gulf of tonkin conspiracy

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. . "11 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. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. U.S. SIGINT support had provided ample warning of North Vietnams intentions and actions, enabling the American ship to defend itself successfully. With a presidential election just three months away and Johnson positioning himself as the peace candidate, the administration spoke of American resolve not to react to provocation and to avoid escalation. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. 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. Hanoi denied the charge that it had fired on the U.S. destroyers on 4 August, calling the charge "an impudent fabrication. The stage was set. Both men believed an attack on the American ships was imminent. 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. "1 Most of these would be shore bombardment. In fact, the United States had been waging a small, secret war against North Vietnam since 1961. Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. 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. 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. During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. Both boats opened fire, scoring hits on the tower, then moved on to other buildings nearby. A lesser-known fact is that Jim Morrisons father, Captain George Stephen Morrison, commanded the Carrier Division during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Despite this tremendous uncertainty, by midafternoon, the discussion among Johnson and his advisers was no longer about whether to respondbut how. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. "13 As far as the State Department was concerned, there was no need to "review" the operations. 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. Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. 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. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. 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. 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 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. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. 17. 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. Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. 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.. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. 14. 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. He spoke out against banning girls education. The Navys seaborne SIGINT effort in support of OPLAN-34, called Desoto Missions, played a key role in the events that ultimately led to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. 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. Based on this, they launched the political process that led to the wars escalation. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. 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? "Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident." The secondary mission of the Gulf of Tonkin patrols was to assert American freedom of navigation in international waters. 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. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. 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.. Hereafter referred to as FRUS, Vietnam 1964; Congressional Research Service, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part II, 1961-1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 287; Message CTG72.1 040140Z August 1964 (Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 425). In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. Despite Morses doubts, Senate reaction fell in behind the Johnson team, and the question of secret operations was overtaken by the issue of punishing Hanoi for its blatant attack on a U.S. warship in international waters. Background intelligence on North Vietnam, its radar networks and command-and-control systems was limited. One 12.7mm machine bullet hit Maddox before the boats broke off and started to withdraw. We have ample forces to respond not only to these attacks on these destroyers but also to retaliate, should you wish to do so, against targets on the land, he toldthe president. 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. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. The United States denied involvement. For the Navys official account stating that both incidents occurred and that 34A and Desoto were "entirely distinct," see Marolda and Fitzgerald, pp. Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. 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." Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. 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. 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. At the White House, administration officials panicked as the public spotlight illuminated their policy in Vietnam and threatened to reveal its covert roots. Suffice to say here that the version as presented here by Marolda and Fitzgerald is highly credible and completely plausible, and I for one am persuaded of its correctness. AND THERE is the fact of Vietnam's position today. Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. The first critic report from Phu Bai reached Washington at about 0740 hours, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Typically, the missions were carried out by a destroyer specially outfitted with sensitive eavesdropping equipment. Both orders were repeated, but only the latter was relayed to the torpedo boats before the attack was launched. Forced Government Indoctrination Camps . 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. 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. On Tuesday morning, Aug. 4, 1964, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara called President Lyndon Johnson with a report about a possible confrontation brewing in southeast Asia. The disclaimer is required, if for no other reason than because of Chapter 15, "The American Response to the Gulf of Tonkin Attacks," about which more later. 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.. 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 lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Naval History this month. It also outlined the Maddoxs path along the coast on 2 August and the 34A attacks on Vinh Son the following day. At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. The electronic intercept traffic cited here is too voluminous to permit a conclusion that somehow everything was the figment of the collective imaginations on both sides. 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. The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." The Americans claimed they sank two torpedo boats and damaged a third, while the torpedo boats claimed to have shot down two American aircraft. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. 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 most popular of these is that the incident was either a fabrication or deliberate American provocation. (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.). 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. Codenamed Desoto, they were special U.S. Navy patrols designed to eavesdrop on enemy shore-based communicationsspecifically China, North Korea, and now North Vietnam. 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. Ogier then opened fire at 1508 hours, when the boats were only six minutes from torpedo range. Both of these messages reached Washington shortly after 1400 hours EDT. 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 this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. Captain John J. Herrick, Commander Destroyer Division 192, embarked in the Maddox, concluded that there would be "possible hostile action." Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. 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. Listen to McNamara's conversation with Johnson. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. 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. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. Originally begun by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, 34A was a highly-classified program of covert operations against North Vietnam. Within the year, U.S. bombers would strike North Vietnam, and U.S. ground units would land on South Vietnamese soil. Media Manipulation. . It set a very terrible precedent, which is that he would go on to escalate further, not with any striking confidence that his objectives will be achieved, but only with the assurance that, unless he embarked on these massive military escalations, America would fail in Vietnam and he might well be labeled the only president in American history to lose a war.. Given the maritime nature of the commando raids, which were launched from Da Nang, the bulk of the intelligence collecting fell to the Navy. Simultaneously, U.S. SIGINT was placed on increased alert to monitor indications of future North Vietnamese threats to the Desoto Missions, and additional air and naval forces were deployed to the Western Pacific. By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. It took only a little imagination to see why the North Vietnamese might connect the two. 1, p. 646. Although Washington officials did not believe Hanoi would attack the Desoto ships again, tensions ran high on both sides, and this affected their respective analyses of the events to come. 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. When the contacts appeared to turn away at 6,000 yards, Maddoxs crew interpreted the move as a maneuver to mark a torpedo launch. To the northwest, though they could not see it in the blackness, was Hon Me; to the southwest lay Hon Nieu. Then, everyones doubts were swept away when a SIGINT intercept from one of the North Vietnamese torpedo boats reported the claim that it had shot down two American planes in the battle area. Early Military Career Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. 8. Four boats, PTF-1, PTF-2 (the American-made patrol boats), PTF-5, and PTF-6 (Nasty boats), were on their way to bombard a North Vietnamese radar installation at Vinh Son and a security post on the banks of the nearby Ron River, both about 90 miles north of the DMZ. 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 Maddox fired againthis time to killhitting the second North Vietnamese boat just as it launched two torpedoes. 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). 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. 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. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 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. Captain Herrick had been ordered to be clear of the patrol area by nightfall, so he turned due east at approximately 1600. At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident took place on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, and helped lead to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War. So, whether by accident or design, American actions in the Tonkin Gulf triggered a response from the North Vietnamese, not the other way around. "5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. 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