Talk:Operation Tailwind

POV Check

The POV of the statement "Like the dissidents who became "non-persons" under Stalin, Operation Tailwind is now officially a "non-event"." may not be NPOV. It leaves a bad connotation when I read it, comparing Tailwind to Stalin. --68.76.145.110 09:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

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This operation never happened. I think we can all agree on that.

Oh, please. Branden 18:03 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The issue was raised on CNN/Newsweek's TV program "Newsstand" and was quickly retracted.

Let's just consider: All the nerve agent in Pacific Theatre is stored on Johnston's Atoll. Moving more than a litre at a time requires Congressional approval. Moving smaller amounts requires a special "Tech Escort" team.

Even if there was a secret cashe of nerve agent somewhere. Even if our secret team decided to use it, the story still doesn't pan out. I know of no example anywhere in the world of a nerve agent being packed into hand grenades. Nerve agents are strategic weapons used against nations, not tactical ones used against a Laotian border guard.

(I would digress if I mentioned the one excpetion. The Soviet Special Forces used to have spray cans of anti-guard dog nerve gas. But I digress.)

Anywho, the biggest objection to this story is the fact it would have been easier and cheaper to kill the bad guys with regular ol' weapons. Using nerve agent added nothing to the mission.

The whole idea is silly.

(Now if someone would be willing to calm me down and write all this coherently I would be much obliged.)

Whoever made the first remark on this page said the operation never happened. As far as I know, CNN and Time did not allege, and the Pentagon did not deny, that an "operation" called Tailwind took place. They merely differ with regards to whether or not nerve agents were used. Regarding your remark about moving nerve agent requiring "Congressional approval", well, it was undisputed as early as 1974, maybe even sooner, that Cambodia was being bombed illegally. Which means, among other things, without Congressional approval. Nixon and Kissinger weren't going to let the law stand in their way. (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson didn't either.)

Additionally, how do we know that small "Tech Escort" teams weren't used to get some nerve agent off the atoll? How about from anyplace else? How reasonable is it to assume that all U.S. stashes of nerve agent are publicly known now? How reasonable is it to assume that all U.S. stashes of nerve agent were known publicly during the Vietnam War? (Are there any we now know about that did exist then and which weren't known about then?)

Your personal lack of knowledge of nerve agent "ever" being packed into hand grenades, except when the Soviets did it (which would appear to demonstrate a bit more than just a theoretical feasibility of the practice) hardly seems a reason to lean one way or the other in this story.

Furthermore, I see no reason to assume that the U.S. government (or any government) would be any more likely to adopt reasonable projects with known expenditures, or avoid cost overruns, in military operations that it does anywhere else in the public sector. (SDI and Crusader, anyone?) Why send strategic weapons to do a tactical job? I don't know -- ask Douglas MacArthur and Edward Teller. I am reminded how many self-styled "conservatives" spew so much rhetoric about how everything you let the government do results in a circus of inefficiency and stupidity which you wouldn't see if we'd let private companies handle it -- until you reach a government function they personally want to see the government keep control of, then all of a sudden inefficiency, waste, and just plain wrongheadedness are unimportant concerns. At least Murray Rothbard, who wanted to privatize the courts, the police, and the military, was consistent!

So, no, I don't think we can "all agree" that Operation Tailwind "never happened". There is, as always, reason to think carefully and critically both about CNN and Time's claims, and about the Department of Defense's. Branden 11:17, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Even if you don't believe the operation happened, the Wikipedia article doesn't claim it did or have any incorrect facts I can see. The one sentence alluded to appears to be the only questionable comment in terms of POV, and is in no way necessary to understanding the article. Raising a POV argument on this seems cheesy to me (personal opinion).

I am convinced Air America could have EASILY flown in ANYTHING needed for this operation. Their "owners" (read, "handlers") are people who would want to know about diverse uses of lethal substances. Probably the ones blowing the smoke then, as well as now.

In an article about covert operations, it would be practically impossible to be free from POV accusations, IMHO. When I first read the article, I thought the POV argument must be about the statement "erroneously reported that this operation included the use of Sarin gas" since the article later admits there is evidence this may not have been "erroneous."

TampaDAve 03:07, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I dont see any reference to the fired producers, who like the CBS scapegoats in the "forged" Bush TANG document setup, most likely still stick to their guns. See also the CIA blackout of Gary Webb's Dark Alliance. Also the Politics of Heroin, but then, who needs context when rewriting history?

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I removed the word "alleged" from the opening sentence because it looks like a Pentagon apologist got a little carried away. The Pentagon's own report acknowledges the existence of the operation. http://www.cnn.com/US/9807/21/pentagon.tailwind.report/

The operation was launched as a reconnaissance in force to engage the enemy and to divert enemy attention from OPERATION
GAUNTLET, an offensive operation to regain control of terrain in Laos. 

-- Branden 10:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The whole thing needs to be removed and re-writen. While "tailwind" was an actual operation, it has nothing in common with the imaginary events descriped in the article.

Remove POV label?

While the subject of the article is controversial, currently I don't see anything in it that is POV. If no one can point to something that is, I suggest removing the POV template. Lawyer2b 22:41, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Operation Tailwind

Operation Tailwind DID occur. It was a joint operation conducted with Army Special Forces, Montyard (sp) troops and supported by Marine helicopters from Marble Mountain (Danang). The Air Force provided most of the fixed wing support. The operation was designed to act as a diversionary tactic to pull Communist Laotion troops away from the western portion of Laos. At the time, they were putting significant pressure on the royal Laotion troops. As for the sarin gas. Did not happen. If it had been employed, there would have been many of the 130 plus "friendlies" on the ground that would have been effected. If it had been employed, it is doubtful that we would have lost two CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters to ground fire. If it had been employed, it is doubtful that the insertion force would have been in constant enemy contact for the 2-3 days they were on the ground. If it had been employed, the Marine Cobras would not have looked like swiss cheese after the insertion of the ground force.

I was the co-pilot for the lead Marine Cobra.

Patrick Owen

Wierd beyond belief

Paranoia, it strikes deep. Into your life its going to creep. It starts when your always afraid, step out of line the man coming gonna shoot you down. Anyone with any knowledge of SOG's personnel or operations knew that the news story was bullshit from the get-go. What freaks me out is that so many people believed it (and still believe it). The fact that the reporters twisted the facts and statements of the participants and used Van Buskirk and Moorer in that way made me sick to my stomach. If Edward R. Murrow were still alive, he would have kicked both reporter's asses simultaneously while chain-smoking Pall Malls. They should be working for some ass-wipe paper in Pago-Pago now, yet, look what happened to them. This country is indeed turning into the ultimate in bizzaro. RM Gillespie 12:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place for your personal opinions. 69.22.242.15 (talk) 16:11, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Not "air operation"

"Airborne", yes. --HanzoHattori 17:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• Good point. Should it be moved from "air operations" to the main list in {{Campaignbox Vietnam War}}? - Crockspot 17:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I went ahead and changed the template. - Crockspot 19:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Operation Tailwind

I assure you that Operation Tailwind did happen, as I was the SF Medic on the operation, and still have a scare on my right foot where I received a B40 rocket fragment.

G. M. Rose —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.208.22.25 (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Operation Tailwind

Sorry about the date: G. M. Rose wrote his comment 3 January 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.208.22.25 (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Not fabricated

I take issue with the use of the term "fabricated" in conjunction with the CNN/Time "Tailwind" story. In his comprehensive report on the story in its aftermath for CNN, the attorney Floyd Abrams specifically notes that the reporters DID NOT fabricate the story.

And I quote: "While we offer considerable criticism in this report of CNN's newsgathering for this broadcast, we do not believe it can reasonably be suggested that any of the information on which the broadcast was based was fabricated or nonexistent."

In concluding his report, Abrams recommends that CNN retract the story and apologize, but he very clearly denies that the story was fabricated.

Dogwig (talk) 00:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right, and "fabricated" raises BLP issues, not a very intelligent thing to do when there have been lawsuits in this matter, so I removed it.John Z (talk) 04:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's see, they slapped together a story by relying on the testimony of two individuals: one that was admittedly psychologically traumatized and the other who was 86 years old. They then selectively edited the testimony of the other members of the Hatchet force to fit their story. They obviously conducted no historical research into SOG or its operations obviously failed to question the Vietnamese authorities as to the use of chemical weapons against them (not even a peek into Victory in Vietnam). This is what the "new journalism" boils down to. Fabricate the story? Sensationalism or a complete failure of journalistic ethics? You be the judge.RM Gillespie (talk) 12:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't quite fabricated but it was far from accurate reporting. There are people who have believed since the 1970s that the US used chemical weapons in Vietnam and that the large number of wartime MIAs could be explained by Americans defecting to the VC & NVA. But while the stories of these things circulated, there were no facts to back them up. In the 1990s reporters latched on to someone claiming to have seen Americans during a mission from a distance, combined it with a "gas" being used on the same mission and came up with a story where Tailwind was a conspiracy to kill American deserters with nerve gas that fit all the conclusions that they had come to before they started. They then went out and pressed interview subjects hard to gather sound bytes to use in support of the story. They used leading questions and hypotheticals often on elderly interview subjects to get what they wanted. They also went and found the typical Vietnam story tellers who claimed to know all about the operation in spite of having no involvement. It wasn't fabricated. It was more that the reporters wanted it to be true so bad that they broke all the rules and disregarded what the evidence was actually saying. They assumed that all the written evidence was lies and that anyone in the military who didn't agree with the story was part of a conspiracy. The story wasn't fabricated in the same way that UFO and bigfoot stories are not fabricated. Its a matter of wanting something to be true so bad that normal judgement fails. 12.12.144.130 (talk) 21:57, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Gas Trivia

In the "Controversy" section, how does "nerve gas" morph into "teargas?" There is a vast difference.

As an idle thought, though, why in the hell would anybody who planned to employ tear gas, let alone (hypothetically) nerve gas in an attack not make sure his own troops had gas masks?

This whole thing is indeed a bazaar of the bizarre.

Terry J. Carter (talk) 17:47, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

On the larger question of morphing from one gas type to another, consider this was done frequently at the time and during the investigation.

The Tailwind investigation disclosed documents that showed use more than once of a bomb (I forget the bomb type) that carried a designation which was confirmed by numerous people to be a Sarin bomb. "Sleeping gas" was the term some of the witnesses used for Sarin. The counter claim was that the designation was not for sarin gas bombs but for CS -CS- gas or by symptoms DM or similar. Sarin was not always a lethal agent. At lower dosages and with rapid atropine injections for friendly troops it was also designated as an incapacitating agent.

Did you know? On Wednesday August 6, 1969, 50 containers of what was reported to be a lethal paralyzing gas was reported to have been stolen from a U.S. depot on Okinawa during the previous week. The depot was not further identified and a spokesman claimed that the missing gas was very similar to those agents and gasses used for riot control.Johnvr4 (talk) 21:22, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Project 112

I'd like to point out this is very similar to an R&D project known as Project 112 had not been declassified at the time of this "investigation" in the 1990s. So there actually was a "cover-up" that started in Congressional hearings around 1977 to conceal even the name Project 112 before the tailwind investigation ever started. There was actual documentation and factual information that came out of this in the form of records, depositions of Generals, statements of officials etc. Another incident in Cambodia was an R&D Project known Waterfall or Red Cap was discussed as part of Tailwind. Today, released Project 112 documentation shows that Phase II Item 7 was to fulfill the need for Special Forces to have available several dissemination devices for chemical agents by June 1964 and (five) biological dissemination devices by June 1963. Another document relating to Project 112 was the development of new gas masks for helicopter crews as discussed in tailwind. just two off the top of my head. My opinion is there is very likely something to this but we'll probably never know as sources are so limited. Sorry, that I don't have those available sources right in front of me. I do have them for another entry I'm working on.Johnvr4 (talk) 21:07, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Project 112 was another of JFK's brilliant ideas. It doesn't relate to tailwind because 112 was generally speaking a failure. They did a great deal of generally foolish and useless research which resulted in almost nothing of practical use. It was in the same bucket of things as "Project Popeye" which aimed to control weather over Laos. Tailwind was just an SOG mission into Laos. As far as "Red Cap and Waterfall", there were no such projects. They were invented in a conspiracy oriented newspaper in the early 1970s. 12.12.144.130 (talk) 22:27, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Honorable Dragon?

Hello,

Arrived here while editing the referred to military operation in Laos. I find reliable sources referring to said Lao operation as Operation Honorable Dragon. Over here, it is called Operation Gauntlet. Neither name is in the List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1970).Georgejdorner (talk) 00:36, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Not B Class

When I double-checked Class B standards on the Talk page template, someone had already failed it for lack of cites. I changed the mistaken assessment to Start class.Georgejdorner (talk) 00:36, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Who is "the plaintiff"?

This article mentions "the plaintiff" four times, but fails to mention his identity. Who was he? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 00:28, 4 July 2021 (UTC)