gulf of tonkin conspiracy

Both South Vietnamese and U.S. maritime operators in Da Nang assumed that their raids were the cause of the mounting international crisis, and they never for a moment doubted that the North Vietnamese believed that the raids and the Desoto patrols were one and the same. WebLyndon Johnson signed the Tonkin Gulf resolution on August 10, 1964. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. The study debunks two strongly held but opposing beliefs about what happened on both dayson the one hand that neither of the reported attacks ever took place at all, and on the other that there was in fact a second deliberate North Vietnamese attack on August 4. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. That very night, the idea was put to the test. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. The Vietnam War buff will find it fascinating for its wealth of detail carefully set down in understated prose (a welcome relief, I might add, from the hysterical tone that marks much Vietnam War writing). One of the great ironies of the Gulf of Tonkin incident for President Johnson is that it was for him, politically, a great success, he continues. For the Navys official account stating that both incidents occurred and that 34A and Desoto were "entirely distinct," see Marolda and Fitzgerald, pp. Meanwhile, by late August 3, the North Vietnamese had learned the condition of their torpedo boats and ordered a salvage tug to recover the damaged craft. "We believe that present OPLAN 34A activities are beginning to rattle Hanoi," wrote Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "and [the] Maddox incident is directly related to their effort to resist these activities. $22. The Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, Admiral Harry D. Felt, agreed and suggested that a U.S. Navy ship could be used to vector 34A boats to their targets.6. There was no way to get a commando team ashore to plant demolition charges; they would have do what damage they could with the boats guns.3 Just after midnight on 31 July, PTF-2 and PTF-5, commanded by Lieutenant Huyet, arrived undetected at a position 800 yards northeast of the island. McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.15. Operations Security (OPSEC) concerns and related communications restrictions prevented Maddox and its operational commanders up to the Seventh Fleet from knowing of the commando raid. Hanoi at the time denied all, leading to a third interpretation that remains alive today as what might be called the Stockdale thesis. The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. The maximum closure distance was originally established at 20 nautical miles, but the commander of the U.S. On 30 July, Westmoreland revised the 34A maritime operations schedule for August, increasing the number of raids by "283% over the July program and 566% over June. Send the First Troops to Vietnam? Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. LBJ was looking for a pretext to go to Congress to ask for a resolution that would give him the authority to do basically whatever the hell he wanted to do in Vietnam, without the intense public debate that a declaration of war would have required, says historian Chris Oppe. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter, Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation (Stanfordville, NY: 1979), vol. When the enemy boats closed to less than 10,000 yards, the destroyer fired three shots across the bow of the lead vessel. The Truth About Tonkin | Naval History Magazine - February 2008 WebThe Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. This article by Capt. As is common with specialized histories -- what I call the "tunnels of Cu Chi" syndrome -- this book will tell most readers more about the U.S. Navy in Vietnam than they care to know. Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. With that report, after nearly four decades, the NSA officially reversed its verdict on the events of August 4, 1964, that had led that night to President Lyndon Johnsons televised message to the nation: The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes. Despite this tremendous uncertainty, by midafternoon, the discussion among Johnson and his advisers was no longer about whether to respondbut how. The House passed the resolution unanimously.17 The after-action reports from the participants in the Gulf arrived in Washington several hours after the report of the second incident. 1. Forty-five minutes after beginning their attack, the commandos withdrew. WebJoe Rogan interview on the 911 Conspiracy Theory. He is the author of Shadow War: The Secret War in Laos, as well as several short studies on special operations, including The War in Cambodia (Osprey Books, 1988), The War in Laos (Osprey Books, 1989), and Southeast Asian Special Forces (Osprey Books, 1990). History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Within days, Hanoi lodged a complaint with the International Control Commission (ICC), which had been established in 1954 to oversee the provisions of the Geneva Accords. The historian here is obliged to deal with two basic considerations in offering up an accounting: the event itself -- that is, what actually happened there in the waters off North Vietnam in early August 1964; and the uses made of it by President Lyndon Johnson and his administration. McNamara was ready to respond. It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. The United States denied involvement. And, of course, McNamara himself knew about the "South Vietnamese actions in connection with the two islands," but his cautiously worded answer got him out of admitting it. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. As the enemy boat passed astern, it was raked by gunfire from the Maddox that killed the boats commander. Gulf Of Tonkin This was the only time covert operations against the North came close to being discussed in public. Fluoride. The first such Desoto mission was conducted off the North Vietnamese coast in February 1964, followed by more through the spring. During a meeting at the White House on the evening of 4 August, President Johnson asked McCone, "Do they want a war by attacking our ships in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin? By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. Over the next 12 hours, as the president's team scrambledto understand what hadhappened and to organize a response, the facts remained elusive. Formerly an analyst with the Washington-based Asian Studies Center, Mr. Conboy is vice president of Lippo Group, a large financial services institution in Jakarta, Indonesia. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Both boats opened fire, scoring hits on the tower, then moved on to other buildings nearby. Although North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap admitted in a 1984 discussion with Robert S. McNamara that the first attack was deliberate, he denied that a second attack had ever taken place. By including the orders and operational guidance provided to the units involved, the study develops the previously missing context of the intelligence and afteraction reports from the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. For additional reading, see the recently declassified NSA study by Robert J. Hanyok, Spartans in the Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975; and Tonkin Gulf and The Escalation of the Vietnam War, by Edward Moise. National Security Agency George C. Herring, ed., The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1983), p. 18. The first critic report from Phu Bai reached Washington at about 0740 hours, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). We still seek no wider war.. Hickman, Kennedy. Unfortunately, much of the media reporting combined or confused the events of August 2 and 4 into a single incident. After a suspected torpedo attack by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats led to plans for US retaliation,the captain of the Maddox sent a cable to the Joint Chiefs that advised "complete evaluation before any further action"due to grave doubts over whether an attackhad reallyoccurred. In July, General Westmoreland asked that Desoto patrols be expanded to cover 34A missions from Vinh Son north to the islands of Hon Me, Hon Nieu, and Hon Mat, all of which housed North Vietnamese radar installations or other coastwatching equipment. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. The Gulf of Tonkin act became more controversial as opposition to the war mounted. After several early failures, it was transferred to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group in 1964, at which time its focus shifted to maritime operations. Changing course in time to evade the torpedoes, the Maddox again was attacked, this time by a boat that fired another torpedo and 14.5-mm machine guns. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. The bullets struck the destroyer; the torpedo missed. Both countries were backing North Vietnam, but so far they were staying out of the conflict and the White House wanted to keep it that way. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) In November of 2001, the LBJ Presidential library and museum released tapes of phone conversations with the President and then Defense "1 Most of these would be shore bombardment. The tug departed Haiphong at approximately 0100 hours on August 4, while the undamaged torpedo boat, T-146, was ordered to stay with the crippled boats and maintain an alert for enemy forces. At about 0600, the two U.S. destroyers resumed the Desoto patrol. Gulf of Tonkin incident - Wikipedia Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. In response, the North Vietnamese built up their naval presence around the offshore islands. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. In the first few days of August 1964, a series of events off the coast of North Vietnam and decisions made in Washington, D.C., set the United States on a course that would largely define the next decade and weigh heavily on American foreign policy to this day. . President Johnson ordered a halt to all 34A operations "to avoid sending confusing signals associated with recent events in the Gulf of Tonkin." 5. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. In fact, an earlier Desoto patrol planned for February had been canceled because of concerns over potential interference with South Vietnamese commando missions scheduled for the same time. Top Essentials to Know About the Vietnam War, Timeline of the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War), Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland, M.S., Information and Library Science, Drexel University, B.A., History and Political Science, Pennsylvania State University. 302-303. The most popular of these is that the incident was either a fabrication or deliberate American provocation. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. (The recent NBC television movie In Love and War had Navy pilot James B. Stockdale flying over the scene at the time saying, "I see nothing"; now a retired vice admiral, Stockdale has reiterated the "phoney attack" charge in writings and public speaking.). The series of mistakes that led to the August 4 misreporting began on August 3 when the Phu Bai station interpreted Haiphongs efforts to determine the status of its forces as an order to assemble for further offensive operations. 2. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. These PTFs were manned by South Vietnamese crews and conducted a series of coastal attacks against targets in North Vietnam as part of Operation 34A. Congress supported the resolution with Vaccines. Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m., Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968, vol. The only opposition came from a few scattered machine guns on shore, but they did no damage. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . In Saigon, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor objected to the halt, saying that "it is my conviction that we must resume these operations and continue their pressure on North Vietnam as soon as possible, leaving no impression that we or the South Vietnamese have been deterred from our operations because of the Tonkin Gulf incidents." Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. 3. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. 15. The only solution was to get rid of the evidence. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. the Gulf of Tonkin "5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. Scattered small-arms sent tracers toward the commandos, but no one was hurt. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. Gulf of Tonkin incident | Definition, Date, Summary, Significance Moises book, however, was based on only the few SIGINT reports he was able to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. 17. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. A Senate investigation revealed that the Maddox had been on an intelligence It also outlined the Maddoxs path along the coast on 2 August and the 34A attacks on Vinh Son the following day. In the end the Navy agreed, and in concert with MACV, took steps to ensure that "34A operations will be adjusted to prevent interference" with Desoto patrols.7 This did not mean that MACV did not welcome the information brought back by the Desoto patrols, only that the two missions would not actively support one another. He also requested air support. Typically, the missions were carried out by a destroyer specially outfitted with sensitive eavesdropping equipment. This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. Just after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two A U.S. Navy SEAL (Sea Air Land) team officer assigned to the SOG maritime operations training staff, Lieutenant James Hawes, led the covert boat fleet out of Da Nang and down the coast 300 miles to Cam Ranh Bay, where they waited out the crisis in isolation. In less than 25 minutes, the attack was over. In 2005 documents were released proving that Johnson had fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify attacking North Vietnam. The North also protested the South Vietnamese commando raid on Hon Me Island and claimed that the Desoto Mission ships had been involved in that raid. Not all wars are made for navies, and the U.S. Navy had to insinuate itself into the Vietnam one and carve out a role. CIA Director John McCone was convinced that Hanoi was reacting to the raids when it attacked the Maddox. Heavy machine-gun bullets riddled PTF-6, tearing away part of the port bow and wounding four South Vietnamese crewmen, including Lieutenant Son. This time the U.S. ships detected electronic signals and acoustic indications of a likely second North Vietnamese naval attack, and they requested U.S. air support. In the meantime, aboard Turner Joy, Captain Herrick ordered an immediate review of the nights actions. LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. 14. The report covers all aspects of the efforts of the various American SIGINT agencies from the early postWorld War II years through the evacuation of Saigon. When the contacts appeared to turn away at 6,000 yards, Maddoxs crew interpreted the move as a maneuver to mark a torpedo launch. This was the first of several carefully worded official statements aimed at separating 34A and Desoto and leaving the impression that the United States was not involved in the covert operations.9 When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. . Such arguments are rooted in the information and documents released by Daniel Ellsberg and others, and were reinforced over the decades by anniversary interviews with some of the participants, including ships crewmen and officers. I would not suggest that he learned from the Gulf of Tonkin incident so much as that he got from it exactly what he wanted, which was an enormous bump in approval ratings 30 percent overnight, says historian Chris Oppe. Herricks concerns grew as the SIGINT intercepts indicated that the North Vietnamese were concentrating torpedo boats off Hon Me Island, 25 nautical miles to his southwest. However, unlike the good old days when -- as the wizened cynical Frenchmen put it, history was a lie agreed-on -- no longer can governments after the battle simply set down how it went and that is that. 4. Based on the intercepts, Captain John J. Herrick, the on-scene mission commander aboard nearby Turner Joy, decided to terminate Maddoxs Desoto patrol late on August 1, because he believed he had indications the ship was about to be attacked.. 2, pp. Hickman, Kennedy. One element of American assistance to South Vietnam included covert support for South Vietnamese commando raids against North Vietnams coastal transportation facilities and networks. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. Unable to catch the fast South Vietnamese PTFs, the government in Hanoi elected to strike instead at USS Maddox. In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. SOG took the mounting war of words very seriously and assumed the worstthat an investigation would expose its operations against the North. But on 7 January, the Seventh Fleet eased the restriction, allowing the destroyers to approach to within four milesstill one mile beyond North Vietnamese territorial waters as recognized by the United States. By then, early news accounts had already solidified some opinions, and the Johnson Administration had decided to launch retaliatory strikes. Hickman, Kennedy. In late 2007, that information was finally made public when an official National Security Agency (NSA) history of signals intelligence (SIGINT) in Vietnam, written in 2002, was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. This article is based on the PRI podcast, LBJ's War, hosted by David Brown. Moreover, the subsequent review of the evidence exposed the translation and analysis errors that resulted in the reporting of the salvage operation as preparations for a second attack. But the light helped the commandos as well, revealing their targets. U.S. SIGINT support had provided ample warning of North Vietnams intentions and actions, enabling the American ship to defend itself successfully. Tonkin Gulf In the future, conventional operations would receive all the attention. Ten shocking conspiracy theories that were completely The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. For some reason, however, the second Desoto Mission, to be conducted by Maddox, was not canceled, even though it was scheduled to start at the same time that a late July commando mission was being launched. It still is not clear whether the order was intended to halt the attack or to delay it until after nightfall, when there was a much greater chance for success. With this information, back in Washington President Johnson and his advisers considered their options. At Hon Nieu, the attack was a complete surprise. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. But in the pre-dawn hours of July 31, 1964, U.S.-backed patrol boats shelled two North On 28 July, the latest specially fitted destroyer, the Maddox (DD-731), set out from Taiwan for the South China Sea. 426-436. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. WebMany historians now agree that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which many believed North Vietnamese ships had attacked American naval forces, may not have occurred in the way it was described at the time. Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) | National Archives This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. No one was hurt and little damage wasdone in the attack, but intercepted cables suggested a second attack might be imminent. After the incident, Herrick was unsure that his ships had been attacked, reporting at 1:27 a.m. Washington time that "Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports.

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