Seventh Fleet, and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing demonstrated remarkable coordination over the skies of Khe Sanh. This coordination also was tied in very closely with both the Khe Sanh ground defenses and the Marine and Army artillery positions along the DMZ. While obviously the massive airlift and air bombardment permitted the Marines to hold the base and kept the enemy at bay, it still remained unclear how badly the enemy was hurt. The amount of ordnance dropped, as one historian observed, only measured the effort rather than the results.* Moreover, despite the inter-Ser-vice cooperation in the Khe Sanh operation, the Niagara Operation reopened the old dispute about the role of Marine air in the overall air campaign. Indeed, on 10 March, with the approval of Admiral Sharp, General Westmoreland issued his Single Manager directive placing Marine fixed-wing tactical and reconnaissance aircraft, at least as far as fragging purposes, under the operational control of General Momyer. While the Single Manager issue had little impact on the Niagara operations since it came out so late in the campaign, it would dominate, however, MACV, III MAF, and Seventh Air Force relations throughout the rest of the year and in reality throughout the remainder of the war.69

*Navy Chaplain Lieutenant Commander Ray W. Stubbe, who has researched and written extensively on Khe Sanh, commented "the US Air Force's count of 'secondary explosions' at Khe Sanh, by which MACV determined through their complex mathematical formulae just how many NVA were killed, is grossly faulted since many of the 'secondary explosions' they counted were actually conjointly-fired artillery missions: What they counted as a secondary explosion being, actually, a 'friendly explosion!" LCdr Ray W. Stubbe, USN, Comments on draft,

250ct94 (Vietnam Comment File).Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Donaghy, who served as the 26th Marines air officer, also had his doubts, commenting that it was "nearly impossible to measure the real effectiveness of sorties in those days (BDAs were in the eyes of the beholder) . . . ." Donaghy, nevertheless, commended General Momyer, the Seventh Air Force commander, for visiting Khe Sanh and "coming to where the action was. . . . General Momyer obviously wanted to see where he was devoting so many of his assets." Donaghy Comments.