Ahhh, the last update was fantastic (I know I'm late, lol. I hate homework), and I can't wait for tomorrow's. Love this time line so much
New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
Swift Vengeance
“Enough is enough my fellow Americans. For too long we have forced our fighting men to engage the enemy with both hands and one foot tied behind their backs. What kind of nation are we if we can’t bring to heel an impoverished backwater that so seeks to subjugate further millions into great suffering and tyranny? One that mocks us? NO MORE! It is time we remove this blight on all humanity from the face of the earth!”
-President George Wallace addressing a joint session of Congress; April 2nd, 1970-
-President George Wallace addressing a joint session of Congress; April 2nd, 1970-
As the smoke and dust cleared over the gutted and damaged cities of South Vietnam, the whole world waited in baited breath for the Wallace Administration’s response. For weeks the White House was filled with scrambling for military strategies, Generals moving to and fro from the Pentagon and Ambassadors visiting the Oval Office from their respective nations. All knew President Wallace would respond and respond with aggression, but the specifics were consistently disputed.
Vice President Henry Jackson would later recount the issues faced in his autobiography published in 1982. Logistical problems were a major concern, any real ground campaign against North Vietnam itself requiring at least a nine months’ preparation. The presence of major NVA forces in Cambodia was a real time threat, though Jackson stated that getting Lon Nol’s cooperation to an allied incursion was a foregone conclusion. What concerned the Administration most was the possibility that China would open up the aid pipeline to Hanoi – and it was this issue that Jackson recalled tipped Wallace’s hand. It was better that they take the opportunity before them, Wallace basically said in a cabinet meeting, before the Chinese do change their minds.
General Westmoreland promoted out following the Tet Offensive, the new commanders directly involved with coordinating the administration’s new strategy was CINC-Pac Admiral John Sydney McCain Jr., and MACV commander General Alexander Haig (a rising star within the military). Facing them was an arduous task that had stumped three previous Administrations and two previous commanders. The elimination of opposition to the Saigon regime. As before with the South Koreans after the first liberation of Seoul, Tho and Thieu were gunning to invade the north, Wallace and LeMay sharing their wishes.
Haig and McCain knew it wasn’t that simple. Previous contingency plans drawn up in the Pentagon established three separate actions: crippling of North Vietnamese defense infrastructure and the interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos from the air, destruction of NVA forces in Cambodia, and finally the invasion of the north. Previous bombings such as the wave authorized by Kennedy following the Battle of the Ia Drang had been inconclusive – but with China overtly hostile to Hanoi the restrictions imposed before could be greatly loosened, and the two commanders planned accordingly.
The country would have its answer on April 2nd, 1970, President Wallace taking the speaker’s box to a joint session of Congress – Vice President Jackson and Speaker Morris Udall behind him. Authorization was not enough in Wallace’s eyes, the war effort proceeding legally under the Eastland-Ford resolution passed during the Rockefeller Administration to authorize further action in Vietnam. No, with the death of McNamara considered an attack on America itself, Wallace requested a formal declaration of war on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, to loud applause in the chamber.
While a bipartisan anti-war coalition was opposed to the widening of the conflict, America’s bloodlust was up and all remembered what happened to then-Rep Janene Rankin after she voted against the post-Pearl Harbor declaration of war. The motion passed unanimously in both houses of congress. The United States was now formally at War with North Vietnam.
Despite the war not officially starting until April 2nd, the air campaign had already begun over a week before. Dubbed Operation Reciprocity by Secretary LeMay himself, it would ultimately fulfill Wallace’s campaign promise to “Bomb them into the Stone Age.” While tactical and strategic bombing – comprising mostly of sorties by USAF F-104 Thunderchiefs and USN A-4 Skyhawks and A-6 Intruders –had continued intermittently since the Kennedy Administration, for Reciprocity the USAF greenlit the use of massive B-52 Stratofortress and B-70 Valkyrie bombers to “Rock and Roll” the North Vietnamese.
What posed a problem was the nature of the air defenses of the north. The Soviets having decided to use Vietnam as a testing ground for their latest Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs), an intricate network of interconnected missile and radar defenses had been built up by the NVA to rival the massive belts surrounding Moscow, East Germany, and Leningrad. Nearly four hundred aircraft had been shot down or heavily damaged since Kennedy ramped up the bombing in 1967.
Before the heavy bombing could begin, the SAMs would have to be suppressed as much as possible. Thusly, thousands of tactical aircraft began their assault on the 25th of March, utilizing their massive numbers and swarm tactics to blast the NVA air defenses to rubble. Vaunted MiG squadrons were gutted and Wild Weasel anti-SAM F-104s engaged the missile batteries head on with anti-radiation missiles and cluster bombs.
Once the declaration of war was voted on, the strategic bombers charged in from Guam, Okinawa, and the Philippines to smash Hanoi, Haiphong, and the other industrial centers of the north. Care was made to avoid residential centers and the networks of dykes and canals crisscrossing the countryside, focusing instead on the modern infrastructure and factories. It would begin over two years of sustained bombing to rival the allied campaign against Germany in later WWII.
One by one the airfields were hit by the inbound Phantom MiG killers, the SAM installations wiped out by the F-104 Wild Weasels. Ho Chi Minh had once so praised the ability of the Vietnamese to win a war of attrition in the face of brutal losses. Feeling the ground shake from the bombs and the sky roar from the hundreds of jets, Le Duan watched as his country shattered around him the B-52s raining death on previously untouched districts.
An apt metaphor for the Vietnam War as a whole.
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Not far behind in the air campaign was the interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and northeast Cambodia. With Laos being an effective Communist ally – though neutral – Wallace and LeMay didn’t feel much apprehension in shifting the interdiction campaign to the southern jungles. Tactical aircraft and the massive AC-130 Spectre gunships rained death on the supply convoys pinpointed by inserted Navy SEALs (one being Medal of Honor winner and future Secretary of Defense Bob Kerrey) and Green Berets. The actions would be immortalized in the prequel to the 1982 classic action movie First Blood, First Blood: The Beginning.
The assaults on Laos, large enough as to not be concealed, sparked a new wave of protests in the west. Attacks on a ‘neutral’ nation had begun the breaking of the surge in support felt after the death of McNamara, but only begun. The immense political capitol would instead live to face what would come next. Haig had dubbed it Operation Dropkick, something that had been banded about for years in the Pentagon but never truly found to be viable politically or diplomatically. Now, with the Khmer Republic fully on board, Wallace and Thieu both gave their green light.
A truly multinational force (comprising mostly American, South Vietnamese, and Australian military units), threw themselves across the Cambodian border, joined by a similar strike by Khmer Republican forces under Lon Nol from Phnom Peth. Having been preparing for this since the Tet Offensive, NVA and Khmer Rouge forces were nevertheless stunned at the sheer ferocity and scope of the assault. Great priority was given to the capture of the senior leadership, US Special Forces and Australian SAS tasked with both the capture of Khmer Rouge General Secretary Pol Pot and the discovery of the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the military HQ for the entire southern command of the NVA. Each was eventually tracked down and captured, the former tried for war crimes in the Cambodian capital and executed in 1971.
McCain’s official Medal of Honor Citation:
The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pride in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR to McCain, John S. III. Rank and Organization: Commander U.S. Navy, USS Oriskany. Pilot of an A-4 Skyhawk aircraft. Place and Date: Khmer Republic, 9 July, 1970. Entered service at: Annapolis, Maryland. Born: 29 August, 1936, Panama Canal Zone, U.S.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while naval officer and pilot aboard USS Oriskany. Flying nonstop combat sorties in support of American and Allied ground forces in the Khmer Republic Cdr. McCain repeatedly assaulted enemy positions to protect a ground force of the 82nd Airborne Division with the utmost fortitude. On his final run enemy flak damaged his craft, causing him to eject from his disabled aircraft. He successfully evaded capture for more than 2 weeks. During this time, he was seriously injured and suffered from shock and extreme weight loss due to lack of food. After being captured by North Vietnamese soldiers, Cdr. McCain was taken to a holding point for subsequent transfer to a prisoner of war camp with a grievously injured Army Lieutenant already held there. In his emaciated and crippled condition, he overpowered 1 of his guards and crawled into the jungle, dragging the Lt. with him. Bracing him upright with his body despite his grievous injuries, Cdr. McCain evaded enemy patrols for five days until being rescued by a South Vietnamese mechanized company. Cdr. McCain’s valiant leadership and extraordinary courage in a hostile environment sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while naval officer and pilot aboard USS Oriskany. Flying nonstop combat sorties in support of American and Allied ground forces in the Khmer Republic Cdr. McCain repeatedly assaulted enemy positions to protect a ground force of the 82nd Airborne Division with the utmost fortitude. On his final run enemy flak damaged his craft, causing him to eject from his disabled aircraft. He successfully evaded capture for more than 2 weeks. During this time, he was seriously injured and suffered from shock and extreme weight loss due to lack of food. After being captured by North Vietnamese soldiers, Cdr. McCain was taken to a holding point for subsequent transfer to a prisoner of war camp with a grievously injured Army Lieutenant already held there. In his emaciated and crippled condition, he overpowered 1 of his guards and crawled into the jungle, dragging the Lt. with him. Bracing him upright with his body despite his grievous injuries, Cdr. McCain evaded enemy patrols for five days until being rescued by a South Vietnamese mechanized company. Cdr. McCain’s valiant leadership and extraordinary courage in a hostile environment sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
When an armored column of ARVN forces sliced across just south of the Laotian border in September, finishing the job of cutting off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Cambodian jungles that had so sheltered the NVA armies subsequently became their tomb. The following months would find the US/ARVN/KRA/AUS armies mopping up the remaining resistance. Meanwhile, Haig, McCain, and Thieu began planning for the final stage of the war. One that would end the cursed conflict once and for all.
While this is a nice thought - has he committed anything as bad as what he did OTL by this stage ITTL?
I'm guessing throughout Lon Nol's rule of Cambodia that the country is basically atin pot dictatorship.
ITTL, his crimes have been massacring villages and torture killing Khmer Army POWs, tens and thousands of dead but nothing as massive as the OTL killing fields.
He'll rule by benign fiat until the 1980s in which he'll allow free elections.
Basically a combination of Batista's Cuba and the current Authoritarian government of Singapore. Most of the country is united against Pol Pot and are behind Lon Nol, who directs most of the human rights abuses that any dictatorship sees against the Khmer Rouge and their supporters. Wallace ignores it for the most part, but future governments in the west will condition further aid to Nol calling free elections, which he does. He wins a first-past-the-post election and serves until his death.
Awesome! Thanks guys! What would you consider your fav aspect?
