Flight of the Intruder

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Three Communist PT boats
attacked an American destroyer

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off the coast of Vietnam
yesterday,

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and today, President Johnson's
response was hard and tough.

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He has ordered the U.S. Navy
to continue patrolling there,

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and if they are attacked,
to destroy their attackers.

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I understand the feelings

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of those who regret that
we must undertake air attacks.

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I share those feelings.

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Some nights, we're
the only airplane going up...

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going up into the north

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and when you're thinking
you're the only Americans

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over North Vietnam,

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it kind of makes you wonder
just a little bit, you know.

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"What am I doing here?"

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We have carefully limited
those raids.

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They've been directed
at concrete and steel

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and not human lives.

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There are at least 850
antiaircraft and missile sites

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around Hanoi and Haiphong.

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These figures make
Hanoi's air defense

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the toughest in the world.

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If you can get between...

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a ridge between you
and that radar site,

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they can't guide
a missile at you.

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It's just when you get down
in the delta in the flatlands,

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that 30-mile ring around...
the city of Hanoi,

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it's... it's a bear.

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Representatives of Hanoi
simply returned our message

:01:48

in a plain envelope.

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Residents of North Vietnam's
capital felt confident

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in the knowledge
that their city was off-limits

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to U.S. warplanes.

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With American sons
in the fields far away,