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In any event, the attack took place in broad daylight under conditions of clear visibility. After several early failures, it was transferred to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group in 1964, at which time its focus shifted to maritime operations. Unlike McNamara, Johnson, on the morning of Aug.4,1964, was in less of a hurry to respond to an attack. 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. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. 10. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. 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.. If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. 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. In the subsequent exchange of fire, neither American nor North Vietnamese ships inflicted significant damage. 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. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. The Health 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. 9/11. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. In a conversation with McNamara on Aug. 3, after the first incident, Johnson indicated he hadalready thought about the political ramifications of a military response and hadconsulted with several allies. 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. The Maddox fired againthis time to killhitting the second North Vietnamese boat just as it launched two torpedoes. Hickman, Kennedy. Two nearly identical episodes six weeks apart; two nearly opposite responses. Suns and Stars At about the same time, there were other "secret" missions going on. 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." The Maddox was attacked at 1600. The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. One of the great ironies of the Gulf of Tonkin incident for President Johnson is that it was for him, politically, a great success, he continues. Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. 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. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. 17. 1. . Naval Institute. But on 7 January, the Seventh Fleet eased the restriction, allowing the destroyers to approach to within four milesstill one mile beyond North Vietnamese territorial waters as recognized by the United States. (The recent NBC television movie In Love and War had Navy pilot James B. Stockdale flying over the scene at the time saying, "I see nothing"; now a retired vice admiral, Stockdale has reiterated the "phoney attack" charge in writings and public speaking.). A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. 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). The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. NSA officials handed the key August SIGINT reports over to the JCS investigating team that examined the incident in September 1964. During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. So, whether by accident or design, American actions in the Tonkin Gulf triggered a response from the North Vietnamese, not the other way around. 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." 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 UNITED STATES NAVY AND THE VIETNAM CONFLICT Volume II: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959-1965 By Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald Government Printing Office for The Naval Historical Center 591 pp. 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. . To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. 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. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. 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. 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. 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. The maximum closure distance was originally established at 20 nautical miles, but the commander of the U.S. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. 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. Cruising twenty-eight miles offshore in international waters, Maddox was approached by the North Vietnamese. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." The Americans claimed they sank two torpedo boats and damaged a third, while the torpedo boats claimed to have shot down two American aircraft. Mr. The North Vietnamese turned for shore with the Maddox in pursuit. 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. 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. 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. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. Easily outdistancing the North Vietnamese boat, the commandos arrived back at Da Nang shortly after daybreak.8, North Vietnam immediately and publicly linked the 34A raids and the Desoto patrol, a move that threatened tentative peace feelers from Washington that were only just reaching Hanoi. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. President Johnson ordered a halt to all 34A operations "to avoid sending confusing signals associated with recent events in the Gulf of Tonkin." 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 Taliban silenced him. That very night, the idea was put to the test. 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. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam War. The first critic report from Phu Bai reached Washington at about 0740 hours, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 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. Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin incident: the false flag operation that started the Vietnam war. Something Isnt Working Refresh the page to try again. Something Isnt Working It took only a little imagination to see why the North Vietnamese might connect the two. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. 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." And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. In the meantime, aboard Turner Joy, Captain Herrick ordered an immediate review of the nights actions. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. The reports conclusions about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident are particularly relevant as they offer useful insights into the problems that SIGINT faces today in The after-action reports from the participants in the Gulf arrived in Washington several hours after the report of the second incident. 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. The stage was set. In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese.