AIDS Brotherhood Symbology The Illuminati Flame . Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. 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 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. In the end the Navy agreed, and in concert with MACV, took steps to ensure that "34A operations will be adjusted to prevent interference" with Desoto patrols.7 This did not mean that MACV did not welcome the information brought back by the Desoto patrols, only that the two missions would not actively support one another. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. The errors made in the initial analysis were due to a combination of inexperience, limited knowledge of North Vietnams operations and an operational imperative to ensure that the U.S. Navy ships would not be caught by surprise. If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. By including the orders and operational guidance provided to the units involved, the study develops the previously missing context of the intelligence and afteraction reports from the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. 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. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. The people who are calling me up, they want to be damned sure I don't pull 'em out and run, and they want to be damned sure that we're firm. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. 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. 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. Johnsonasked for, and received, a resolution of war from the US Congress that led to further escalation in the conflict. 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. The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. 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. They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs made all this clear in September when it published a "Memorandum Regarding the U.S. War Acts Against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the First Days of August 1964." Changing course in time to evade the torpedoes, the Maddox again was attacked, this time by a boat that fired another torpedo and 14.5-mm machine guns. Senator Wayne Morse (D-OR) challenged the account, and argued that despite evidence that 34A missions and Desoto patrols were not operating in tandem, Hanoi could only have concluded that they were. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. The USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin is shown in 1963. 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. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. 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. During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. McNamara was ready to respond. originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. 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. He headed seaward hoping to avoid a confrontation until daybreak, then returned to the coast at 1045, this time north of Hon Me. 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). Like all intelligence, it must be analyzed and reported in context. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. 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." . In this case, perception was much more important than reality.10. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. (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.). Based on the intercepts, Captain John J. Herrick, the on-scene mission commander aboard nearby Turner Joy, decided to terminate Maddoxs Desoto patrol late on August 1, because he believed he had indications the ship was about to be attacked.. Moises book, however, was based on only the few SIGINT reports he was able to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. For some reason, however, the second Desoto Mission, to be conducted by Maddox, was not canceled, even though it was scheduled to start at the same time that a late July commando mission was being launched. 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. During May, Admiral U. S. G. Sharp, the Pacific Fleet Commander-in-Chief, had suggested that 34A raids could be coordinated "with the operation of a shipboard radar to reduce the possibility of North Vietnamese radar detection of the delivery vehicle." 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. The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. No actual visual sightings by Maddox.". In less than 25 minutes, the attack was over. Shortly after taking office following the death of President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson became concerned about South Vietnam's ability to fend off the Communist Viet Cong guerillas that were operating in the country. All missed, probably because the North Vietnamese had fired too soon. Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. Unfortunately, much of the media reporting combined or confused the events of August 2 and 4 into a single incident. 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. 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. We're going to retaliate and well make an announcement a little later in the evening, in the next hour or so and well ask Congress for a resolution of war the next day to support us, Johnson toldan old friend. As a result, the ships offshore were able to collect valuable information on North Vietnamese military capabilities. 15. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. 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. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. The original radar contacts dropped off the scope at 2134, but the crews of Maddox and Turner Joy believed they detected two high-speed contacts closing on their position at 44 knots. The Taliban silenced him. Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. Defense Secretary McNamara called the president about the second Phu Bai critic report at approximately 0940 that morning. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. 313-314. In Saigon, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor objected to the halt, saying that "it is my conviction that we must resume these operations and continue their pressure on North Vietnam as soon as possible, leaving no impression that we or the South Vietnamese have been deterred from our operations because of the Tonkin Gulf incidents." 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. This article is based on the PRI podcast, LBJ's War, hosted by David Brown. Just after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. 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. These PTFs were manned by South Vietnamese crews and conducted a series of coastal attacks against targets in North Vietnam as part of Operation 34A. . Through the evening of Aug. 4, while no new information arrivedto clarify the eventin the Gulf, the White House narrative was firmly in place. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. On the afternoon of Aug. 2, three Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats were dispatched to attack the destroyer. Our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. 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. That night and morning, while cruising in heavy weather, the ships received radar, radio, and sonar reports that signaled another North Vietnamese attack. Badly damaged, the boat limped home. 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. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. 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. On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. 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. Hickman, Kennedy. 2, 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. During a meeting at the White House on the evening of 4 August, President Johnson asked McCone, "Do they want a war by attacking our ships in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin? Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. 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. In response, the North Vietnamese built up their naval presence around the offshore islands. Both men believed an attack on the American ships was imminent. "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.
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