Why were so many planes shot down? Ever wondered why so many of our aviators in Vietnam got shot down?
Nearly twenty years after our involvement in Vietnam ended, Peter Arnett interviewed former Secretary of State Dean Rusk for a C B C documentary called The Ten Thousand Day War. The following questions and comments are part of that interview, as documented by General Pete Piotrowski in his book The Secret War and Other Conflicts:
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?”
The former Secretary astonishing response was "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 N V N government through their embassy in Hanoi." 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 N V N 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 N V N prison camps as a direct result of being intentionally betrayed by Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara, and perhaps even President Johnson himself.
Mr. Arnett opined that “this would be a treasonous act by anyone else.” A very sad revelation. 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.
Those who flew over North Vietnam always suspected that this was what was happening.
Nearly twenty years after our involvement in Vietnam ended, Peter Arnett interviewed former Secretary of State Dean Rusk for a C B C documentary called The Ten Thousand Day War. The following questions and comments are part of that interview, as documented by General Pete Piotrowski in his book The Secret War and Other Conflicts:
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?”
The former Secretary astonishing response was "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 N V N government through their embassy in Hanoi." 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 N V N 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 N V N prison camps as a direct result of being intentionally betrayed by Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara, and perhaps even President Johnson himself.
Mr. Arnett opined that “this would be a treasonous act by anyone else.” A very sad revelation. 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.
Those who flew over North Vietnam always suspected that this was what was happening.