Arc Light One

[tyrodtom]

He had all sorts of degrees and was a ROTC cadet at Berkeley in the late 30's not sure why the dates bounce between 1940 and 1943.
Captain to Lt. Colonel in 3 years is a hell of a feat.

A Legion Of Merit also.
Evidently he didn't mess up everything then.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

He had all sorts of degrees and was a ROTC cadet at Berkeley in the late 30's not sure why the dates bounce between 1940 and 1943.
Captain to Lt. Colonel in 3 years is a hell of a feat.

Stranger things have happened in wartime. Ike was a light colonel in 1939, four stars and five years later in charge of everything in ETO.

 

[Zipper730]

He was no more nor less concerned about public opinion than any other American President, I reckon. What he was really concerned about was not getting bogged in a war with China, so that he could focus on his domestic agenda. The tragedy is that this caused him to pursue the war in a half-assed manner, which got us bogged down and prevented him focusing on his domestic agenda. The fact that the quagmire was in NVN and not PRC is almost irrelevant.

And if he was excessively concerned of Chinese intervention, that would have thrown a serious monkey-wrench into things.

You'd think that he would be better able to focus on his domestic agenda if he wasn't micromanaging things so much: After all that'll tie up valuable energy (that's why you delegate, because it's damned near impossible to do everything yourself). I'm surprised he didn't understand that.

If he was the voice of reason, he was using inapt reasoning.

Correct.

LBJ was passionate about addressing social ills. . . . He inherited a war from....well there are lots of fathers of this conflict, and did not want to go down in history as the first president in American history to lose a war.

I'm just surprised he didn't understand the concept of delegation, unless he was terrified that the people he'd delegate with the job would throw things so sideways that he'd have to baby-sit them (which honestly seems like the case).

I'm not sure when the various policies for war were conceived and worked out, but you'd figure that, after LeMay left the service, things would have calmed down quite a lot.

McNamara was a former Lt. Colonel with the USAAF, serving from 1940 through 1946 where he conducted analysis of bombing efficiency under LeMay, among other things.

That's why I found it so surprising that we needed RAND (that came up in a thread I created): McNamara's actions were operational analysis.

The 1st attack in the Gulf of Tonkin incident took place well within what most nations considered its territorial waters, ie 12 nm. The 1st attack took place at about 8-9 nautical miles from the coast of North Vietnam. (North Vietnam claimed the same 12 nm limit as Vietnam had before the split. but since the US did not consider North Vietnam a sovereign nation it could not have any territorial waters rights.) The USS Maddox fired first when the NVN torpedo boats closed to with 10,000 yds. Subsequently, in the press releases and the information presented to Congress, it was stated that North Vietnam had previously claimed only a 5 nm limit, and that the NVN torpedo boats fired first. The movement of the USS Maddox was a part of numerous incursions/raids by the South into North Vietnam waters, and was intended to be a show of force and a chance to gather intel.

The President initiated military action after the 2nd part of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which did not occur. Note that it is quite possible that the President did not know that the 2nd attack was not real, as there is no evidence that he was ever told. However, McNamara, our intel community, and the Military knew that the 2nd attack did not occur. In his memoirs, McNamara acknowledged that he was aware of the falsity of the 2nd attack, but did not mention that he had informed the President of this.

From what I remember, the President was completely aware of the fact that the battle probably didn't occur...

Stranger things have happened in wartime. Ike was a light colonel in 1939, four stars and five years later in charge of everything in ETO.

And he was good at it.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

And if he was excessively concerned of Chinese intervention, that would have thrown a serious monkey-wrench into things.

You'd think that he would be better able to focus on his domestic agenda if he wasn't micromanaging things so much: After all that'll tie up valuable energy (that's why you delegate, because it's damned near impossible to do everything yourself). I'm surprised he didn't understand that.

What training I've had in leadership -- mind you, low-level stuff, NCO Academy in the USAF (six weeks in a classroom) and retail management -- focused on several things. Pertinent to this point of yours, we learned that wise delegation is an art of leadership: identifying those who 1) share your operational vision, 2) who have the initiative to make things happen, and 3) who spend more time on solutions than fretting over problems.

Granted that my experience gives me very little standing to pass judgement on the topic at hand, I'll give a little anyway. I suspect that LBJ understood these principles at some level, but that McN did not. This is due to their prior experiences, LBJ as a politician who had to lead voters to polling stations, and McN with his background in metrics rather than people.

Don't get me wrong, a good command of details is important, but from my scanty reading, it seems like McN fetishized numbers rather than mission; and as a senior advisor to LBJ likely promulgated his own approach to the detriment of the latter's skill at getting people to do what he wanted them to do. LBJ's failure, if I'm right, is in giving McN too much ear.

This is all opinion, and I'm certainly amenable to correction on any points I'm making.

 

[Zipper730]

I was reading a book called "Clashes: Air Combat over Vietnam 1965-1972" by Marshall L. Michel III. I was largely looking for a passage which described the use of F-4's in 1967 performing CAP's over the airfields to either catch MiG's taking off (they couldn't bomb the fields, but they could shoot the planes once airborne) -- and that was on page 88.

Regardless, I found another passage that's of interest here on page 90

....In March the northeast monsoon kept the weather bad and limited the ​

number of strikes, but the strikes escalated when, on March 10, the Thai ​

Nyugen steel works were bombed for the first time. In Washington ​

another battle continued: Rolling Thunder was becoming ever more con-​

troversial and had resulted in a sharp division between the military and ​

the secretary of defense, with the President in the middle. The military ​

continued to press for an increase in the bombings and the relaxation of ​

other restrictions, including the mining of Haiphong harbor; Secretary of ​

Defense McNamara believed the bombing was achieving its objectives ​

and still feared a confrontation with China or the Soviet Union.​

The emboldened stuff is emphasized by me.

 

[Graeme]

had irrational or unusually irrational concerns about Vietnam spiraling out of control

(From LBJ - Randall B. Woods. Free Press - 2006)

 

[Dimlee]

View attachment 622845

(From LBJ - Randall B. Woods. Free Press - 2006)

Thanks. Added this book to my " Vietham - must read" list on Amazon.

 

[Dimlee]

I was reading a book called "Clashes: Air Combat over Vietnam 1965-1972" by Marshall L. Michel III. I was largely looking for a passage which described the use of F-4's in 1967 performing CAP's over the airfields to either catch MiG's taking off (they couldn't bomb the fields, but they could shoot the planes once airborne) -- and that was on page 88.

Regardless, I found another passage that's of interest here on page 90

....In March the northeast monsoon kept the weather bad and limited the ​

number of strikes, but the strikes escalated when, on March 10, the Thai ​

Nyugen steel works were bombed for the first time. In Washington ​

another battle continued: Rolling Thunder was becoming ever more con-​

troversial and had resulted in a sharp division between the military and ​

the secretary of defense, with the President in the middle. The military ​

continued to press for an increase in the bombings and the relaxation of ​

other restrictions, including the mining of Haiphong harbor; Secretary of ​

Defense McNamara believed the bombing was achieving its objectives ​

and still feared a confrontation with China or the Soviet Union.​

The emboldened stuff is emphasized by me.

The mining of Haiphong and adjacent area was not done until 1972, as I remember? Probably, one of the critical mistakes. Most of the USSR/Warsaw Pact supplies were delivered by sea.

 

[Zipper730]

View attachment 622845

(From LBJ - Randall B. Woods. Free Press - 2006)

So Johnson was unusually concerned, and the SecDef was even MORE extreme in his worries. There's also the possibility that his abnormal worries were affected by McNamara.

McNamara seemed to only done a few good things that I can readily think of

1. Prevented Operation Northwoods: After the Bay of Pigs invasion, a plan was created to justify occupying Cuba (this predated the Cuban Missile Crisis) through some sort of false-flag operation. It was approved by all members of the JCS. McNamara rejected the plan, which JFK agreed. The Chairman of the JCS was removed shortly after.
2. Created a joint-designation system for aircraft and missiles: Truthfully, just the missile system alone would have been a pretty solid idea, to be honest, but it definitely made the designation system less unwieldy.
3. Suggested the SST program be enlarged in size: While the SST program was a failure (and McNamara had slowed the development of the designs with needless studies), he suggested that, with high-bypass turbofans (as used on the CX-HLS) likely to make large airliners possible (and that would make them greatly more efficient), the SST designs should be scaled-up to make them economical (while this required the engines to be scaled up, it proved not to be an insurmountable problem). This ultimately resulted in the designs being enlarged to an extent that they could be economically feasible even if operated over oceanic airspace (something that was a major issue).
4. Wanted a large-scale community shelter system: Admittedly it probably wasn't able to withstand the chimney effect, and almost certainly unable to withstand biological agents.

Frankly, I'm amazed that Johnson didn't relieve McNamara (I'm not even sure how much McNamara wanted to be the SecDef -- he was reluctant to take the job, and felt he wasn't qualified).

 

[Zipper730]

Regarding counter-insurgency operations, from what I remember seeing in another thread: The MACV SOG was given permission to infiltrate the Ho Chi Minh Trail using reconnaissance teams with a new commanding officer, Colonel Donald Blackburn who back in WWII managed to escape the Japanese death marches, and began training Filipino resistance fighters, and had 20,000 of them by the time General MacArthur returned.

He conceived a plan that involved using teams of Green Berets, and Nung tribesmen that would explore southern Laos in order to find NVA bases and troop concentrations and then use that to direct air-strikes on them: At that point, company sized raiding units that were called "hatchet forces' would be recruited and trained, and would attack targets that were identified by reconnaissance teams by dropping in by helicopter, and swiftly taking out their targets, then get back in the helo and be out of there before anybody figured out what happened. Lastly, thousands of Laotian tribesmen would be recruited to attack the NVA wherever possible with the goal of getting them all bunched together, so that they could be better identified, targeted, and killed.

For some reason, Ambassador Sullivan imposed heavy restrictions on the plan, and since the Kennedy Administration, the operations in Laos were under an ambassador's control: I'm not sure why such heavy restrictions were imposed, as it seemed truly effective, and Johnson was under no obligation to follow Kennedy's orders as Kennedy was dead, and he was now the President.

I'm tagging Mike Wint because he knows more here.

 

[GrauGeist]

Unfortunately, Mike may not respond at this point.
He has had health issues and hasn't been on the forums for a year.
Hoping he recovers and returns soon, but not sure when that'll be.

 

[Zipper730]

Unfortunately, Mike may not respond at this point. He has had health issues and hasn't been on the forums for a year.

Didn't know, but I'm sorry to hear that.

 

[Zipper730]

Dimlee, GrauGeist, Thumpalumpacus, T tyrodtom

I'm curious about two things

1. Why did Sullivan impose such restrictions on the training of the hatchet teams, and their use?
2. Why did Sullivan have so much say in the war?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Dimlee, GrauGeist, Thumpalumpacus, T tyrodtom

I'm curious about two things

1. Why did Sullivan impose such restrictions on the training of the hatchet teams, and their use?
2. Why did Sullivan have so much say in the war?

I don't know enough to give an informed reply.

 

[GrauGeist]

Sullivan was the lead in a covert war, which even the North Vietnamese kept secret.
So the chain of command was literally LBJ, Sullivan and ministers in the Loatian government.

As far as the Spec Ops question, I wasn't aware that Sullivan was involved, so I can't offer any insight.

 

[ThomasP]

Hey Zipper730,

If you have not already run across it, check out the Wiki article on Laotian Coups here:

"1960 Laotian coups - Wikipedia"

It does a pretty good job of explaining the complicated politics involved, which in turn helps explain the tight control on operations.

 

[SaparotRob]

Great post ThomasP, thanks.

 

[Zipper730]

Sullivan was the lead in a covert war, which even the North Vietnamese kept secret.
So the chain of command was literally LBJ, Sullivan and ministers in the Loatian government.

Would a proposed covert operation of this nature reached the President? If so, would it have gone through Sullivan, or through the CIA/DoD/Military?

If you have not already run across it, check out the Wiki article on Laotian Coups here:

"1960 Laotian coups - Wikipedia"

It seems like one coup after another.

 

[GrauGeist]

Would a proposed covert operation of this nature reached the President? If so, would it have gone through Sullivan, or through the CIA/DoD/Military?

In this case, the operations went straight from Sullivan to LBJ, with as few as possible in the loop due to the secrecy.
Very few knew about the operations in Laos and it was many years before either the U.S. or Vietnam would admit or discuss the actions.
My Uncle Bill (Capt. USN) was lost either over Laos or Cambodia during an intelligence flight. Due to the sensitivity of the covert ops, he flew the mission himself and was reported missing after he failed to show for the primary or secondary refueling windows.
They eventually found his aircraft, but not him. This was in early 1969.

 

[Zipper730]

In this case, the operations went straight from Sullivan to LBJ, with as few as possible in the loop due to the secrecy.

So LBJ only heard what Sullivan told him? I've often described power structures like this as a neck because the single source is much like the neck to the leader's head -- he can turn the head anyway he wants, becoming more powerful than the leader through the practice of removing/altering crucial details to suit his own purpose (ranging from self-preservation, implementing policies that wouldn't be acceptable without some terminological inexactitude, even causing harm to the leader).

Was there ever any known disagreement between LBJ and Sullivan, and was there anybody he could replace him with?