This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. 426-436. 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.. Even in the darkness, the commandos could see their targeta water tower surrounded by a few military buildings. 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. 2. The Vietnam War buff will find it fascinating for its wealth of detail carefully set down in understated prose (a welcome relief, I might add, from the hysterical tone that marks much Vietnam War writing). 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. In 2005 documents were released proving that Johnson had fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify attacking North Vietnam. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. He spoke out against banning girls education. As is common with specialized histories -- what I call the "tunnels of Cu Chi" syndrome -- this book will tell most readers more about the U.S. Navy in Vietnam than they care to know. Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese boats continued to close in at the rate of 400 yards per minute. 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 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. Two nearly identical episodes six weeks apart; two nearly opposite responses. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. 8. Gulf of Tonkin Conspiracy Theory President Johnson ordered a halt to all 34A operations "to avoid sending confusing signals associated with recent events in the Gulf of Tonkin." There was no way to get a commando team ashore to plant demolition charges; they would have do what damage they could with the boats guns.3 For the Navys official account stating that both incidents occurred and that 34A and Desoto were "entirely distinct," see Marolda and Fitzgerald, pp. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE GULF OF TONKIN? Gulf of Tonkin incident - Wikipedia A joint resolution of Congress dated August 7, 1964, gave the president authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam and served as the legal basis for escalations in the Johnson and Nixon administrations that likely dwarfed what most Americans could have imagined in August 1964. Badly damaged, the boat limped home. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident - ThoughtCo 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. 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. 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. 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. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. McNamara was ready to respond. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. 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. ThoughtCo. 15. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter, Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation (Stanfordville, NY: 1979), vol. 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." Within days, Hanoi lodged a complaint with the International Control Commission (ICC), which had been established in 1954 to oversee the provisions of the Geneva Accords. Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m.. 13. Defense Secretary McNamara called the president about the second Phu Bai critic report at approximately 0940 that morning. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. 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 PTF-1 and PTF-2 were U.S.-built 1950s vintage boats pulled out of mothballs and sent to Vietnam. Moving in closer, the crew could see their targeta communications towersilhouetted in the moonlight. The only opposition came from a few scattered machine guns on shore, but they did no damage. This is another government conspiracy that's true. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American soldier casualties. Hickman, Kennedy. 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. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. WebThe Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. 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. "5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. 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. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. 14. At the White House, administration officials panicked as the public spotlight illuminated their policy in Vietnam and threatened to reveal its covert roots. In response, the North Vietnamese built up their naval presence around the offshore islands. The captain of Maddox, Commander Herbert L. Ogier Jr., ordered his ship to battle stations shortly after 1500 hours. The report covers all aspects of the efforts of the various American SIGINT agencies from the early postWorld War II years through the evacuation of Saigon. Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. 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. But in the pre-dawn hours of July 31, 1964, U.S.-backed patrol boats shelled two North In truth, two of the torpedo boats were damaged, of which one could not make it back to port, while a single American aircraft sustained some wing damage. 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. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. At Hon Nieu, the attack was a complete surprise. With that false foundation in their minds, the on-scene naval analysts saw the evidence around them as confirmation of the attack they had been warned about. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. 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. Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. 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. Congress supported the resolution with 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 Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. What really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964? Americas Vietnam War had begun in earnest. All missed, probably because the North Vietnamese had fired too soon. A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. When the contacts appeared to turn away at 6,000 yards, Maddoxs crew interpreted the move as a maneuver to mark a torpedo launch. 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. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. the Gulf of Tonkin The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. 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. That night and morning, while cruising in heavy weather, the ships received radar, radio, and sonar reports that signaled another North Vietnamese attack. It was 20 minutes into the new day, 31 July, when PTF-3 and PTF-6, both under the command of Lieutenant Sonconsidered one of the best boat skippers in the covert fleetreached Hon Me and began their run at the shore. 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." These warning shots were fired and the P-4s launched a torpedo attack. Aircraft from Ticonderoga arrived on-scene at 1528 hours and fired on the boats. The Health Conspiracy. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. 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 first such Desoto mission was conducted off the North Vietnamese coast in February 1964, followed by more through the spring. 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. Illumination rounds shot skyward, catching the patrol boats in their harsh glare.

Why Does My Rechargeable Hyde Taste Burnt, Mumsnet North Ealing, Retirement Communities Salt Lake City, Star News Mugshots Brunswick County, Margam Crematorium List Of Funerals Today, Articles G