...and to think...58,000 American soldiers died as Kennedy and Johnson played politics in Vietnam.
HISTORIC CONFESSION
This was happening as early as 1964. We could plan a mission late one night and the Viet Cong would be in ambush mode by daylight the next morning.
It really cost a lot of F-105 (thud) pilots their lives.Most of them were flying out of Thailand. They had to fly a given route, at a specified altitude, and at a specified time. President Johnson once bragged that "Our aircraft can not bomb an outhouse without my approval".
The following excerpt is from General Piotrowski's Book, "Basic Airman To General: The Secret War and Other Conflicts". John L. Piotrowski served as CINCNORAD from February 1987 to March 1990.
Published 2014 by General Pete Piotrowski, ISBN 978-1-4931-6187-4 (Hardcover)
Following is a quote of much interest, from pages 246/247:
"Nearly twenty years later, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk being interviewed by Peter Arnett on a CBS documentary called "The Ten Thousand Day War". Mr Arnett asked, "It has been rumored that the United States provided the North Vietnamese government the names of the targets that would be bombed the following day. Is there any truth to that allegation?"
To everyone's astonishment and absolute disgust, the former Secretary responded, "Yes. We didn't want to harm the North Vietnamese people, so we passed the targets to the Swiss embassy in Washington with instructions to pass them to the NVN government through their embassy in Hanoi."
As we watched in horror, Secretary Rusk went on to say, "All we wanted to do is demonstrate to the North Vietnamese leadership that we could strike targets at will, but we didn't want to kill innocent people. By giving the North Vietnamese advanced warning of the targets to be attacked, we thought they would tell the workers to stay home."
No wonder all the targets were so heavily defended day after day! The NVN obviously moved as many guns as they could overnight to better defend each target they knew was going to be attacked. Clearly, many brave American Air Force and Navy fliers died or spent years in NVN prison camps as a direct result of being intentionally betrayed by Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara, and perhaps, President Johnson himself.
I cannot think of a more duplicitous and treacherous act of American government officials. Dean Rusk served as Secretary of State from January 21, 1961, through to January 20, 1969, under President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Perhaps Senator John McCain, POW for five years and presidential candidate in 2008, was one of the many victims of this utter stupidity and flawed policy flowing from President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Mr. Peter Arnett opined that this would be a treasonous act by anyone else."
HISTORIC CONFESSION
This was happening as early as 1964. We could plan a mission late one night and the Viet Cong would be in ambush mode by daylight the next morning.
It really cost a lot of F-105 (thud) pilots their lives.Most of them were flying out of Thailand. They had to fly a given route, at a specified altitude, and at a specified time. President Johnson once bragged that "Our aircraft can not bomb an outhouse without my approval".
The following excerpt is from General Piotrowski's Book, "Basic Airman To General: The Secret War and Other Conflicts". John L. Piotrowski served as CINCNORAD from February 1987 to March 1990.
Published 2014 by General Pete Piotrowski, ISBN 978-1-4931-6187-4 (Hardcover)
Following is a quote of much interest, from pages 246/247:
"Nearly twenty years later, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk being interviewed by Peter Arnett on a CBS documentary called "The Ten Thousand Day War". Mr Arnett asked, "It has been rumored that the United States provided the North Vietnamese government the names of the targets that would be bombed the following day. Is there any truth to that allegation?"
To everyone's astonishment and absolute disgust, the former Secretary responded, "Yes. We didn't want to harm the North Vietnamese people, so we passed the targets to the Swiss embassy in Washington with instructions to pass them to the NVN government through their embassy in Hanoi."
As we watched in horror, Secretary Rusk went on to say, "All we wanted to do is demonstrate to the North Vietnamese leadership that we could strike targets at will, but we didn't want to kill innocent people. By giving the North Vietnamese advanced warning of the targets to be attacked, we thought they would tell the workers to stay home."
No wonder all the targets were so heavily defended day after day! The NVN obviously moved as many guns as they could overnight to better defend each target they knew was going to be attacked. Clearly, many brave American Air Force and Navy fliers died or spent years in NVN prison camps as a direct result of being intentionally betrayed by Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara, and perhaps, President Johnson himself.
I cannot think of a more duplicitous and treacherous act of American government officials. Dean Rusk served as Secretary of State from January 21, 1961, through to January 20, 1969, under President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Perhaps Senator John McCain, POW for five years and presidential candidate in 2008, was one of the many victims of this utter stupidity and flawed policy flowing from President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Mr. Peter Arnett opined that this would be a treasonous act by anyone else."
