The Vietnam War, This Week, The Press, Pittsburgh PA

Vietnam War Weekly Front Pages

 17 July 1966 – 23 July 1966

The Press, Pittsburgh PA

“Opposed to each other like fire and water.”

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President Johnson apparently was determined to build for himself a role as the historic leader of what he had termed “the Pacific era.” He had upgraded Asia on the list of US foreign policy priorities. It was his belief that a “free Asia” had been too long neglected and that a vast “knowledge gap” existed among the American people about the nature, value, and influence of the Pacific region. Mr. Johnson enlisted the members of his cabinet over the weekend in a campaign to increase public understanding and emphasize the importance of Asia. He devoted a major portion of a cabinet session to this new emphasis.

US Marines had opened an offensive against a North Vietnamese division which had crossed into South Vietnam and was trying to seize the northwest corner of the country. The division of about 7,000 men apparently was trying to seal off the area near the border of Laos to permit an uninterrupted flow of men and material into the south. US overall losses were described as “light” but a troop-laden CH-46 Seaknight helicopter was shot down in flames. Losses were described as “heavy” in the crash. Such a helicopter usually carries 14 troops and a crew of four. It was reported on Monday that the Marines had killed 148 communist regulars and had stopped the planned major offensive. One US officer said only “lizards and Communists” lived in the rugged mountain area before a Marine and government task force moved into the region last Friday in “Operation Hastings.” During the battle two battered US Marine platoons about 90 men strong turned back a human wave assault by 1,000 North Vietnamese regulars in three hours of “jungle hell” which cost the Reds heavily. The Communist troops, led by buglers, attacked the outnumbered Leathernecks in the northwest corner of South Vietnam near the Laotian border. The North Vietnamese used mortars, machine guns, hand grenades, and small arms fire in the unsuccessful attempt to wipe out two platoons from Kilo company, Third Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment. The mauled platoons reached safety only after heavy artillery, two companies of fellow Marines, and US planes dumping napalm managed to turn the tide. Midweek the Marines reported killing more than 900 Communist troops in their greatest operation of the war and said it had forestalled a major Red offensive against three South Vietnamese cities.

US Navy and Air Force planes continued to fly missions over the north, including 108 on Sunday, striking oil storage depots and transportation facilities in the Southern Panhandle region. Two planes were lost but their crews were rescued. Pilots reported sighting 35 fires and hearing 51 secondary explosions after the raid on the Budon oil storage facility 20 miles north-northwest of Dong Hoi.

The United States warned Communist North Vietnam that a decision to try US airmen as war criminals and execute them would infuriate all Americans and jeopardize the Hanoi government. The Ambassador-at-Large, interviewed on Voice of America, warned that threatened trials for the prisoners – the exact number not known but estimated at 90 – would bring on serious and long-lasting consequences. The ranking Senate Republican, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, chimed in that “if Hanoi tries our prisoners and executes them, the United States would be virtually unanimous in demanding that we go all out to destroy the people responsible by whatever means is necessary.” On Tuesday the North Vietnamese ambassador to Peking said the captured American pilots “could be” tried as war criminals in accordance with Vietnamese law. But reports did not quote him a saying the decision had already been taken by Hanoi to try the men in the face of US official warnings that such an act could have “disastrous consequences.” At the end of the week, it was learned that the United States was holding 19 captured North Vietnamese sailors, possibly for use in a prisoner exchange with Hanoi for American airmen held by the Reds. In addition, it was reported that a US Navy pilot had escaped from North Vietnam and had been rescued in what was called a million-to-one chance.

Communist North Vietnam said Wednesday that the positions of Hanoi and Washington were “opposed to each other like fire and water; there can be no third stand.” The statement once again dashed hopes of any peaceful settlement of the Vietnam War.

(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Pittsburgh Press)