After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." 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." In any event, the attack took place in broad daylight under conditions of clear visibility. Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. A North Vietnamese patrol boat also trailed the American ships, reporting on their movements to Haiphong. 8. Gradually, the Navy broadened its role from supply/logistics to aid/advisory -- training Vietnamese and developing the South Vietnamese navy's famed "brown water force," those riverine units operating in the country's matrix of rivers and canals and through the coastal network of islands and archipelagos. Although the total intelligence picture of North Vietnams actions and communications indicates that the North Vietnamese did in fact order the first attack, it remains unclear whether Maddox was the originally intended target. 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. 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. Mr. No actual visual sightings by Maddox.". Both men believed an attack on the American ships was imminent. As far as the headlines were concerned, that was it, but the covert campaign continued unabated. 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. However, planes from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga (CVA-14) crippled one of the boats and damaged the other two. But only a few minutes later, McNamara was back on the line with news of a second incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. "Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident." Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. It took only a little imagination to see why the North Vietnamese might connect the two. While there was some doubt in Washington regarding the second attack, those aboard Maddox and Turner Joy were convinced that it had occurred. This article by Capt. The Desoto patrol continued with another destroyer, the Turner Joy (DD-951), coming along to ward off further trouble. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Moving in closer, the crew could see their targeta communications towersilhouetted in the moonlight. 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 But the administration dithered, informing the embassy only that "further OPLAN 34A operations should be held off pending review of the situation in Washington. A firewall existed between covert patrol-boat attacks on North Vietnamese positions and Desoto patrols eavesdropping on shore-based communications. Those early mistakes led U.S. destroyers to open fire on spurious radar contacts, misinterpret their own propeller noises as incoming torpedoes, and ultimately report an attack that never occurred. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. 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. Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? In addition, the destroyer USS Turner Joy began moving to support Maddox. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. 5. Mr. Andrad is a Vietnam War historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, where he is writing a book on combat operations from 1969 through 1973. ", "No," replied McCone. No one was hurt and little damage wasdone in the attack, but intercepted cables suggested a second attack might be imminent. In 1996 Edward Moises book Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War presented the first publicly released concrete evidence that the SIGINT reporting confirmed the August 2 attack, but not the alleged second attack of August 4. The House passed the resolution unanimously.17 Captain Herrick had been ordered to be clear of the patrol area by nightfall, so he turned due east at approximately 1600. 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. 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. no isolated event. Cruising twenty-eight miles offshore in international waters, Maddox was approached by the North Vietnamese. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. 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. WebThe Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. . Both orders were repeated, but only the latter was relayed to the torpedo boats before the attack was launched. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Through the evening of Aug. 4, while no new information arrivedto clarify the eventin the Gulf, the White House narrative was firmly in place. 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. At Hon Nieu, the attack was a complete surprise. Over the next 12 hours, as the president's team scrambledto understand what hadhappened and to organize a response, the facts remained elusive. 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. Send the First Troops to Vietnam? Until 1964, Desoto patrols stayed at least 20 miles away from the coast. Both of these messages reached Washington shortly after 1400 hours EDT. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. 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. 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. "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 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. . 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. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. In the subsequent exchange of fire, neither American nor North Vietnamese ships inflicted significant damage. . If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. AND THERE is the fact of Vietnam's position today. At 1505, when the torpedo boats had closed within 10,000 yards, in accordance with Captain Herricks orders and as allowed under international law at that time, Maddox fired three warning shots. 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 This time, however, President Johnson reacted much more skeptically and ultimately decided to take no retaliatory action. 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. Just after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. 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. 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. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. The most popular of these is that the incident was either a fabrication or deliberate American provocation. One 12.7mm machine bullet hit Maddox before the boats broke off and started to withdraw. "11 Fluoride. 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. This volume deals only with the former. In November of 2001, the LBJ Presidential library and museum released tapes of phone conversations with the President and then Defense 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. American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. NSA officials handed the key August SIGINT reports over to the JCS investigating team that examined the incident in September 1964. 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. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a brief confrontation between United States and North Vietnamese warships, off the coast of northern Vietnam in August 1964. . Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. Illumination rounds shot skyward, catching the patrol boats in their harsh glare. The Health Conspiracy. 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. On the afternoon of Aug. 2, three Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats were dispatched to attack the destroyer. Not reported at the time, Herrick instructed his gun crews to fire three warning shots if the North Vietnamese came within 10,000 yards of the ship. This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. His assessment of the evidence now raised doubts in his mind about what really had happened. 8. Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. Naval Institute. SOG took the mounting war of words very seriously and assumed the worstthat an investigation would expose its operations against the North. Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution. 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." CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, 5. 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. PTF-6 took up station at the mouth of the Ron River, lit up the sky with illumination rounds, and fired at the security post. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese boats continued to close in at the rate of 400 yards per minute. 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. 15. Within the year, U.S. bombers would strike North Vietnam, and U.S. ground units would land on South Vietnamese soil. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. A Senate investigation revealed that the Maddox had been on an intelligence 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? This was the only time covert operations against the North came close to being discussed in public. The Maddox was attacked at 1600. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. When the contacts appeared to turn away at 6,000 yards, Maddoxs crew interpreted the move as a maneuver to mark a torpedo launch. Along with other American warships, Maddox was steaming in international waters some 28 nautical miles off North Vietnams coast, gathering information on that countrys coastal radars. 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. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam War. The bullets struck the destroyer; the torpedo missed. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. 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." Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. 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 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 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. 1, p. 646. 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.

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