Posted on 02/21/2024 7:51:02 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
William Beecher, who as a reporter for The New York Times revealed President Richard M. Nixon’s secret bombing campaign over Cambodia during the Vietnam War, and who later won a Pulitzer Prize at The Boston Globe, died on Feb. 9 at his home in Wilmington, N.C. He was 90.
His daughter, Lori Beecher, and son-in-law, Marc Burstein, confirmed the death.
President Nixon ordered the bombings, code-named Operation Menu, in March 1969 in response to stepped-up attacks by the North Vietnamese Army and South Vietnamese guerrillas based in Cambodia, a neutral country. The campaign was so secret that even William P. Rogers, the secretary of state, was unaware of it.
Mr. Beecher’s article about the bombings, which appeared on the front page of The Times on May 9, 1969, noted that in the previous two weeks alone, some 5,000 tons of ordnance had been dropped on Cambodia.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Obviously one of the traitors (or useful idiots).
I hope he is rotting in hell.
Why are the media commemorating those people?
This was back when Democrats hated war. Now that they’re in power, we’ve all got targets on our backs.
> This was back when Democrats hated war. <
Yep. Now they and their GOP elite pals love war. It’s all very confusing.
I think I’ll just keep things simple, for myself anyway. If Congress has not declared war, then we have no business being involved anywhere, in any conflict.
Who the heck ever thought anyone could keep a *BOMBING CAMPAIGN* secret?
Count me as amongst the people who hate commies but aren’t in favor of bombing neutral countries when Congress hasn’t even voted for a declaration of war.
The American People have a right to know about things like this. Maybe not intimate details such as dates of an invasion, but if we are blasting the hell out of some country somewhere it *SHOULD* be first page news. No matter who is in charge or what the cause is, if American troops and weapons are being used, Congress should have to approve first with the ONLY exception being the initial defense against an attack.
Exactly! The “secret” was no secret to the Cambodians. Nor any of the NVM, SVN, Russians...
have to laugh, they always blame this on Nixon...Kennedy was bombing Laos in the early 60’s. ...Nixon just carried on with what Kennedy was doing.
You bomb those counties when your enemies, NVM, Russia, and China, are using it as a launching point for the Vietnam war. They were far from NEUTRAL.
Almost like an EU country of today, allowing munitions and mercenaries, at least, into Ukraine. Putin should start bombing them. Thanks, Nixon.
The American People should know what our government is doing in ALL but the most sensitive and legitimately secret things. Names of agents, precise capabilities of leading edge weapons, order of battle, intelligence that would OBVIOUSLY give away its source. Other than that, let the people know.
If it CAN be destroyed by the truth, it SHOULD be destroyed by the truth. Papers don't need to know the date of the invasion, but they should damned well know the casualties, the occasions where we do something wrong, and where things aren't going as planned.
I hate it that it even needs to be explained.
It was touted by the Leftist-Liberal media as an unwarranted “escalation” of the war, when in fact North Vietnam had escalated the war into Cambodia using Cambodia as a “safe haven” in which to build up and supply its forces for attacks in Vietnam. Nixon merely ended the fiction that the territory of Cambodia was not involved in the war. Cambodia had allowed the North Vietnamese action because they were in no position to stop it.
Let me know when the recon guy who made the bombing maps dies. Then I might feel a loss.
Nixon was more concerned about the leaks themselves and their impact...not so much about what it showed. Back when the Nations security came first....
Today we have to state the absolute obvious, no more common sense.
On 24 April 1969 about 32 of my former yards and 5 SF from CCS were on the raid after the bombs exploded. All USSF but two were KIA or MIA.
The entire Vietnam misadventure was a ludicrous mistake wasting heroic human life and gobs of money. Almost anything done to bring it to a close was worthwhile.
Flame away if you like but nothing will make LBJ’s and Nixon’s pointless military/industrial meat grinder ever make sense.
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