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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. These warning shots were fired and the P-4s launched a torpedo attack. 1. Here's why he couldn't walk away. Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. 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. The contacts were to the northeast of the ship, putting them about 100 nautical miles from North Vietnam but very close to Chinas Hainan Island. 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 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 North Vietnamese turned for shore with the Maddox in pursuit. National Security Agency American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. The Gulf of Tonkin incident - Vietnam War 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. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. 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. McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.15. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." 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. The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. 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). At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. 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. U.S. SIGINT support had provided ample warning of North Vietnams intentions and actions, enabling the American ship to defend itself successfully. Gulf of Tonkin incident | Definition, Date, Summary, Significance Any escalation in the bombing of the North risked provoking the Russians or, more likely, the Chinese. For the rest of the war they would be truly secretand in the end they were a dismal failure. 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 North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | History, Facts, & Significance McNamara was ready to respond. It can be deceived and it is all too often incomplete. Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. 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. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. We have no intention of yielding to pressure. For the Navys official account stating that both incidents occurred and that 34A and Desoto were "entirely distinct," see Marolda and Fitzgerald, pp. In late 2007, that information was finally made public when an official National Security Agency (NSA) history of signals intelligence (SIGINT) in Vietnam, written in 2002, was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. 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 WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. 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. Herrick requested aerial reconnaissance for the next morning to search for the wreckage of the torpedo boats he thought he had sunk. How the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Embroiled the US in the Vietnam Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. He has appeared on The History Channel as a featured expert. 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. Vaccines. 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.. Vietnam is a very watery country. "11 The ships gunners used the standard 5 mil offset to avoid hitting the boats. . To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History Both South Vietnamese and U.S. maritime operators in Da Nang assumed that their raids were the cause of the mounting international crisis, and they never for a moment doubted that the North Vietnamese believed that the raids and the Desoto patrols were one and the same. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. At about the same time, there were other "secret" missions going on. When the enemy boats closed to less than 10,000 yards, the destroyer fired three shots across the bow of the lead vessel. Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE GULF OF TONKIN? 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. Soon came a second more sinister interpretation -- that the incident was a conspiracy not only provoked by the Johnson administration but one in fact "scenarioed." The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Moises book, however, was based on only the few SIGINT reports he was able to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. The House passed the resolution unanimously.17 People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. It still is not clear whether the order was intended to halt the attack or to delay it until after nightfall, when there was a much greater chance for success. 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. As a result, the ships offshore were able to collect valuable information on North Vietnamese military capabilities. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. Media Manipulation. A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. This is not the place to establish the final truth on the Gulf of Tonkin matter and certainly I am not the person to render the ultimate judgment. 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. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two 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. Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. Just after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. Under cover of darkness, four boats (PTF-2, PTF-3, PTF-5, and PTF-6) left Da Nang, racing north up the coast toward the demilitarized zone (DMZ), then angling farther out to sea as they left the safety of South Vietnamese waters.2 About five hours later they neared their objective: the offshore islands of Hon Me and Hon Nieu. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Milestones: 19611968 - Office of the Historian 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. The secondary mission of the Gulf of Tonkin patrols was to assert American freedom of navigation in international waters. On July 31, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox commenced a Desoto patrol off North Vietnam. 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. 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. 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. On the afternoon of Aug. 2, three Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats were dispatched to attack the destroyer. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. IV-2 to IV-4. 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. Gulf of Tonkin - National Security Agency The Health Conspiracy. 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 WebLyndon Johnson signed the Tonkin Gulf resolution on August 10, 1964. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. While many facts and details have emerged in the past 44 years to persuade most observers that some of the reported events in the Gulf never actually happened, key portions of the critical intelligence information remained classified until recently. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. The 522-page NSA official history Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975, triggered a new round of media reporting and renewed debate about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Pentagon had already released details of the attack, and administration officials had already promised strong action. Forty-five minutes after beginning their attack, the commandos withdrew. 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. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - Definition, Cause & Significance Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. 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. 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. Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. Fluoride. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. 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. 4. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. The United States denied involvement. 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. 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. But, interestingly, on Sept. 18, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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 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 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 12. Both orders were repeated, but only the latter was relayed to the torpedo boats before the attack was launched. Conducted under the nationally approved Operations Plan, OPLAN-34A, the program required the intelligence community to provide detailed intelligence about the commando targets, the Norths coastal defenses and related surveillance systems. He has written numerous articles on Vietnam War-era special operations and is the author of two books on the war: Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, Americas Last Vietnam Battle (Hippocrene Books, 1994), and Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War (Lexington Books, 1990). The Maddox planned to sail to 16 points along the North Vietnam coast, ranging from the DMZ north to the Chinese border. 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. Ticonderoga ordered four A-1H Skyraiders into the air to support the ships. By late 1958 it was obvious that a major Communist buildup was underway in South Vietnam, but the American SIGINT community was ill-placed and ill-equipped to deal with it. Illumination rounds shot skyward, catching the patrol boats in their harsh glare. Despite this tremendous uncertainty, by midafternoon, the discussion among Johnson and his advisers was no longer about whether to respondbut how. The NSA report is revealing. 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. 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. 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. 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. PTF-1 and PTF-2 were U.S.-built 1950s vintage boats pulled out of mothballs and sent to Vietnam. CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, 5.