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"). If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. This is another government conspiracy that's true. the Gulf of Tonkin Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. 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." HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated PTF-3, PTF-4, PTF-5, PTF-6 (PTFfast patrol boat). Covert maritime operations were in full swing, and some of the missions succeeded in blowing up small installations along the coast, leading General Westmoreland to conclude that any close connection between 34A and Desoto would destroy the thin veneer of deniability surrounding the operations. We're going to retaliate and well make an announcement a little later in the evening, in the next hour or so and well ask Congress for a resolution of war the next day to support us, Johnson toldan old friend. 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. Midday on August 1, NSGA San Miguel, the U.S. Marine Corps SIGINT detachment co-located with the U.S. Army at Phu Bai, and Maddoxs own DSU all detected the communications directing the North Vietnamese torpedo boats to depart from Haiphong on August 2. Forced Government Indoctrination Camps . For 25 minutes the boats fired on the radar station, then headed back to Da Nang. 11. President Johnson and his advisers nevetheless went forward with a public announcement of an attack. Vietnam is a very watery country. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. . During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." Air action is now in execution against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations., The next day, the president addressed Congress, seeking the power to to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia.. Shortly after ordering the airstrikes, Johnson went on television and addressed the nation regarding the incident. 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. 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 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). Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964, FRUS 1964, vol. CIA Director John McCone was convinced that Hanoi was reacting to the raids when it attacked the Maddox. Scattered small-arms sent tracers toward the commandos, but no one was hurt. We still seek no wider war.. Our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. 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." American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. When the enemy boats closed to less than 10,000 yards, the destroyer fired three shots across the bow of the lead vessel. Although McNamara did not know it at the time, part of his statement was not true; Captain Herrick, the Desoto patrol commander, did know about the 34A raids, something that his ships logs later made clear. Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. It can be deceived and it is all too often incomplete. "We believe that present OPLAN 34A activities are beginning to rattle Hanoi," wrote Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "and [the] Maddox incident is directly related to their effort to resist these activities. Media Manipulation. Neither ships crew knew about the North Vietnamese salvage operation. Vaccines. 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. Americas Vietnam War had begun in earnest. But the light helped the commandos as well, revealing their targets. The North Vietnamese turned for shore with the Maddox in pursuit. 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 Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, Admiral Harry D. Felt, agreed and suggested that a U.S. Navy ship could be used to vector 34A boats to their targets.6. 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 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. But, to me, the more pernicious deception was this idea that American ships were sailing innocently in the Gulf of Tonkin and were attacked without provocation, he continues. Here's why he couldn't walk away. 10. Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. All missed, probably because the North Vietnamese had fired too soon. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a 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 unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy of the U.S. For some reason, however, the second Desoto Mission, to be conducted by Maddox, was not canceled, even though it was scheduled to start at the same time that a late July commando mission was being launched. THIS SECOND volume of the U.S. Navy's multivolume history of the Vietnam War is bound in the same familiar rich blue buckram that has styled official Navy histories since the Civil War and hence resembles its predecessors. Under the operational control of Captain John J. Herrick, it steamed through the Gulf of Tonkin collecting intelligence. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. He spoke out against banning girls education. 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. 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. Send the First Troops to Vietnam? The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. Both orders were repeated, but only the latter was relayed to the torpedo boats before the attack was launched. The first such Desoto mission was conducted off the North Vietnamese coast in February 1964, followed by more through the spring. 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. William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. 3. Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. In addition, the destroyer USS Turner Joy began moving to support Maddox. 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. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History 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. He reported those doubts in his after action report transmitted shortly after midnight his time on August 5, which was 1300 hours August 4 in Washington. Despite the on-scene commanders efforts to correct their errors in the initial after-action reports, administration officials focused instead on the first SIGINT reports to the exclusion of all other evidence. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. :: Douglas Pike, director of the Indochina Studies Program at the University of California-Berkeley, is the author of the forthcoming "Vietnam and the U.S.S.R.: Anatomy of an Alliance.". It is not NSA's intention to prove or It took only a little imagination to see why the North Vietnamese might connect the two. 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. 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. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. The commander also added the requirement of collecting photographic intelligence of ships and aircraft encountered, as well as weather and hydrographic information. Badly damaged, the boat limped home. 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. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. On 30 July, Westmoreland revised the 34A maritime operations schedule for August, increasing the number of raids by "283% over the July program and 566% over June. Early Military Career Mr. 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. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. The NSA report is revealing. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. The Pentagon had already released details of the attack, and administration officials had already promised strong action. A firewall existed between covert patrol-boat attacks on North Vietnamese positions and Desoto patrols eavesdropping on shore-based communications. They were nicknamed "gassers" because they burned gasoline rather than diesel fuel. 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. In November of 2001, the LBJ Presidential library and museum released tapes of phone conversations with the President and then Defense Hanoi was more than willing to tell the world about the attacks, and it took either a fool or an innocent to believe that the United States knew nothing about the raids. In the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson needed a pretext to commit the American people to the already expanding covert war in South East Asia. https://www.historynet.com/case-closed-the-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. Whats not in dispute is the aftermath: A resolution from the Senate Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), pp. National Security Agency 8. The Truth About Tonkin | Naval History Magazine - February 2008 Suns and Stars Two days later, August 4, Maddox returned to the area, supported by the destroyer Turner Joy (DD-951). The Health Conspiracy. One 12.7mm machine bullet hit Maddox before the boats broke off and started to withdraw. The NSA report exposes translation and analytical errors made by the American SIGINT analystserrors that convinced the naval task force and national authorities that the North had ordered a second attack on August 4, and thus led Maddoxs crew to interpret its radar contacts and other information as confirmation that the ship was again under attack. By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. Herrick requested aerial reconnaissance for the next morning to search for the wreckage of the torpedo boats he thought he had sunk. 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. 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. That very night, the idea was put to the test. Listen to McNamara's conversation with Johnson. In the end the Navy agreed, and in concert with MACV, took steps to ensure that "34A operations will be adjusted to prevent interference" with Desoto patrols.7 This did not mean that MACV did not welcome the information brought back by the Desoto patrols, only that the two missions would not actively support one another. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. Operation Fast and Furious 10 The maximum closure distance was originally established at 20 nautical miles, but the commander of the U.S. 313-314. He then requested the passage of a resolution "expressing the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in Southeast Asia." https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). 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. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. 9/11. 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. Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter, Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation (Stanfordville, NY: 1979), vol. The subsequent North Vietnamese reporting on the enemy matched the location, course and speed of Maddox. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Ten shocking conspiracy theories that were completely He headed seaward hoping to avoid a confrontation until daybreak, then returned to the coast at 1045, this time north of Hon Me. 302-303. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. The Maddox planned to sail to 16 points along the North Vietnam coast, ranging from the DMZ north to the Chinese border. A lesser-known fact is that Jim Morrisons father, Captain George Stephen Morrison, commanded the Carrier Division during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. In fact, the United States had been waging a small, secret war against North Vietnam since 1961. The Truth About Tonkin | Naval History Magazine - February 2008 Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. 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.. In the years covered here, the Navy was generally known throughout the U.S. Mission in Saigon for being in the housekeeping business, operating supply warehouses, and running the officer clubs, PXs and other amenities, an inevitable part of the American military's baggage. . The only opposition came from a few scattered machine guns on shore, but they did no damage. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. Tonkin Gulf The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. 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. Top Essentials to Know About the Vietnam War, Timeline of the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War), Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland, M.S., Information and Library Science, Drexel University, B.A., History and Political Science, Pennsylvania State University. AIDS Brotherhood Symbology The Illuminati Flame . Until the ICC investigation blew over a week later, the commandos camped on a small pier. 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. PTF-1 and PTF-2 were U.S.-built 1950s vintage boats pulled out of mothballs and sent to Vietnam. 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 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. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. 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. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. But Morse did not know enough about the program to ask pointed questions. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. 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. This mission coincided with several 34A attacks, including an Aug. 1 raid on Hon Me and Hon Ngu Islands. The truth about 'False Flags' from Nazi Germany to the Vietnam War 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. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Naval Institute. On 28 July, the latest specially fitted destroyer, the Maddox (DD-731), set out from Taiwan for the South China Sea. At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. The ships gunners used the standard 5 mil offset to avoid hitting the boats. More important, they did not know the North Vietnamese had begun to react more aggressively to the commando raids. These types of patrols had previously been conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea.