5. . "Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident." Within the year, U.S. bombers would strike North Vietnam, and U.S. ground units would land on South Vietnamese soil. However, planes from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga (CVA-14) crippled one of the boats and damaged the other two. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. 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. The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. WebNational Security Agency/Central Security Service > Home 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. Gulf of Tonkin incident, 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 15. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. 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. The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. 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. 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. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. 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. After a suspected torpedo attack by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats led to plans for US retaliation,the captain of the Maddox sent a cable to the Joint Chiefs that advised "complete evaluation before any further action"due to grave doubts over whether an attackhad reallyoccurred. Both men believed an attack on the American ships was imminent. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) 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. Sign up to get updates about new releases and event invitations. Two hours later the Phu Bai SIGINT station transmitted a critic report warning of possible [North Vietnamese] naval operations planned against the Desoto patrol. Twenty-five minutes later, Phu Bai sent a second critic report that said, imminent plans of [North Vietnamese] naval action possibly against Desoto Mission.. The tug departed Haiphong at approximately 0100 hours on August 4, while the undamaged torpedo boat, T-146, was ordered to stay with the crippled boats and maintain an alert for enemy forces. At about 0600, the two U.S. destroyers resumed the Desoto patrol. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident took place on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, and helped lead to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. 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 Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American 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. At Hon Nieu, the attack was a complete surprise. The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. 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. Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. IV-2 to IV-4. We have no intention of yielding to pressure. Those early mistakes led U.S. destroyers to open fire on spurious radar contacts, misinterpret their own propeller noises as incoming torpedoes, and ultimately report an attack that never occurred. The study debunks two strongly held but opposing beliefs about what happened on both dayson the one hand that neither of the reported attacks ever took place at all, and on the other that there was in fact a second deliberate North Vietnamese attack on August 4. 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. Interpretation by historians as to what exactly did and did not occur during those few days in early August 1964 remains so varied that the wonder is that authors Marolda and Fitzgerald were able themselves to settle on the text. . 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. 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. They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. Operations Security (OPSEC) concerns and related communications restrictions prevented Maddox and its operational commanders up to the Seventh Fleet from knowing of the commando raid. At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. These types of patrols had previously been conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. 10. Like all intelligence, it must be analyzed and reported in context. 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. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. 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. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. In any event, the attack took place in broad daylight under conditions of clear visibility. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. 4. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. This time, however, President Johnson reacted much more skeptically and ultimately decided to take no retaliatory action. 8. Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. "The North Vietnamese are reacting defensively to our attacks on their offshore islands. The USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin is shown in 1963. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. Operation Fast and Furious 10 This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. He has appeared on The History Channel as a featured expert. The "nada notion" -- that nothing happened and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the product of inexperienced sonarmen and the overworked imagination of young deck-watch officers -- can no longer be sustained. including the use of armed force" to assist South Vietnam (the resolution passed the House 416 to 0, and the Senate 88 to 2; in January 1971 President Nixon signed legislation that included its "repeal"). 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. "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. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. 1, p. 646. He readthe chiefs a cable from the captain of the Maddox. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. 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. There was more or less general acceptance of the Navy's initial account -- there was an unprovoked attack on Aug. 2 by three North Vietnamese patrol boats on an American warship, the destroyer USS Maddox in international waters. His assessment of the evidence now raised doubts in his mind about what really had happened. 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. 8. This volume deals only with the former. 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. If there had been any doubt before about whose hand was behind the raids, surely there was none now. 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. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964. ." "I think we are kidding the world if you try to give the impression that when the South Vietnamese naval boats bombarded two islands a short distance off the coast of North Vietnam we were not implicated," he scornfully told McNamara during the hearings.16 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. Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. AND THERE is the fact of Vietnam's position today. What will be of interest to the general reader is the treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "13 As far as the State Department was concerned, there was no need to "review" the operations. 3. https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). Aircraft from Ticonderoga arrived on-scene at 1528 hours and fired on the boats. For additional reading, see the recently declassified NSA study by Robert J. Hanyok, Spartans in the Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975; and Tonkin Gulf and The Escalation of the Vietnam War, by Edward Moise. The most popular of these is that the incident was either a fabrication or deliberate American provocation. 14. 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. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. Over the next few years, Johnson used the resolution to rapidly escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War. 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. Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. We still seek no wider war.. The Pyramid and All-Seeing Eye . Both the Phu Bai station and Maddoxs DSU knew the boats had orders to attack an enemy ship., Not knowing about the South Vietnamese commando raid, all assumed that Maddox was the target. At the White House, administration officials panicked as the public spotlight illuminated their policy in Vietnam and threatened to reveal its covert roots. 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. Illumination rounds shot skyward, catching the patrol boats in their harsh glare. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. 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. 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. 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 In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. The ships gunners used the standard 5 mil offset to avoid hitting the boats. The North also protested the South Vietnamese commando raid on Hon Me Island and claimed that the Desoto Mission ships had been involved in that raid. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Hereafter referred to as FRUS, Vietnam 1964; Congressional Research Service, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part II, 1961-1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 287; Message CTG72.1 040140Z August 1964 (Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 425). When the enemy boats closed to less than 10,000 yards, the destroyer fired three shots across the bow of the lead vessel. 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. As such, its personnel in Vietnam were the envy of their Army counterparts in the bush since, as it was commonly put, sailors sleep between clean sheets at night (the grunts were also envious of the Air Force, where you fight sitting down). With that report, after nearly four decades, the NSA officially reversed its verdict on the events of August 4, 1964, that had led that night to President Lyndon Johnsons televised message to the nation: The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes. https://www.historynet.com/case-closed-the-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. The series of mistakes that led to the August 4 misreporting began on August 3 when the Phu Bai station interpreted Haiphongs efforts to determine the status of its forces as an order to assemble for further offensive operations. On 28 July, the latest specially fitted destroyer, the Maddox (DD-731), set out from Taiwan for the South China Sea. The only solution was to get rid of the evidence. 12. Over the next 12 hours, as the president's team scrambledto understand what hadhappened and to organize a response, the facts remained elusive. McNamara insisted that the evidence clearly indicated there was an attack on August 4, and he continued to maintain so in his book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons From Vietnam. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 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. At 1505, when the torpedo boats had closed within 10,000 yards, in accordance with Captain Herricks orders and as allowed under international law at that time, Maddox fired three warning shots. WebUnderground Knowledge host James Morcan discloses what really happened in 1964's Gulf of Tonkin Incident which started the Vietnam War. But Morse did not know enough about the program to ask pointed questions. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated PTF-3, PTF-4, PTF-5, PTF-6 (PTFfast patrol boat). To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. Hickman, Kennedy. And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. 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. The three torpedo boats continued through the American barrage and launched their torpedoes at 1516. For 25 minutes the boats fired on the radar station, then headed back to Da Nang. 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. Two hours later, Captain Herrick reported the sinking of two enemy patrol boats. 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. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. 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. Just before midnight, the four boats cut their engines. Hanoi denied the charge that it had fired on the U.S. destroyers on 4 August, calling the charge "an impudent fabrication. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. In the meantime, aboard Turner Joy, Captain Herrick ordered an immediate review of the nights actions. 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. WebGulf of Tonkin Resolution, also called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, resolution put before the U.S. Congress by Pres. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. The Taliban silenced him. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. Captain Herrick had been ordered to be clear of the patrol area by nightfall, so he turned due east at approximately 1600. 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. 9. While 34A and the Desoto patrols were independent operations, the latter benefited from the increased signals traffic generated by the attacks of the former. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. 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 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. . 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). One 12.7mm machine bullet hit Maddox before the boats broke off and started to withdraw. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. Hanoi at the time denied all, leading to a third interpretation that remains alive today as what might be called the Stockdale thesis. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. Here's why he couldn't walk away. Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. Three days later, she rendezvoused with a tanker just east of the DMZ before beginning her intelligence- gathering mission up the North Vietnamese coast. The Pentagon had already released details of the attack, and administration officials had already promised strong action. 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. U.S. SIGINT support had provided ample warning of North Vietnams intentions and actions, enabling the American ship to defend itself successfully. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. 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? Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. By then, early news accounts had already solidified some opinions, and the Johnson Administration had decided to launch retaliatory strikes. After the war, Hanoi officials not only acknowledged the event but deemed it important enough to designate its date, Aug. 2, as the Vietnamese Navy's Anniversary Day, "the day our heroic naval forces went out and chased away Maddox and Turner Joy." 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. . 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. The secondary mission of the Gulf of Tonkin patrols was to assert American freedom of navigation in international waters. President Johnson and his advisers nevetheless went forward with a public announcement of an attack. Under the operational control of Captain John J. Herrick, it steamed through the Gulf of Tonkin collecting intelligence. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. They were nicknamed "gassers" because they burned gasoline rather than diesel fuel. Neither Herricks doubts nor his reconnaissance request was well received, however. The NSA report is revealing. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. The World is a public radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. The stage was set. Both countries were backing North Vietnam, but so far they were staying out of the conflict and the White House wanted to keep it that way. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. . The 122 additional relevant SIGINT products confirmed that the Phu Bai station had misinterpreted or mistranslated many of the early August 3 SIGINT intercepts. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. 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 intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces.
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