On April 7, 1965, Major Arthur D. Baker and Colonel James W. Lewis were crewmen on a B-57B, one in a flight of four aircraft on an interdiction mission launched from Biên Hòa Air Base, South Vietnam and with its target in Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. The crew was last seen descending through thin overcast toward the target area and it never reappeared. Extensive search and rescue efforts through April 12th failed to locate either the aircraft or its crew. On April 14, 1965, the New China News Agency reported the shoot down of a B-57 approximately three miles north-northeast of the town of Khang Khay. This was described as the first B-57 shoot down of an aircraft launched from South Vietnam. Both crewmen were initially reported missing in action in South Vietnam while on a classified mission. Their loss location was later changed to Laos. There was limited wartime reporting about U.S. aircraft losses in the general area the crewmen were last reported but they could not be correlated to this specific incident. U.S. intelligence continues to receive information which may correlate to this shoot down but provides no positive information on the fate of the crewmen. In January 1974 Major Baker’s next-of-kin requested his case review go forward and he was declared killed in action, body not recovered, in January 1974. Lewis was declared dead/body not recovered, in April 1982. Returning POWs were unable to provide any information on the fate of these two servicemen.
In 2003 the remains of both crewmen were positively identified and returned to the United States. In July 1997, a joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic team interviewed several witnesses, two of whom led the team to the crash site. Four excavations led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) from 2003 to 2004 yielded human remains and crew-related artifacts. JPAC and Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab scientists used mitochondrial DNA to identify the remains as those of Lewis and Baker.
James is buried in Colonia Gardens, Marshall, Texas. He also has a memorial stone at Arlington National Cemetery with his co-pilot. He is honored on the Wall at Panel 1E, line 102.
In a major policy speech broadcast from Johns Hopkins University (and seen or heard by an estimated 60,000,000 people). President Johnson says that the United States is ready to engage in “unconditional discussions” to settle the war (although in fact he sets forth several conditions). He calls for a vast economic plan for Southeast Asia, for which he will ask Congress to approve $1 billion. Between 9-12 April, however. North Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union will reject these proposals; Western nations and U Thant of the UN support Johnson’s statement. This address, often labeled the “Peace without Conquest” speech, placated many skeptics who doubted the United States’ strategy on Vietnam. Communists in Hà Nội, Beijing, and Moscow, however, viewed Johnson’s proposal as nothing more than an invitation to surrender. This public address did not lead to a cessation of hostilities or a peace agreement; instead, American military involvement in Vietnam continued for seven more years.
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson delivered the “Peace Without Conquest” speech at Johns Hopkins University, explaining the reasons for the escalation of the American involvement in the Vietnam War. An author would note later that, “While the speech at Johns Hopkins provided short-term gains, it proved counterproductive in the long run, for it began the erosion of Johnson’s credibility, which eventually derailed his presidency.” Johnson offered “unconditional discussions” with North Vietnam for peace, emphasizing that there was the condition of keeping South Vietnam independent and non-Communist. He also pledged a one billion dollar investment, the Lower Mekong Basin Project, comparing the endeavor to the Tennessee Valley Authority development.
This public address produced significant consequences for the Vietnam War. Skeptics on the right and left of the American political spectrum rallied behind Johnson’s offer for talks with Hà Nội amid increased military pressure. The pattern of incoming White House mail shifted from widespread criticism of the president to substantial support. In May, Congress approved 700 million dollars in appropriations for the war. Congressional Republicans, who had previously voiced concerns that Johnson’s foreign policy positions were too timid, lessened their resistance to the president’s antipoverty reform package known as the Great Society and backed the president’s firm stance in Vietnam. Even the British, French, and United Nations General Secretary U Thant expressed support for Johnson’s calls for talks with Hà Nội.
On the Communist side of the Iron Curtain, Johnson’s speech was met with wariness and indignation. The North Vietnamese recent experiences with the French in the First Indochina War had convinced Hồ Chí Minh that imperialists often used calls for negotiations to buy time or reposition military forces. Even Johnson’s choice of words, his offer for “unconditional discussions,” seemed much more like an invitation to surrender than a bid for substantive and conclusive negotiations. Furthermore, the billion-dollar aid package, the president’s attempt to bequeath a New Deal-type reform package, had little appeal to the North Vietnamese. Instead, the leadership in Hà Nội viewed its strategic and military goals as intertwined, and they never wavered from their aspiration to unify Vietnam under a Communist government.
Many historians argue that Johnson knew the North Vietnamese would not accept this offer for talks, and some scholars even allege that the president himself was not serious about seeking a peace agreement at this time in the war. Most writers believe that the “Peace without Conquest” address succeeded in silencing domestic and international criticism, and the speech enabled the president to accomplish his immediate goal of escalating the war in Vietnam without derailing his Great Society domestic reforms. Two weeks later, at a conference in Honolulu, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General William Westmoreland promised the other members of President Johnson’s administration that a firm and sustained military commitment by the United States would lead the Communists to grow frustrated and give up the insurgency in South Vietnam within a time period of six months to two years. They also agreed at this conference to double the number of United States’ troops in Vietnam to over fifty thousand. These policy makers badly underestimated the Vietnamese Communists resolve to accomplish their goals, and the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War continued for the next seven years at a tremendous cost. Still, Johnson’s “Peace without Conquest” speech reminds us that the president’s positions on Vietnam enjoyed widespread support in 1965.
Thirty-five United States Navy planes destroyed seven trucks and damaged four others today during bombing and strafing attacks along a major highway in North Vietnam. A Navy spokesman said that the planes loosed about 20 tons of rockets and napalm on Highway 1 between the demilitarized zone at the border between North and South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese town of Vinh. The American pilots encountered light anticraft fire but no enemy aircraft. All the planes, including an undisclosed number of F-8 Crusader and F-4 Phantom jet fighters, returned to their base, the carrier USS Coral Sea (CVA-43).
The strikes began about 9 o’clock in the morning and lasted about seven and a half hours. The target area extended about 150 miles from the 17th Parallel, which divides Vietnam, to Vinh, a staging and supply area for Communist troops moving through eastern Laos to South Vietnam, Military spokesmen in Saigon could not immediately explain how the Navy pilots had ascertained that all of the trucks they hit were military vehicles. Asked whether there was a chance some were civilian trucks, a spokesman said, “There’s a better chance that they were military.”
While the Navy aircraft were pursuing military convoys, Việt Cộng in the South were attempting the same kind of disruption with land mines. Explosions last night blew up a car of a South Vietnamese armored train 350 miles northeast of Saigon in Quảng Nam Province. Three government soldiers and a civilian were killed and six soldiers were wounded. The Communist guerrillas also set off two mines farther south, in Quảng Ngãi Province. One government soldier died, but four guerrillas were also killed when the government platoon pursued the Communists.
In Chương Thiện Province in the Mekong Delta, a government operation ended after three days of heavy fighting. Việt Cộng casualties were put at 276 known dead. American casualties in that operation, as previously reported, have been put at six killed and four wounded. South Vietnamese losses were 14 killed and 90 wounded.
The United States announced that the search for two pilots, one American and one South Vietnamese, who were shot down Sunday has been given up. The American, Captain Carlyle S. Harris of Preston, Maryland, was in an F-105 jet that was brought down by ground fire during the second raid on the North Vietnamese bridge outside Thanh Hóa. The Vietnamese pilot, flying an A-1H Skyraider, was shot down during a strike by the Vietnamese Air Force against the Hồ Chí Minh Bridge near Đồng Hới. This raised the number of aircraft acknowledged as lost last Sunday to five. Since the strikes against the North began on February 7, 13 American pilots and one Vietnamese have been killed or captured or are missing in North Vietnam.
Brigadier General Huỳnh Văn Cao has been named chief of staff of the South Vietnamese armed forces, the Government-run Vietnam news agency announced today.
The Việt Cộng threatened today to shoot a kidnapped United States aid officer, Gustav C. Hertz of Leesburg, Virginia, if the Saigon Government executed a terrorist arrested in the bombing of the United States embassy March 30.
The Chinese Communists were reported tonight to have ceased putting obstacles in the way of Soviet arms shipments to North Vietnam. Reliable diplomatic sources quoted high-ranking Soviet officials to the effect that negotiations with the Chinese on the subject of the transit of Soviet arms through China had been concluded and satisfactorily that weapons and missiles were flowing smoothly to the North Vietnamese. The report came 10 days after Communist sources had reported that the Chinese refused to grant permission for Soviet arms to be sent to Hanoi by air via Peking. The same sources had quoted Soviet officials as having said that the Chinese were using obstructionist tactics to drag: out negotiations on transshipment of arms by rail. The Chinese negotiators insisted on the right to inspect the shipments, which are believed to include anti-aircraft missiles. statements attributed to the Soviet officials said.
The Soviet complaints were given distribution by wide circles close to the leadership here, but they were never repeated officially. Similarly, no official confirmation could be obtained for the reports that the difficulties had been overcome. Discussing another phase of the Vietnam problem, President Anastas A. Mikoyan told Pakistani journalists tonight that the first requirement was for “the Americans to withdraw their forces and to stop killing innocent people.” He spoke to the correspondents at a reception given for Soviet officials by President Mohammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan, who has been here on a state visit since Saturday. The Pakistani Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, signed a trade agreement with the Soviet Union under which Soviet trade with Pakistan will double during the next three years. The agreement also calls for the shipment of farm machinery and industrial equipment to Pakistan.
Australia’s Prime Minister Robert Menzies decided to commit 800 Army troops from the 1st Battalion to the Vietnam War, despite not consulting with the full cabinet. Menzies would not announce the decision in Parliament until April 29, a day after the media broke the story.
Soviet jet fighters zoomed low over West Berlin’s Congress Hall today in angry protest against the presence there of the West German Parliament. Communist authorities again blocked land access to the city for part of the day. Throughout the four-hour session of Parliament, Communist aircraft apparently executing a well-planned operation crisscrossed at low altitude above the sleekly modern structure where 400 West German Deputies were meeting. It was their first plenary session here of the Bonn Parliament in seven years. Some of the politicians left the chamber to watch the show overhead. The planes cracked windows throughout the city with sonic booms and shattered virtually every air safety regulation governing the skies above West Berlin.
In Washington, the State Department assailed the Soviet flights as “dangerous and provocative.” It also called in the Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly F. Dobrynin, to protest “in the strongest terms” Russian harassment of Berlin access routes and the flights over the city.
The Russians’ sorties, in single flights and groups of three or four, made the airport approach for a score of commercial transports a heart-stopping business. West Berlin policemen reported that one Communist fighter was observed discharging its cannon, presumably firing blank rounds. The allied commanders in Berlin labeled the spectacular air harassment “reckless and irresponsible,” but they undertook no countermeasures. The buzzing ended at nightfall as the Bundestag, the lower house of the West Parliament, adjourned a deliberately routine session. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard flew back to Bonn, his Government having made the symbolic point that its Parliament was entitled to sit in the former capital of Germany.
Reprisals on the ground against the meeting of the Bundestag continued for the sixth day. The Soviet and East German Governments viewed the session as a “provocation.” This city’s main land link to the West, the 110-mile Berlin-Helmstedt autobahn, was closed from 9 AM to noon. The shutdown was one hour shorter than that of yesterday. But it served again to infringe the asserted allied right of unrestricted communication with West Berlin. A dozen allied military vehicles, including six United States cars, were denied free passage along the autobahn during the shutdown period. Some of the allied automobiles were held at checkpoints at either end of the highway. Others, en route across the Soviet zone, were halted repeatedly for brief periods. The moves were ostensibly occasioned by the requirements of Soviet and East German troops engaged in large-scale maneuvers near the Elbe River midway between Berlin and the West German border.
The maneuvers appeared to consist largely of parading motorized troops up and down the four-lane divided highway. Allied observers said about 20,000 soldiers of the Soviet 19th Motorized Division and the East German First Division, riding in about 1,500 vehicles, occupied the autobahn at midday. It appears to have been the decision of the Western powers to tolerate the harassment until the cause of Communist anger had passed. The Bundestag met in Berlin for one day only. If infringement on allied access rights is resumed tomorrow, informed sources predicted] a vigorous Western reaction. The Soviet press, in a weeklong campaign, has been denouncing the decision to hold the Bundestag session as an attempt by Bonn “revenge-seekers” to claim West Berlin as part of West German territory. The Soviet Union takes the position that Berlin is an “independent political entity.”
The United States is nearing agreement with Jordan to supply additional arms, including tanks, to help modernize her army. At the same time, after some initial negotiating difficulties, progress has been reported in talks between the United States, and Israel over the purchase of American arms. It is expected that the two nations will reach an agreement soon. The pending arms agreements with two ostensibly hostile nations underline the dilemma facing the Johnson Administration in the Middle East arms race. At the policy-making levels of the Administration there is a desire to curb the race, or at least not contribute to its acceleration by becoming a major supplier of arms to the Middle East. But political and diplomatic factors are pushing the Administration into a more active role of supplying arms on a selective basis in an attempt to maintain a military balance and political stability in the Middle East.
The Turkish Government has refused to consider the continuation of Galo Plaza Lasso as mediator between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. This refusal added to the complications of a situation in which both Mr. Plaza and the Secretary General, U Thant, had reported that tensions were rising and that new violence was to be feared. A Turkish note to Mr. Thant, made public today, rejected his request for reconsideration of an earlier statement that Mr. Plaza had disqualified himself, by exceeding his authority.
Canada’s Prime Minister Lester Pearson and his Liberal Party government won a vote of no confidence brought by the New Democratic Party. The measure failed, 84–129, when 24 members of other parties joined the 105 Liberals voting against the motion.
Former Belgian colonial administrators are returning to the Congo to take up positions they left when the country became independent five years ago.
The Labor Government introduced legislation today to outlaw racial discrimination at all “places of public resort” in Britain.
Japan will send a delegation to a potentially important meeting of Asian and African leaders in Indonesia beginning April 17. She hopes to establish there her first unofficial contact with Communist China on a significant level.
In the 1965 parliamentary election for 144 seats in the Dáil Éireann, the first to be covered on television, the ruling Fianna Fáil party obtained an additional two legislators, giving it a majority of exactly one-half, with 72 seats.
The Cuban Communist revolution must create the austere “Man of the 21st Century” and shun the pitfalls of material well-being, Major Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Minister of Industry, said in an article published here today.
A House Judiciary subcommittee began detailed consideration of the voting-rights bill today. The pressure immediately developed for including an outright ban on state and local poll taxes.
The House of Representatives began debate on medical care for the aged today with the expectation of favorable action tomorrow by a one-sided vote.
The American Medical Association switched its support to a GOP-sponsored medical insurance program in a last-minute attempt to stop the administration’s Social Security-financed Medicare program.
Republicans began peppering President Johnson’s $1.3 billion school-aid bill with proposed amendments as debate on the biggest of the Great Society programs opened today in the Senate.
The House recently voted $325,000 to build a new armored limousine for President Johnson, it has been disclosed, and $197,000 for a Secret Service follow-up car.
The roar of gunfire shook racially tense Bogalusa, Louisiana. Civil rights workers described it as a brisk fire fight with the Ku Klux Klan. William Yates, a Congress of Racial Equality worker, said early today that about 30 shots were fired over and into a African-American home where he was staying.
Three white men, arrested in Alabama two weeks ago in connection with the slaying of a Detroit housewife, were charged in a federal indictment with violating her civil rights.
A former grand dragon who quit the Ku Klux Klan because of its policy of violence has volunteered to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Smith Griswold, director of the Air Pollution Control District in Los Angeles, asked that exhaust control devices be made compulsory equipment on all new cars sold in the United States beginning this fall.
Paul J. Jennings was seated as president by the International Union of Electrical Workers after a federal recount showed he led James B. Carey in the union’s recent election.
Hundreds were left homeless in the Midwest as quick spring thaws sent waters surging over banks.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 892.94 (+1.04)
Born:
Bill Bellamy, American comedian and actor (“Fled”, “How to be a Player”, “Joey Breaker”), in Newark, New Jersey.
Don Biggs, Canadian NHL centre (Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers), in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
Dominique Crenn, French chef, 1st female chef to win three Michelin stars in the U.S., in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France.
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