U.S. PILOT DEFENDS BOMBING RAID

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31255, 30 December 1966, Page 9

U.S. PILOT DEFENDS BOMBING RAID

(N.Z. Preet Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, December 28. An American pilot who has bombed the town of Nam Dinh said today the area contained at least three legitimate military targets—and some of the heaviest anti-aircraft defences in North Vietnam.

Nam Dinh has been cited by an assistant managing editor of the “New York Times,” Harrison Salisbury, as one of the North Vietnamese centres which suffered heavy civilian casualties from American bombing.

Salisbury said that although the Mayor of Nam Dinh regarded the city as “essentially a cotton-and-silk textile town containing nothing of military significance,” it had been systematically attacked by American planes since June 28, 1965.”

He said 89 people have been killed, 405 wounded and the homes of 12,464 destroyed. Salisbury’s report has become the principal issue in a bitter public debate involving charges of lack of frankness on the part of the administration. Commander Robert Mandeville, commander of Navy Attack Squadron 65, today told

a Norfolk (Virginia) reporter that Nam Dinh was part of a transport complex leading south from Haiphong, North Vietnam’s main seaport, and capital of Hanoi. Commander Mandeville said his squadron, which returned to the United States earlier this month, had frequently hit the Nam Dinh area. “Our targets,” Commander Mandeville said, “consisted mainly of a large trans-ship-ment area on the banks of the river, a fuel area on the delta east of the town and rail yards to the west.” Heavy Defences He said his pilots regarded flam Dinh as one of the most dangerous objectives in North Vietnam. “Some of our guys think this is the most heavily-de-fended area up there,” he said. “The North Vietnamese don’t waste their anti-aircraft I batteries. They only put them around stuff they want to protect.” Commander Mandeville said Hanoi accounts of United States air strikes in North Vietnam were notoriously inaccurate. President Silent At his 400-acre Texas ranch, President Johnson today kept silent on the controversy. Political observers said they could not recall any period when the normally ebullent President had withdrawn himself so completely from the public gaze. On the bombings, the only official comment came yesterday when a White House spokesman said there had been no change in United States policy of bombing only military targets in North Vietnam.

The carefully limited White House comment was interpreted as a decision to keep the President out of the controversy stemming from the bombing disclosure and accusations that Washington had been confusing the American people and even keeping the truth from them. Congress Inquiry Some form of Congressional scrutiny is likely when Senator William Fulbright conducts the annual foreign policy review by his Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Democratic Senator has been one of the strongest critics of President Johnson's Vietnam policy. No date for the hearings has been set, but they probably will begin in late January or early February.