The Vietnam War, This Week, The Centre Daily Times, State College, PA

Vietnam War Weekly Front Pages

 25 September 1966 – 1 October 1966

The Centre Daily Times, State College, PA

Grim new highs.

*****

South Vietnam moved a few steps closer to civilian rule with the opening of a conference to draft a new national constitution. The 117-member Constituent Assembly hoped to complete the constitution in six months, paving the way for a popularly elected government by next summer. The meeting this week in the refurbished National Assembly Building would be largely ceremonial. Delegates would deal first with several election challenges from the 11 September balloting for assembly members, settle on bylaws, and elect officers. Work on the constitution was expected to be underway in about two weeks.

American officers believed a four-nation blocking force was the best way to stop Communist troop infiltration across the demilitarized zone into South Vietnam. Sources said the idea was being considered on the highest American levels, but the three other governments also must approve. In related news, President Johnson agreed to attend next month’s seven-nation conference of chiefs of state in Manila, aimed at trying to end the Vietnamese war. The conference was set up under the guidance of President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, for all the countries with military forces engaged in the conflict.

The Pentagon sent a team of railroad experts to South Vietnam to recommend improvements on the battered Vietnamese National Railway, contending its use would ease mounting supply distribution pressures. In addition, a special Vatican mission left for South Vietnam to help promote peace in that troubled nation. The Vatican announced that the mission would attend an extraordinary conference to study the problems of the Roman Catholic Church in Vietnam. Sources at the Vatican said the mission would undoubtedly seek an agreement to restore peace between the often-clashing Buddhist majority and Roman Catholic minority there as a contribution toward the eventual end of all fighting in the country. Meanwhile, North Vietnam broadcasted a Viet Cong invitation to members of previous South Vietnamese governments to join the Communist National Liberation Front, the political arm of the Viet Cong.

On Wednesday, two US Marine bombers missed their target and dropped 500-pound bombs on a friendly village occupied by Vietnamese forces and their families. A US military spokesman said the mistaken bombing killed 35 soldiers and civilians and wounded 16. The bombs also wrecked huts in the village in the northern province of Quang Ngai, 350 miles north of Saigon. The US command also disclosed that American troops had launched four new search-and-destroy operations and were operating in the Mekong Delta for the first time in the Vietnam war. Until now the huge Delta rice bowl – much of it now under deep flood waters – had been an area of operation solely for South Vietnamese troops.

US forces suffered more casualties in South Vietnam in the last week than any week of the war, the US command announced. The high toll apparently resulted from hard fighting south of the demilitarized zone, where American Marines were battling North Vietnamese regulars. American casualties during the week totaled 970, including 142 men killed and 825 wounded. Three Americans were reported missing in action or captured. The previous high number of American casualties was during the week ending last May 21, when 146 US troops were killed and 820 wounded, a total of 966. On Thursday, B-52 bombers delivered a one to punch in to raise gas north Vietnamese forces fighting US Marines in the area responsible for the high casualty rate. The B-52s unloaded tons of bombs on infiltration routes, and supply and assembly areas for the Communists fighting on the southern edge of the zone dividing North and South Vietnam. The two rates came less than 12 hours after Marine artillery, orders, and napalm rained down on a Communist command post in a valley a mile and a half below the demilitarized zone. The Marines occupied the post and found 51 North Vietnamese bodies.

US forces in Vietnam rose to 317,500 with the arrival of 2,500 more men – most of them support units – of the 4th Infantry Division. US forces in Vietnam now outnumbered by 500 the 317,000 men which South Vietnam’s regular army claimed, although the South Vietnamese also claimed to have nearly 400,000 militiamen, local forces, and the like.

Communist China marked its 17th anniversary with a pledge to support the Vietnamese Communists to the end and a warning to the United States not to force China into war. The Chinese defense minister told a cheering throng of millions, “We are determined to support to the end the fight of the fraternal Vietnamese people in resisting America and saving their country, whatever sacrifice we have to make.” He also echoed an editorial in the Peking People’s Daily, which warned the United States that if it dared to force China into war “several millions of bravely fighting Liberation Army troops and several tens of millions of militia and Red Guards who are the fraternal rear of the Liberation Army” would be waiting.

(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, State College Centre Daily Times)