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JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. CIA Director John McCone was convinced that Hanoi was reacting to the raids when it attacked the Maddox. Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. The Health Conspiracy. The Truth About Tonkin | Naval History Magazine - February 2008 The United States denied involvement. Speculation about administration motives surrounding the Tonkin Gulf incident itself and the subsequent withholding of key information will probably never cease, but the factual intelligence record that drove those decisions is now clear. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. 8. After the incident, Herrick was unsure that his ships had been attacked, reporting at 1:27 a.m. Washington time that "Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE GULF OF TONKIN? 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. LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. WebOn August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. WebCongress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. The string of intelligence mistakes, mistranslations, misinterpretations and faulty decision making that occurred in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964 reveals how easily analysts and officials can jump to the wrong conclusions and lead a nation into war. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. A Senate investigation revealed that the Maddox had been on an intelligence The Americans claimed they sank two torpedo boats and damaged a third, while the torpedo boats claimed to have shot down two American aircraft. Unable to catch the fast South Vietnamese PTFs, the government in Hanoi elected to strike instead at USS Maddox. The Dollar Bill . originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. 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. At the time, the Navy relied heavily on Naval Support Group Activity (NSGA), San Miguel, Philippines, for SIGINT support, augmented by seaborne SIGINT elements called Direct Support Units (DSUs). The Desoto patrol continued with another destroyer, the Turner Joy (DD-951), coming along to ward off further trouble. 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. WebGulf of Tonkin Resolution, also called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, resolution put before the U.S. Congress by Pres. WebLyndon Johnson signed the Tonkin Gulf resolution on August 10, 1964. Just after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. Here's why he couldn't walk away. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. . Then North Vietnams naval authorities either became confused or were seized by indecision. 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. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. 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. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. The ships gunners used the standard 5 mil offset to avoid hitting the boats. 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. And, of course, McNamara himself knew about the "South Vietnamese actions in connection with the two islands," but his cautiously worded answer got him out of admitting it. The threat removed, Maddox retired from the area to rejoin friendly forces. Launching on Aug. 5, Operation Pierce Arrow saw aircraft from USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation strike oil facilities at Vinh and attack approximately 30 North Vietnamese vessels. 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 ". PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. Four boats, PTF-1, PTF-2 (the American-made patrol boats), PTF-5, and PTF-6 (Nasty boats), were on their way to bombard a North Vietnamese radar installation at Vinh Son and a security post on the banks of the nearby Ron River, both about 90 miles north of the DMZ. 3. It is difficult to imagine that the North Vietnamese could come to any other conclusion than that the 34A and Desoto missions were all part of the same operation. 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. Operation Fast and Furious 10 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. 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. Perhaps that is the most enduring lesson from Americas use of SIGINT in the Vietnam War in general and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in particular. Heavy machine-gun bullets riddled PTF-6, tearing away part of the port bow and wounding four South Vietnamese crewmen, including Lieutenant Son. 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." Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. This time, however, President Johnson reacted much more skeptically and ultimately decided to take no retaliatory action. Both of these messages reached Washington shortly after 1400 hours EDT. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam War. More important, they did not know the North Vietnamese had begun to react more aggressively to the commando 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. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. This article by Capt. 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. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. President, weve just had a report from the commander of that task force out there The report is that they have observed and we don't know by what means two unidentified vessels and three unidentified prop aircraft in the vicinity of the destroyers, McNamara told the president. SOG took the mounting war of words very seriously and assumed the worstthat an investigation would expose its operations against the North. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. The three torpedo boats continued through the American barrage and launched their torpedoes at 1516. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. $22. (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.). https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). Gulf Of Tonkin Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. 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. 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. Gulf of Tonkin Conspiracy Theory A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. Maddox detected the torpedo boats on radar at a range of almost 20,000 yards and turned away at its top speed of 32 knots. That night and morning, while cruising in heavy weather, the ships received radar, radio, and sonar reports that signaled another North Vietnamese attack. For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. 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. The Taliban silenced him. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. Congress supported the resolution with He also requested air support. 9/11. 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. Johnsonasked for, and received, a resolution of war from the US Congress that led to further escalation in the conflict. 13. 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. 302-303. Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. How the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Embroiled the US in the Vietnam Through the evening of Aug. 4, while no new information arrivedto clarify the eventin the Gulf, the White House narrative was firmly in place. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. 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. 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. The captain of Maddox, Commander Herbert L. Ogier Jr., ordered his ship to battle stations shortly after 1500 hours. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. However, planes from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga (CVA-14) crippled one of the boats and damaged the other two. Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) | National Archives The departure of the North Vietnamese salvage tug en route to the damaged craft was reported to the American ships as a submarine chaser, not a serious threat but certainly more so than an unarmed seagoing tug. In 1964 the Navy was attempting to determine the extent of North Vietnams maritime infiltration into the South and to identify the Norths coastal defenses so that Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) could better support South Vietnams commando operations against the North. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 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.
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