POLICY–‘INFLATED PROMISES’ TO POOR CITED BY REPUBLICAN PARTY GROUP”… “… The committee…made the charge in a 55-page document that presented its own broad program for dealing with the nation’s urban problems. The program stressed the need for tax incentives and other steps designed to encourage individuals and local governments to play a larger roll in solving urban problems.”… Page 1: “POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN LEADER BAYARD RUSKIN URGES MASS RALLY TO UNITE BEHIND THE POOR”… “A massive ‘national mobilization’ in the capital June 19 in support of the Poor People’s Campaign was called today to demonstrate that the poor were not alone in demanding that the Government ‘redeem the American promise’ of opportunity, dignity and justice for all. The ‘Call to Americans of Goodwill’ to unite in a show of nonviolent backing of the faltering antipoverty crusade of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was issued by Bayard Rustin, a long-time organizer of mass marches…”… Page 50: “COLUMBIA REBELS SCHEDULE A MARCH”…  Page 1: “GAULISTS EXPECT BIG GAINS IN FRENCH VOTE–UNION TALKS GO ON–GOAL IS 50% MORE SEATS–Sentiment For More Strikes Said To Harden… Page 1: “Violence Flares As Turkey Votes–Village Rivals Battle With Guns and Knives–15 Killed and 47 Wounded”… Page 1: “SINAI OCCUPATION IS PROFITABLE AND TROUBLE-FREE FOR ISRAELIS”…  Page 12: “Two Diving Vessels And Scorpion Search South of Azores”……

3 JUNE 1968… OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times: No mention of air operations north of the DMZ… VIETNAM; AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There were no fixed wing aircraft losses in Southeast Asia on 3 June 1968…

SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON 3 JUNE FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION IN THE SKIES OVER NORTH VIETNAM…

1965… NONE…

1966… NONE…

1967… MAJOR THEODORE SPRINGSTON, JR., USAF… (KIA)… and CAPTAIN JOSEPH THOMAS KEARNS, USAF… (KIA)… The RTR post for 3 June 1967 (Ripple Salvo #455) includes the Hobson entry for the downing of these two  B-57 warriors, who “to this day nothing seems to be known about this loss.” Humble Host is unaware of any change in that status. Both aviators are still carried as “presumptive finding of death.” When we pulled out of the war in 1973 and 591 POWs came home, there were still 2,646 Americans “unaccounted for.” The joint recovery troops went to work. By 2003 that list of “unaccounted for” had been reduced to 1,889. By August 2017 the number was 1,604. These numbers breakdown to 1,026 cases still being pursued; 488 no longer being pursued, for a variety of reasons (Navy guys lost in deep and unchartered waters, for example); and 90 cases deferred awaiting a few more definitive clues to provide direction for further pursuit.

Indicative of the relentless pursuit of the DPAA is the announcement on 1 June, this weekend, that the remains of LCDR LARRY R. KILPATRICK, who went down on a night attack strike near Hatinh on 18 June 1972, have been recovered and identified. Missing for 36 years, LCDR KILPATRICK has come home. Good on you DPAA ( www.dpaa.mil ) troops…   oohrah…

1968… NONE…

Humble Host flew #174 and #175 on 3 June. #174: led a section on an armed recce north of Vinh with 6 Mk-82s and two pods of 5-inch Zunis. We found three barges and got good hits with the bombs, then left the target for about ten minutes going west and came back to finish the tree barges along a river bank with a ripple salvo 8 5″rocket run… No opposition noted… Nothing could be finer… #175 was a section road recce down and back Happy Valley (Highway 15 that leads into Mugia Pass). No trucks sighted. Put 6 Mk-82s X 2 on a small bridge and blew it away… No opposition noted… total of about 45-minutes over the beach hunting…  Two day traps…Your above-average day on Yankee Station…

RIPPLE SALVO… #820… NEW YORK TIMES, 26 MY 1968; “A MOOD OF WEARINESS AND FRUSTRATION” by John Finney…

“WASHINGTON– To judge by their absenteeism or their evident reluctance to consider legislation, it would appear that many Congressmen believe the second session of the 90th Congress is either concluded or should be concluded. With perhaps two months to go, the session is dragging on in a desultory, nonproductive fashion, with both the Senate and the House often having the Senate and the House often having difficulty finding a quorum to do business. Such weariness is typical of any election year Congress. With their political survival at stake, most of the legislators would prefer to be back home campaigning than stuck in the Capital, presumably legislating.

CONFLICTING PRESSURES…

“This year the weariness has been compounded by frustration. Congress is caught between conflicting pressures–between the evident need, for example, to raise taxes and the political reluctance to take such a step in an election year: between the demands of Negro demonstrators, poised like a threatening army on the flats of Washington, and the growing resentment of the white community over the Negro demonstrators. Whichever way it turns, Congress sees little chance of doing anything constructive that will please the constituents back home.

“For an election year Congress, there is a strange absence of partisanship. President Johnson’s withdrawal cleared the atmosphere. The Republicans no longer have a target for partisan attacks. The Democrats no longer feel compelled to defend the Administration and its record in Congress. And so unsettled are the Presidential races that neither Republicans nor Democrats feel any real pressure to take sides.

“The President’s withdrawal also removed the divisive Vietnam issue that dominated the first three months of the Congressional session. But in its place has come another issue in some ways more troublesome to the legislators, namely the issue of law and order at home. Perhaps it’s the result  of the rioting, or perhaps it’s a reaction to the encampment of the poor in the shadows of the Washington Monument. Whatever the reason, what the legislators are hearing most about from their constituents–and thus are most worried about– is indignation and fear over the seeming breakdown of law and order.

“Complaints have only contributed to the frustration of Congress. To please some of the constituents, Congress could pass a crime control bill, as the Senate is doing with excessive zeal last week, loading down the bill with perhaps unconstitutional provisions on wiretapping and Supreme Court decisions. But there was a realization that giving money to police forces, overturning Supreme Court decisions on confessions, authorizing wiretapping and banning the interstate sale of hand guns would not really cure the nation’s social ills or really restore law and order in the streets. It is also accepted, although not openly acknowledged by conservatives, that it is equally a crime that anybody should starve in the United States, that law and order involved not just muggings in the streets but also the basic social problems of the cities.

POLITICAL DILEMMA…

“The realization only served to bring Congress up against its basic political dilemma in an election year. Feelings back home are obviously polarizing on social issues. Legislators from the metropolitan districts are becoming alarmed over how the bridges seemed to be breaking down between the white and Negro communities. The Negro voters seem to be losing patience with the white community and Congress, and demanding action. In a growing backlash reaction, the white voters–even the white liberals–are warning the legislators not to ‘pay off’ the rioters and demonstrators.

“To do anything ambitious on the social front obviously means annoying not insignificant segments of the white community. It also means raising taxes. Much of the impasse on the tax surcharge arises from the fact that a large number of Representatives are unwilling to take such a step in an election year. Illustrative of this political reluctance is the fact that virtually every Senator who voted against the tax increase is up for re-election.

“The political dilemma showed up in another way in the Senate consideration of the crime bill. The liberals were opposed to sections overturning Supreme Court decisions on the admissibility of confessions. But when it came to a vote last week, 11 liberals, including New York’s two Senators, were absent. Politically it was obviously convenient for the liberals to be absent and thus not forced to vote against provisions in the politically popular crime control bill.

“Their absenteeism also points up the growing lack of interest among the legislators in continuing a basically unproductive Congressional session. At this point many of the legislators obviously are more interested in the primaries back home or in riding the commencement circus than staying in the Capitol. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield is getting weary of sending out telegrams requesting absent Senators to come back and vote.

“Such is the evident lack of interest that Congressional leaders are now thinking of contracting the legislative schedule, casting aside such controversial social legislation as a proposal to give enforcement powers to the Equal Opportunities Employment Commission. A broad housing bill probably will be passed and perhaps the impasse on the tax bill will be broken, although this appears increasingly doubtful as the election approaches. But basically the legislative work is coming to an end. If Congress has its way, it will clear the necessary appropriations bill and end its unimpressive session by early August–in time to go politicking at the national conventions.”… End Finney post…

RTR quote for 3 June: RONALD REAGAN: “I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.”…

Lest we forget…   Bear