the Gulf of Tonkin Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. Hickman, Kennedy. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. . 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. 4. 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 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. 8. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. 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. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident and many more recent experiences only reinforce the need for intelligence analysts and decision makers to avoid relying exclusively on any single intelligence sourceeven SIGINTparticularly if other intelligence sources are available and the resulting decisions might cost lives. 426-436. The maximum closure distance was originally established at 20 nautical miles, but the commander of the U.S. 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. 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. After the war, Hanoi officials not only acknowledged the event but deemed it important enough to designate its date, Aug. 2, as the Vietnamese Navy's Anniversary Day, "the day our heroic naval forces went out and chased away Maddox and Turner Joy." WebMany historians now agree that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which many believed North Vietnamese ships had attacked American naval forces, may not have occurred in the way it was described at the time. In 2005 documents were released proving that Johnson had fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify attacking North Vietnam. Unable to catch the fast South Vietnamese PTFs, the government in Hanoi elected to strike instead at USS Maddox. 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.. The Taliban silenced him. In addition, the US Navy was instructed to conduct Desoto patrols off North Vietnam. Despite this tremendous uncertainty, by midafternoon, the discussion among Johnson and his advisers was no longer about whether to respondbut how. On the afternoon of Aug. 2, three Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats were dispatched to attack the destroyer. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. 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. 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. Captain John J. Herrick, Commander Destroyer Division 192, embarked in the Maddox, concluded that there would be "possible hostile action." Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. Until 1964, Desoto patrols stayed at least 20 miles away from the coast. . Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. When Did the U.S. Seeking to follow the established policy of containment, Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, began increasing military aid to South Vietnam. ", "No," replied McCone. Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m., Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968, vol. The three torpedo boats continued through the American barrage and launched their torpedoes at 1516. The Science of Conspiracy Theories - Gulf of Tonkin conspiracy And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. 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. His assessment of the evidence now raised doubts in his mind about what really had happened. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. Forced Government Indoctrination Camps . 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. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. The most popular of these is that the incident was either a fabrication or deliberate American provocation. 11. Suns and Stars Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. Meanwhile, by late August 3, the North Vietnamese had learned the condition of their torpedo boats and ordered a salvage tug to recover the damaged craft. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. 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. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. . (2021, February 16). 1, p. 646. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. 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 Health Conspiracy. Sign up to get updates about new releases and event invitations. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History For 25 minutes the boats fired on the radar station, then headed back to Da Nang. 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. 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. 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 incident - Vietnam War These warning shots were fired and the P-4s launched a torpedo attack. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. Conspiracy Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) | National Archives Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. 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. Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? And who is going to believe that? Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. The secondary mission of the Gulf of Tonkin patrols was to assert American freedom of navigation in international waters. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. Aircraft from the Ticonderoga (CVA-14) appeared on the scene, strafing three torpedo boats and sinking the one that had been damaged in the battle with the Maddox. NSA officials handed the key August SIGINT reports over to the JCS investigating team that examined the incident in September 1964. 1. 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. 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. Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. The U.S. Navy stressed that the two technically were not in communication with one another, but the distinction was irrelevant to the North Vietnamese. A distinction is made in these pages between the Aug. 2 "naval engagement" and the somewhat more ambiguous Aug. 4 "naval action," although Marolda and Fitzgerald make it clear they accept that the Aug. 4 action left one and possibly two North Vietnamese torpedo-firing boats sunk or dead in the water. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. 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. 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. 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. 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. The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. The first such Desoto mission was conducted off the North Vietnamese coast in February 1964, followed by more through the spring. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American On 6 August, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara told a joint session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees that the North Vietnamese attack on the Maddox was ". 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. How the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Embroiled the US in the Vietnam "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 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. The conspiracy theory has been dying for several years, and this work will probably be a stake through its heart. 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 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. 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. 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. The publicity caused by the Tonkin Gulf incident and the subsequent resolution shifted attention away from covert activities and ended high-level debate over the wisdom of secret operations against North Vietnam. 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. William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. PTF-1 and PTF-2 were U.S.-built 1950s vintage boats pulled out of mothballs and sent to Vietnam. The rounds set some of the buildings ablaze, keeping the defenders off balance. Gulf of Tonkin & the Vietnam War. 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. These secret intelligence-gathering missions and sabotage operations had begun under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1961, but in January 1964, the program was transferred to the Defense Department under the control of a cover organization called the Studies and Observations Group (SOG). 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. Unfortunately, much of the media reporting combined or confused the events of August 2 and 4 into a single incident. One 12.7mm machine bullet hit Maddox before the boats broke off and started to withdraw. The Dollar Bill . Naval Institute. 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. 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. 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. Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. The basic story line of the Gulf of Tonkin incident is as follows: At approximately 1430 hours Vietnam time on August 2, 1964, USS Maddox (DD-731) detected three North Vietnamese torpedo boats approaching at high speed. 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. At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. American aircraft flying over the scene during the "attack" failed to spot any North Vietnamese boats. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. $22. The after-action reports from the participants in the Gulf arrived in Washington several hours after the report of the second incident. This explanation held briefly, long enough for President Johnson -- admittedly not inclined to engage in what might be called oververification -- to rush the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress. Gulf of Tonkin - Wikipedia Given the maritime nature of the commando raids, which were launched from Da Nang, the bulk of the intelligence collecting fell to the Navy. In response, the North Vietnamese built up their naval presence around the offshore islands. But we sure ought to always leave the impression that if you shoot at us, you're going to get hit, Johnson said. Here's why he couldn't walk away. Fluoride. 10. The bullets struck the destroyer; the torpedo missed. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. For the Navys official account stating that both incidents occurred and that 34A and Desoto were "entirely distinct," see Marolda and Fitzgerald, pp. 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. 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. Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. Badly damaged, the boat limped home. Neither ships crew knew about the North Vietnamese salvage operation. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. 5. 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. That very night, the idea was put to the test. Like all intelligence, it must be analyzed and reported in context. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. . 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. In July 1964, Operational Plan 34A was taking off, but during the first six months of this highly classified program of covert attacks against North Vietnam, one after the other, missions failed, often spelling doom for the commando teams inserted into the North by boat and parachute. Hickman, Kennedy. A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. Case Closed: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - HistoryNet The truth about 'False Flags' from Nazi Germany to the Vietnam War HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. "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. The boats followed at their maximum speed of 44 knots, continuing the chase for more than 20 minutes. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. 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 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 Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. The United States Military had three SIGINT stations in the Philippines, one for each of the services, but their combined coverage was less than half of all potential North Vietnamese communications. The Desoto patrol continued with another destroyer, the Turner Joy (DD-951), coming along to ward off further trouble. Listen to McNamara's conversation with Johnson. 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.