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. The 122 additional relevant SIGINT products confirmed that the Phu Bai station had misinterpreted or mistranslated many of the early August 3 SIGINT intercepts. A joint resolution of Congress dated August 7, 1964, gave the president authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam and served as the legal basis for escalations in the Johnson and Nixon administrations that likely dwarfed what most Americans could have imagined in August 1964. 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. The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. 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. The Health Conspiracy. CIA Director John McCone was convinced that Hanoi was reacting to the raids when it attacked the Maddox. 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. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. 10. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. $22. At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. 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. But the light helped the commandos as well, revealing their targets. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, 5. 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. But, interestingly, on Sept. 18, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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. The "nada notion" -- that nothing happened and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the product of inexperienced sonarmen and the overworked imagination of young deck-watch officers -- can no longer be sustained. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. As the enemy boat passed astern, it was raked by gunfire from the Maddox that killed the boats commander. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese boats continued to close in at the rate of 400 yards per minute. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Moises book, however, was based on only the few SIGINT reports he was able to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. "14, Nasty fast patrol boats demonstrated their versatility in the Pacific Ocean before going to Vietnam.U.S. But the administration dithered, informing the embassy only that "further OPLAN 34A operations should be held off pending review of the situation in Washington. The three torpedo boats continued through the American barrage and launched their torpedoes at 1516. . The boats followed at their maximum speed of 44 knots, continuing the chase for more than 20 minutes. 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 Maddox fired againthis time to killhitting the second North Vietnamese boat just as it launched two torpedoes. Under the operational control of Captain John J. Herrick, it steamed through the Gulf of Tonkin collecting intelligence. ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? The Gulf of Tonkin incident - Vietnam War During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. 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. The Science of Conspiracy Theories - Gulf of Tonkin conspiracy 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. Hanoi denied the charge that it had fired on the U.S. destroyers on 4 August, calling the charge "an impudent fabrication. Oklahoma City Bombing. It also outlined the Maddoxs path along the coast on 2 August and the 34A attacks on Vinh Son the following day. But in the pre-dawn hours of July 31, 1964, U.S.-backed patrol boats shelled two North Hanoi at the time denied all, leading to a third interpretation that remains alive today as what might be called the Stockdale thesis. Conspiracy FACT #8: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - YouTube 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). Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. This was the only time covert operations against the North came close to being discussed in public. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin While Kennedy had at least the comforting illusion of progress in Vietnam (manufactured by Harkins and Diem), Johnson faced a starker picture of confusion, disunity, and muddle in Saigon and of a rapidly growing Viet Cong in the countryside. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. Three days later, she rendezvoused with a tanker just east of the DMZ before beginning her intelligence- gathering mission up the North Vietnamese coast. What really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964? 1, p. 646. For additional reading, see the recently declassified NSA study by Robert J. Hanyok, Spartans in the Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975; and Tonkin Gulf and The Escalation of the Vietnam War, by Edward Moise. https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). Suns and Stars 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. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. 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." Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. WebGulf of Tonkin Resolution, also called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, resolution put before the U.S. Congress by Pres. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Hickman, Kennedy. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) 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. President Johnson and his advisers nevetheless went forward with a public announcement of an attack. 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. 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. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 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. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. That very night, the idea was put to the test. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. 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. 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. 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. LBJ was looking for a pretext to go to Congress to ask for a resolution that would give him the authority to do basically whatever the hell he wanted to do in Vietnam, without the intense public debate that a declaration of war would have required, says historian Chris Oppe. 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. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. 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. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. Gulf of Tonkin - Wikipedia 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. 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. 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. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. Gulf of Tonkin incident | Definition, Date, Summary, Significance 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. One 12.7mm machine bullet hit Maddox before the boats broke off and started to withdraw. 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. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. As far as the headlines were concerned, that was it, but the covert campaign continued unabated. . The stage was set. Until the ICC investigation blew over a week later, the commandos camped on a small pier. SOG took the mounting war of words very seriously and assumed the worstthat an investigation would expose its operations against the North. 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 stakes were high because Hanoi had beefed up its southern coastal defenses by adding four new Swatow gunboats at Quang Khe, a naval base 75 miles north of the DMZ, and ten more just to the south at Dong Hoi. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. 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. As Communist communications activity was rising rapidly, American senior leaders were increasing support to the South Vietnamese government. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. They never intended to attack U.S. forces, and were not even within 100 nautical miles of the U.S. destroyers position at the time of the purported second engagement.. He also requested air support. What will be of interest to the general reader is the treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. Unfortunately, much of the media reporting combined or confused the events of August 2 and 4 into a single incident. In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese. 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. 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. This article is based on the PRI podcast, LBJ's War, hosted by David Brown. 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. Conspiracy McNamara was ready to respond. Any escalation in the bombing of the North risked provoking the Russians or, more likely, the Chinese. Both boats opened fire, scoring hits on the tower, then moved on to other buildings nearby. 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. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964. Both of these messages reached Washington shortly after 1400 hours EDT. Each sides initial after-action review was positive. At the White House, administration officials panicked as the public spotlight illuminated their policy in Vietnam and threatened to reveal its covert roots. 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. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Whats not in dispute is the aftermath: A resolution from the Senate History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2.

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