CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959-1965 [Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1986], p. 422). Nigerians await election results in competitive race. The battle was over in 22 minutes. The people who are calling me up, they want to be damned sure I don't pull 'em out and run, and they want to be damned sure that we're firm. A firewall existed between covert patrol-boat attacks on North Vietnamese positions and Desoto patrols eavesdropping on shore-based communications. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. In turn, that means a minimum of several hundred persons were party to a plot that has remained watertight in sieve-like Washington for two decades. The original radar contacts dropped off the scope at 2134, but the crews of Maddox and Turner Joy believed they detected two high-speed contacts closing on their position at 44 knots. (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.). Hanoi at the time denied all, leading to a third interpretation that remains alive today as what might be called the Stockdale thesis. He reported those doubts in his after action report transmitted shortly after midnight his time on August 5, which was 1300 hours August 4 in Washington. There was more or less general acceptance of the Navy's initial account -- there was an unprovoked attack on Aug. 2 by three North Vietnamese patrol boats on an American warship, the destroyer USS Maddox in international waters. Listen to McNamara's conversation with Johnson. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. After the war, Hanoi officials not only acknowledged the event but deemed it important enough to designate its date, Aug. 2, as the Vietnamese Navy's Anniversary Day, "the day our heroic naval forces went out and chased away Maddox and Turner Joy." The 522-page NSA official history Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975, triggered a new round of media reporting and renewed debate about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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. The Tonkin Gulf Incident in the past two decades has been treated by at least three full-scale studies, dealt with at length by Congressional committees and extensively referenced in general histories, presidential memoirs and textbooks on the U.S. legislative function. While many facts and details have emerged in the past 44 years to persuade most observers that some of the reported events in the Gulf never actually happened, key portions of the critical intelligence information remained classified until recently. LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. These secret intelligence-gathering missions and sabotage operations had begun under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1961, but in January 1964, the program was transferred to the Defense Department under the control of a cover organization called the Studies and Observations Group (SOG). Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. It is difficult to imagine that the North Vietnamese could come to any other conclusion than that the 34A and Desoto missions were all part of the same operation. Here's why he couldn't walk away. This is another government conspiracy that's true. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. . "Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident." In turn, that means For the rest of the war they would be truly secretand in the end they were a dismal failure. The U.S. Navy stressed that the two technically were not in communication with one another, but the distinction was irrelevant to the North Vietnamese. 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. . Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese boats continued to close in at the rate of 400 yards per minute. Shortly after ordering the airstrikes, Johnson went on television and addressed the nation regarding the incident. In the future, conventional operations would receive all the attention. The North Vietnamese coastal radars also tracked and reported the positions of U.S. aircraft operating east of the ships, probably the combat air patrol the Seventh Fleet had ordered in support. 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. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. 4. PTF-2 had mechanical troubles and had to turn back, but the other boats made it to their rendezvous point off the coast from Vinh Son. 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. Typically, the missions were carried out by a destroyer specially outfitted with sensitive eavesdropping equipment. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." "I think we are kidding the world if you try to give the impression that when the South Vietnamese naval boats bombarded two islands a short distance off the coast of North Vietnam we were not implicated," he scornfully told McNamara during the hearings.16 In less than 25 minutes, the attack was over. 1, p. 646. Senator Morse was one of the dissenters. President Johnson himself apparently questioned the sailorsu0019 report of an attack. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964. They were nicknamed "gassers" because they burned gasoline rather than diesel fuel. Thousands of passengers are stranded after Colombias Viva Air grounds flights, The last of Mexicos artisanal salt-makers preserve a 2,000-year-old tradition, I cannot give up: Cambodian rapper says he will sing about injustice despite threats from govt, Ukrainian rock star reflects on a year of war in his country, Ukrainian refugees in Poland will now be charged to stay in state-funded housing, This Colombian town is dimming its lights to attract more tourists to view the night sky, Kneel and apologize!: 76 years after island-wide massacre, Taiwan continues to commemorate and debate the tragedy. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Under the operational control of Captain John J. Herrick, it steamed through the Gulf of Tonkin collecting intelligence. If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. With this information, back in Washington President Johnson and his advisers considered their options. But Morse did not know enough about the program to ask pointed questions. The stage was set. This volume deals only with the former. 17. Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. In the subsequent exchange of fire, neither American nor North Vietnamese ships inflicted significant damage. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Historians still disagree over whether Johnson deliberately misled Congress and the American people about the Tonkin Gulf incident or simply capitalized on an opportunity that came his way. Because the North Vietnamese had fewer than 50 Swatows, most of them up north near the important industrial port of Haiphong, the movement south of one-third of its fleet was strong evidence that 34A and the Desoto patrols were concerning Hanoi. 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 late 1958 it was obvious that a major Communist buildup was underway in South Vietnam, but the American SIGINT community was ill-placed and ill-equipped to deal with it. But, to me, the more pernicious deception was this idea that American ships were sailing innocently in the Gulf of Tonkin and were attacked without provocation, he continues. The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. The NSA report exposes translation and analytical errors made by the American SIGINT analystserrors that convinced the naval task force and national authorities that the North had ordered a second attack on August 4, and thus led Maddoxs crew to interpret its radar contacts and other information as confirmation that the ship was again under attack. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. Johnsonasked for, and received, a resolution of war from the US Congress that led to further escalation in the conflict. Shortly thereafter, the Phu Bai station intercepted the signal indicating the North Vietnamese intended to conduct a torpedo attack against the enemy. Phu Bai issued a Critic Reportshort for critical message, meaning one that had priority over all other traffic in the communications system to ensure immediate deliveryto all commands, including Maddox. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. Even in the darkness, the commandos could see their targeta water tower surrounded by a few military buildings. Thus, the South Vietnamese raid on Hon Me Island, a major North Vietnamese infiltration staging point, became the tripwire that set off the August 2 confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin. Everything went smoothly until the early hours of 2 August, when intelligence picked up indications that the North Vietnamese Navy had moved additional Swatows into the vicinity of Hon Me and Hon Nieu Islands and ordered them to prepare for battle. McNamara was ready to respond. By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. Sign up to get updates about new releases and event invitations. While 34A and the Desoto patrols were independent operations, the latter benefited from the increased signals traffic generated by the attacks of the former. 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. We have no intention of yielding to pressure. At Hon Nieu, the attack was a complete surprise. The accords, which were signed by other participants including the Viet Minh, mandated a temporary ceasefire line, which separated southern and northern Vietnam to be governed by the State of Vietnam an As far as the headlines were concerned, that was it, but the covert campaign continued unabated. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. . Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. A subsequent review of the SIGINT reports revealed that this later interceptMcNamaras smoking gunwas in fact a follow-on, more in-depth report of the August 2 action. 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. The conspiracy theory has been dying for several years, and this work will probably be a stake through its heart. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History The Gulf of Tonkin Incident took place on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, and helped lead to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m.. 13. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. 10. As the enemy boat passed astern, it was raked by gunfire from the Maddox that killed the boats commander. The Maddox fired againthis time to killhitting the second North Vietnamese boat just as it launched two torpedoes. 14. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident and many more recent experiences only reinforce the need for intelligence analysts and decision makers to avoid relying exclusively on any single intelligence sourceeven SIGINTparticularly if other intelligence sources are available and the resulting decisions might cost lives. 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. In a conversation with McNamara on Aug. 3, after the first incident, Johnson indicated he hadalready thought about the political ramifications of a military response and hadconsulted with several allies. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. Conducted under the nationally approved Operations Plan, OPLAN-34A, the program required the intelligence community to provide detailed intelligence about the commando targets, the Norths coastal defenses and related surveillance systems. In 1964 the Navy was attempting to determine the extent of North Vietnams maritime infiltration into the South and to identify the Norths coastal defenses so that Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) could better support South Vietnams commando operations against the North. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. The only solution was to get rid of the evidence. Shortly after taking office following the death of President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson became concerned about South Vietnam's ability to fend off the Communist Viet Cong guerillas that were operating in the country. WebCongress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. Despite the on-scene commanders efforts to correct their errors in the initial after-action reports, administration officials focused instead on the first SIGINT reports to the exclusion of all other evidence. Midday on August 1, NSGA San Miguel, the U.S. Marine Corps SIGINT detachment co-located with the U.S. Army at Phu Bai, and Maddoxs own DSU all detected the communications directing the North Vietnamese torpedo boats to depart from Haiphong on August 2. 3. Speculation about administration motives surrounding the Tonkin Gulf incident itself and the subsequent withholding of key information will probably never cease, but the factual intelligence record that drove those decisions is now clear. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . 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. ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. As it turns out, Adm. Sharp failed to read to the Joint Chiefs the last line of the cable, whichread: Suggest a complete evaluation before any further actions.. Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. PTF-1 and PTF-5 raced toward shore. "The North Vietnamese are reacting defensively to our attacks on their offshore islands. The Health Conspiracy. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. . Thus, this is an "official" history, not an official one because "the authors do not necessarily speak for the Department of Navy nor attempt to present a consensus." 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. . The reports conclusions about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident are particularly relevant as they offer useful insights into the problems that SIGINT faces today in combating unconventional opponents and the potential consequences of relying too heavily on a single source of intelligence. Both the Phu Bai station and Maddoxs DSU knew the boats had orders to attack an enemy ship., Not knowing about the South Vietnamese commando raid, all assumed that Maddox was the target. 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? Codenamed Desoto, they were special U.S. Navy patrols designed to eavesdrop on enemy shore-based communicationsspecifically China, North Korea, and now North Vietnam. Like all intelligence, it must be analyzed and reported in context. LBJ's War is a new, limited-edition podcast that unearths previously unheard audio that helps us better understand the course of the Vietnam War and how Lyndon Johnson found himself where he did. 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. (Hanoi remains muzzy on the second incident, Aug. 4, presumably since clearly it took place in international waters, the Vietnamese claim of "defensive reaction" is a bit wobbly.). One element of American assistance to South Vietnam included covert support for South Vietnamese commando raids against North Vietnams coastal transportation facilities and networks. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Subsequent research and declassified documents have essentially shown that the second attack did not happen. On July 31, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox commenced a Desoto patrol off North Vietnam. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. 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. AIDS Brotherhood Symbology The Illuminati Flame . In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. ", "No," replied McCone. including the use of armed force" to assist South Vietnam (the resolution passed the House 416 to 0, and the Senate 88 to 2; in January 1971 President Nixon signed legislation that included its "repeal"). The bullets struck the destroyer; the torpedo missed. The Geneva Conference in 1954 was intended to settle outstanding issues following the end of hostilities between France and the Viet Minh at the end of the First Indochina War. The United States denied involvement. Easily outdistancing the North Vietnamese boat, the commandos arrived back at Da Nang shortly after daybreak.8, North Vietnam immediately and publicly linked the 34A raids and the Desoto patrol, a move that threatened tentative peace feelers from Washington that were only just reaching Hanoi. 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. 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. 14. Seeking to follow the established policy of containment, Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, began increasing military aid to South Vietnam. WebOn August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. To subscribe to Vietnam Magazine, click here! 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. A National Security Agency report released in 2007 reveals unequivocally that the alleged Aug. 4, 1964, attack by North Vietnam on U.S. destroyers never actually happened. originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. 2. 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 the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson needed a pretext to commit the American people to the already expanding covert war in South East Asia.
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