gulf of tonkin conspiracy

During May, Admiral U. S. G. Sharp, the Pacific Fleet Commander-in-Chief, had suggested that 34A raids could be coordinated "with the operation of a shipboard radar to reduce the possibility of North Vietnamese radar detection of the delivery vehicle." 10. Until the ICC investigation blew over a week later, the commandos camped on a small pier. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. (2021, February 16). Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. 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." The string of intelligence mistakes, mistranslations, misinterpretations and faulty decision making that occurred in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964 reveals how easily analysts and officials can jump to the wrong conclusions and lead a nation into war. 8. Approved on Aug. 10, 1964, the Southeast Asia (Gulf of Tonkin) Resolution, gave Johnson the power to use military force in the region without requiring a declaration 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. In Saigon, General William C. Westmoreland, the new commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), approved of the plan, and SOG began testing 81-mm mortars, 4.5-inch rockets, and recoilless rifles aboard the boats. 10. The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. In fact, the North Vietnamese were trying to avoid contact with U.S. forces on August 4, and they saw the departure of the Desoto patrol ships as a sign that they could proceed to recover their torpedo boats and tow them back to base. The departure of the North Vietnamese salvage tug en route to the damaged craft was reported to the American ships as a submarine chaser, not a serious threat but certainly more so than an unarmed seagoing tug. The United States Military had three SIGINT stations in the Philippines, one for each of the services, but their combined coverage was less than half of all potential North Vietnamese communications. That night, on national television, Johnson addressedthe American people, saying,Renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to take action and reply. The errors made in the initial analysis were due to a combination of inexperience, limited knowledge of North Vietnams operations and an operational imperative to ensure that the U.S. Navy ships would not be caught by surprise. . Even in the darkness, the commandos could see their targeta water tower surrounded by a few military buildings. The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. Gulf Of Tonkin "Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident." Both orders were repeated, but only the latter was relayed to the torpedo boats before the attack was launched. NSA officials handed the key August SIGINT reports over to the JCS investigating team that examined the incident in September 1964. In 2005 documents were released proving that Johnson had fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify attacking North Vietnam. "5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. When Did the U.S. It can be deceived and it is all too often incomplete. . As such, its personnel in Vietnam were the envy of their Army counterparts in the bush since, as it was commonly put, sailors sleep between clean sheets at night (the grunts were also envious of the Air Force, where you fight sitting down). The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. Thats what all the country wants, because Goldwater's raising so much hell about how he's gonna blow 'em off the moon, and they say that we oughtn't to do anything that the national interest doesn't require. 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. All missed, probably because the North Vietnamese had fired too soon. 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. At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. Heavy machine-gun bullets riddled PTF-6, tearing away part of the port bow and wounding four South Vietnamese crewmen, including Lieutenant Son. The rounds set some of the buildings ablaze, keeping the defenders off balance. 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. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.15. Gulf of Tonkin incident, complex naval event in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam, that was presented to the U.S. Congress on August 5, 1964, as two He headed seaward hoping to avoid a confrontation until daybreak, then returned to the coast at 1045, this time north of Hon Me. In the meantime, aboard Turner Joy, Captain Herrick ordered an immediate review of the nights actions. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. 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 North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Naval History this month. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. Until 1964, Desoto patrols stayed at least 20 miles away from the coast. 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 Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. . 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. Arguing that he did not seek a "wider war," Johnson stated the importance of showing that the United States would "continue to protect its national interests." They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. 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). The only solution was to get rid of the evidence. Send the First Troops to Vietnam? They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. One element of American assistance to South Vietnam included covert support for South Vietnamese commando raids against North Vietnams coastal transportation facilities and networks. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Forty-five minutes after beginning their attack, the commandos withdrew. Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. This was reinforced by statements by retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap who admitted to the Aug. 2 attack but denied ordering another two days later. However, planes from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga (CVA-14) crippled one of the boats and damaged the other two. Two hours later, Captain Herrick reported the sinking of two enemy patrol boats. 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. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. On the afternoon of Aug. 2, three Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats were dispatched to attack the destroyer. He has written numerous articles on Vietnam War-era special operations and is the author of two books on the war: Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, Americas Last Vietnam Battle (Hippocrene Books, 1994), and Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War (Lexington Books, 1990). What will be of interest to the general reader is the treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. U.S. soldiers recall Cam Ranh as a sprawling logistic center for materiel bolstering the war effort, but in the summer of 1964 it was only a junk force training base near a village of farmers and fishermen. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. The only opposition came from a few scattered machine guns on shore, but they did no damage. The publicity caused by the Tonkin Gulf incident and the subsequent resolution shifted attention away from covert activities and ended high-level debate over the wisdom of secret operations against North Vietnam. 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. 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. At about the same time, there were other "secret" missions going on. This is not the place to establish the final truth on the Gulf of Tonkin matter and certainly I am not the person to render the ultimate judgment. 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. For 25 minutes the boats fired on the radar station, then headed back to Da Nang. Illumination rounds shot skyward, catching the patrol boats in their harsh glare. At the time, the Navy relied heavily on Naval Support Group Activity (NSGA), San Miguel, Philippines, for SIGINT support, augmented by seaborne SIGINT elements called Direct Support Units (DSUs). 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.. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. Neither Herricks doubts nor his reconnaissance request was well received, however. Gulf of Tonkin incident Facts 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. It is not NSA's intention to prove or Aircraft from the Ticonderoga (CVA-14) appeared on the scene, strafing three torpedo boats and sinking the one that had been damaged in the battle with the Maddox. Maddox detected the torpedo boats on radar at a range of almost 20,000 yards and turned away at its top speed of 32 knots. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. 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. Originally begun by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, 34A was a highly-classified program of covert operations against North Vietnam. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. 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. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. WebThe Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. 17. At the White House, administration officials panicked as the public spotlight illuminated their policy in Vietnam and threatened to reveal its covert roots. Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. But Morse did not know enough about the program to ask pointed questions. With that false foundation in their minds, the on-scene naval analysts saw the evidence around them as confirmation of the attack they had been warned about. In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. 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. But in the pre-dawn hours of July 31, 1964, U.S.-backed patrol boats shelled two North At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. Based on this, they launched the political process that led to the wars escalation. ", "No," replied McCone. The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. 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. On 7 August, the Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, allowing the administration greater latitude in expanding the war by a vote of 88 to 2. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. The three torpedo boats continued through the American barrage and launched their torpedoes at 1516. 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. During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. President Johnson ordered a halt to all 34A operations "to avoid sending confusing signals associated with recent events in the Gulf of Tonkin." The Dollar Bill . The Gulf of Tonkin Incident took place on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, and helped lead to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War. For the maritime part of the covert operation, Nasty-class fast patrol boats were purchased quietly from Norway to lend the illusion that the United States was not involved in the operations. Whats not in dispute is the aftermath: A resolution from the Senate 426-436. Cruising twenty-eight miles offshore in international waters, Maddox was approached by the North Vietnamese. Codenamed Desoto, they were special U.S. Navy patrols designed to eavesdrop on enemy shore-based communicationsspecifically China, North Korea, and now North Vietnam. 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. originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. WebKnown today as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, this event spawned the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 7 August 1964, ultimately leading to open war between North Vietnam and 5. Seeking to follow the established policy of containment, Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, began increasing military aid to South Vietnam. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated PTF-3, PTF-4, PTF-5, PTF-6 (PTFfast patrol boat). Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. President, weve just had a report from the commander of that task force out there The report is that they have observed and we don't know by what means two unidentified vessels and three unidentified prop aircraft in the vicinity of the destroyers, McNamara told the president. 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. His assessment of the evidence now raised doubts in his mind about what really had happened. He has written numerous articles on Vietnam War-era special operations and is the author of two books on the war: 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. 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. The Desoto patrol continued with another destroyer, the Turner Joy (DD-951), coming along to ward off further trouble. 313-314. In less than 25 minutes, the attack was over. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964, FRUS 1964, vol. Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? The North Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs made all this clear in September when it published a "Memorandum Regarding the U.S. War Acts Against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the First Days of August 1964." 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. Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. The commander also added the requirement of collecting photographic intelligence of ships and aircraft encountered, as well as weather and hydrographic information. What did and didnt happen in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 and 4 has long been in dispute, but the decisions that the Johnson Administration and Congress made based on an interpretation of those events were undeniably monumental. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. 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. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. The Pyramid and All-Seeing Eye . 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. Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. 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. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. Senator Wayne Morse (D-OR) challenged the account, and argued that despite evidence that 34A missions and Desoto patrols were not operating in tandem, Hanoi could only have concluded that they were. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. "11 Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. That initial error shaped all the subsequent assessments about North Vietnamese intentions, as U.S. SIGINT monitored and reported the Norths tracking of the two American destroyers. McNamara took advantage of Morses imprecision and concentrated on the senators connection between 34A and Desoto, squirming away from the issue of U.S. involvement in covert missions by claiming that the Maddox "was not informed of, was not aware [of], had no evidence of, and so far as I know today had no knowledge of any possible South Vietnamese actions in connection with the two islands Senator Morse referred to." In the subsequent exchange of fire, neither American nor North Vietnamese ships inflicted significant damage. 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. This article by Capt. It was 1964, an election year, and the Republicans had just nominated Barry Goldwater, a former jet fighter pilot, and hardcore hawk, to run against Johnson in November. It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. Background intelligence on North Vietnam, its radar networks and command-and-control systems was limited. Then North Vietnams naval authorities either became confused or were seized by indecision. 1. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. 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. In August 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf resolutionor Southeast Asia Resolution, as it is officially knownthe congressional decree that gave President Lyndon Johnson a broad mandate to wage war in Vietnam. Office of the Historian "Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident." 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"). Conspiracy FACT #8: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - YouTube 136-137. McNamara insisted that the evidence clearly indicated there was an attack on August 4, and he continued to maintain so in his book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons From Vietnam. He spoke out against banning girls education. 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. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Incidentally, the first volume, Setting the Stage: To 1959, contains one of the best brief summaries I've read of Vietnam history from the end of World War II through the 1954 Geneva Conference. The most popular of these is that the incident was either a fabrication or deliberate American provocation. Oklahoma City Bombing. Fluoride. How the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Embroiled the US in the Vietnam As a result, the ships offshore were able to collect valuable information on North Vietnamese military capabilities. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. 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. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. After the Tonkin Gulf incident, the State Department cabled Seaborn, instructing him to tell the North Vietnamese that "neither the Maddox or any other destroyer was in any way associated with any attack on the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam] islands." WebTo many online conspiracy theorists, the biggest false flag operation of all time was the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Like all intelligence, it must be analyzed and reported in context. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Given the maritime nature of the commando raids, which were launched from Da Nang, the bulk of the intelligence collecting fell to the Navy. 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. In July 1964, Operational Plan 34A was taking off, but during the first six months of this highly classified program of covert attacks against North Vietnam, one after the other, missions failed, often spelling doom for the commando teams inserted into the North by boat and parachute. Forty-eight hours earlier, on Aug. 2, two US destroyers on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin the Maddox and the Turner Joy were attacked by North Vietnamese boats. By 1400 hours EDT, the president had approved retaliatory strikes against North Vietnamese naval bases for the next morning, August 5, at 0600 local time, which was 1900 EDT on August 4 in Washington. Early Military Career William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. "1 Most of these would be shore bombardment. Two hours later the Phu Bai SIGINT station transmitted a critic report warning of possible [North Vietnamese] naval operations planned against the Desoto patrol. Twenty-five minutes later, Phu Bai sent a second critic report that said, imminent plans of [North Vietnamese] naval action possibly against Desoto Mission.. WebJoe Rogan interview on the 911 Conspiracy Theory. American aircraft flying over the scene during the "attack" failed to spot any North Vietnamese boats. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . The NSA report is revealing. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident - ThoughtCo Approved on Aug. 10, 1964, the Southeast Asia (Gulf of Tonkin) Resolution, gave Johnson the power to use military force in the region without requiring a declaration of war. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. NSA analysts from shore-based stations shared Herricks belief and transmitted an immediate warning to all major Pacific Theater commandsexcept to Herrick and Maddox.