"5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. 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. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. Heavy machine-gun bullets riddled PTF-6, tearing away part of the port bow and wounding four South Vietnamese crewmen, including Lieutenant Son. 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. Two nearly identical episodes six weeks apart; two nearly opposite responses. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. 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. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. Suns and Stars The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. These warning shots were fired and the P-4s launched a torpedo attack. 1, p. 646. 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. To subscribe to Vietnam Magazine, click here! The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. 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.. Vietnam is a very watery country. (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.). . 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." 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. LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. 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. 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 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. 8. He is the author of. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. McNamara and the JCS believed that this intercept decisively provided the smoking gun of the second attack, and so the president reported to the American people and Congress. 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. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. AND THERE is the fact of Vietnam's position today. He also requested air support. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. Shortly after ordering the airstrikes, Johnson went on television and addressed the nation regarding the incident. Unlike much else that followed, this incident is undisputed, although no one from the US government ever admitted publicly that the attack was likely provoked by its covert actions. And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. 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. No one was hurt and little damage wasdone in the attack, but intercepted cables suggested a second attack might be imminent. 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. Westmoreland reported that although he was not absolutely certain why the Swatows were shifted south, the move "could be attributable to recent successful [34A] operations. WebGulf of Tonkin Resolution, also called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, resolution put before the U.S. Congress by Pres. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History . 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. 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. 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 Interpretation by historians as to what exactly did and did not occur during those few days in early August 1964 remains so varied that the wonder is that authors Marolda and Fitzgerald were able themselves to settle on the text. But, interestingly, on Sept. 18, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter, Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation (Stanfordville, NY: 1979), vol. 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. (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.). Background intelligence on North Vietnam, its radar networks and command-and-control systems was limited. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. Both boats opened fire, scoring hits on the tower, then moved on to other buildings nearby. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. 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. 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. 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, 2. Johnsonasked for, and received, a resolution of war from the US Congress that led to further escalation in the conflict. U.S. and South Vietnamese warships intruded into the territorial waters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and simultaneously shelled: Hon Nieu Island, 4 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province [and] Hon Me Island, 12 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province." It reveals what commanders actually knew, what SIGINT analysts believed and the challenges the SIGINT community and its personnel faced in trying to understand and anticipate the aggressive actions of an imaginative, deeply committed and elusive enemy. Through the evening of Aug. 4, while no new information arrivedto clarify the eventin the Gulf, the White House narrative was firmly in place. WebCongress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. 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. IV-2 to IV-4. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. The bullets struck the destroyer; the torpedo missed. In turn, that means NSA analysts from shore-based stations shared Herricks belief and transmitted an immediate warning to all major Pacific Theater commandsexcept to Herrick and Maddox. The after-action reports from the participants in the Gulf arrived in Washington several hours after the report of the second incident. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) decided to resume Maddoxs Desoto patrol, but at a greater distance from the coast, accompanied by Turner Joy and supported by aircraft from Ticonderoga. After 15 minutes of maneuvering, the F-8s arrived and strafed the North Vietnamese boats, damaging two and leaving the third dead in the water. The Johnson administration had made the first of several secret diplomatic attempts during the summer of 1964 to convince the North Vietnamese to stop its war on South Vietnam, using the chief Canadian delegate to the ICC, J. Blair Seaborn, to pass the message along to Hanoi. Three days later, she rendezvoused with a tanker just east of the DMZ before beginning her intelligence- gathering mission up the North Vietnamese coast. 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). By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. 2, pp. The North Vietnamese turned for shore with the Maddox in pursuit. 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. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. 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. 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. But only a few minutes later, McNamara was back on the line with news of a second incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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 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. McNamara was ready to respond. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. This is another government conspiracy that's true. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American soldier casualties. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. WebJoe Rogan interview on the 911 Conspiracy Theory. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. 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. 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. 12. Illumination rounds shot skyward, catching the patrol boats in their harsh glare. The World is a public radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter. Unlike McNamara, Johnson, on the morning of Aug.4,1964, was in less of a hurry to respond to an attack. Unfortunately, much of the media reporting combined or confused the events of August 2 and 4 into a single incident. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. The Americans claimed they sank two torpedo boats and damaged a third, while the torpedo boats claimed to have shot down two American aircraft. Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. 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). At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. Forced Government Indoctrination Camps . ", "No," replied McCone. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. A firewall existed between covert patrol-boat attacks on North Vietnamese positions and Desoto patrols eavesdropping on shore-based communications. 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. Originally begun by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, 34A was a highly-classified program of covert operations against North Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. So, whether by accident or design, American actions in the Tonkin Gulf triggered a response from the North Vietnamese, not the other way around. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. 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. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. The contacts were to the northeast of the ship, putting them about 100 nautical miles from North Vietnam but very close to Chinas Hainan Island.

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