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Casualty Info
Casualty Date May 08, 1972
Cause Non Hostile- Died Other Causes
Reason Air Loss, Crash - Sea
Location Vietnam, North (Vietnam)
Conflict Vietnam War
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
In anticipation of the execute order for Pocket Money, Robinson flew with his chief of staff, Captain Edmund Taylor Jr.; Operations Officer, Commander John M. Leaver, Jr.; and Aviation Officer, Commander M.L. "Marty" McCullough, from his flagship, USS Providence to USS Coral Sea, for an air and surface attack coordination meeting with Rear Admiral Damon W. Cooper, Commander, Attack Carrier Striking Force, Seventh Fleet. Later that evening, as the helicopter was attempting to land aboard Providence with the four men aboard, an engine failure caused it to crash into the Gulf of Tonkin. Robinson was recovered, but pronounced dead aboard the ship. McCullough survived the crash, along with the helicopter's crew; Taylor and Leaver were never found.
His remains were cremated and the ashes were spread at sea from USS Orleck off San Diego, California. Robinson's memorial cross is located in ArlingtonNationalCemetery, Section MF, Site 30-5.
Comments/Citation:
He also served aboard LST-601 from July 1947 until December 1947.
Other Navy schools attended:
Naval General Line School - 1948-1949
Fleet Sonar School - SanDIego, CA - September 1954 until November 1954
Fleet Sonar School - Key West, FL - June 1959 until August 1959
Fleet Anti-Warfare School - San Diego, CA - August 1968 until September 1968
Duck Hook (code-named "Pruning Knife" by the military) was the White House code-name of an operation President Richard Nixon had threatened to unleash against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War[1], if North Vietnam did not yield to Washington's terms at the Paris peace negotiations. Duck Hook called for the possibly-nuclear bombing of military and economic targets in and around Hanoi, the mining of Haiphong and other ports, air strikes against North Vietnam's northeast line of communications as well as passes and bridges at the Chinese border, and air and ground attacks on other targets throughout Vietnam.
Declassified documents have been revealed that show that Duck Hook considered including using nuclear weapons.[1] An attachment to a memo from Henry Kissinger to Nixon asked, "Should we be prepared to use nuclear weapons?" The memo warned that "Since we cannot confidently predict the exact point at which Hanoi could be likely to respond positively, we must be prepared to play out whatever string necessary." Kissinger's memo also stated that "To achieve its full effect on Hanoi's thinking, the action must be brutal." [emphasis in original]
A few days earlier, a document from two of Kissinger's aides, Roger Morris and Anthony Lake, stated that the President must be prepared "to decide beforehand, the fateful question of how far we will go. He cannot, for example, confront the issue of using tactical nuclear weapons in the midst of the exercise. He must be prepared to play out whatever string necessary in this case." The identical wording in the Kissinger memo makes clear Kissinger was referring to the nuclear question when he called for playing out "whatever string necessary."
Kissenger recommended against Duck Hook on 17 October . On 1 November 1969, Nixon himself decided to abandon it. This was reportedly because:
there were reservations about Duck Hook's potential effectiveness; public support for the war continued to decline; there were signs of political slippage; and Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Secretary of State William P. Rogers opposed military escalation[2] At the same time that he cancelled Duck Hook, it seems that Nixon embarked on a new strategy to start a "series of increased [nuclear] alert measures designed to convey to the Soviets an increasing readiness by U.S. strategic forces," according to Kissinger aide Col. Alexander Haig.
