Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. 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. The Maddox planned to sail to 16 points along the North Vietnam coast, ranging from the DMZ north to the Chinese border. Americas Vietnam War had begun in earnest. 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. 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. . The Geneva Conference in 1954 was intended to settle outstanding issues following the end of hostilities between France and the Viet Minh at the end of the First Indochina War. 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. The captain of Maddox, Commander Herbert L. Ogier Jr., ordered his ship to battle stations shortly after 1500 hours. 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. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. The ships gunners used the standard 5 mil offset to avoid hitting the boats. For the rest of the war they would be truly secretand in the end they were a dismal failure. American aircraft flying over the scene during the "attack" failed to spot any North Vietnamese boats. 5. On 7 August, the Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, allowing the administration greater latitude in expanding the war by a vote of 88 to 2. 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 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. And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. 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 Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. A distinction is made in these pages between the Aug. 2 "naval engagement" and the somewhat more ambiguous Aug. 4 "naval action," although Marolda and Fitzgerald make it clear they accept that the Aug. 4 action left one and possibly two North Vietnamese torpedo-firing boats sunk or dead in the water. 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. Johnsonasked for, and received, a resolution of war from the US Congress that led to further escalation in the conflict. 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." 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 only solution was to get rid of the evidence. Unfortunately, much of the media reporting combined or confused the events of August 2 and 4 into a single incident. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. 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. 3. By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. The first critic report from Phu Bai reached Washington at about 0740 hours, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. Naval Institute. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964, FRUS 1964, vol. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. The reports conclusions about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident are particularly relevant as they offer useful insights into the problems that SIGINT faces today in Around midday on Aug. 4, Adm. Grant Sharp, the top navy commander in the Pacific, made a call to the Joint Chiefs, and it was clear there were significant doubts about this second incident. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Because the North Vietnamese had fewer than 50 Swatows, most of them up north near the important industrial port of Haiphong, the movement south of one-third of its fleet was strong evidence that 34A and the Desoto patrols were concerning Hanoi. Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. Thus, the South Vietnamese raid on Hon Me Island, a major North Vietnamese infiltration staging point, became the tripwire that set off the August 2 confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin. CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, 5. On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. 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. Arguing that he did not seek a "wider war," Johnson stated the importance of showing that the United States would "continue to protect its national interests." More important, they did not know the North Vietnamese had begun to react more aggressively to the commando raids. 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. 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. Moises book, however, was based on only the few SIGINT reports he was able to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. What did and didnt happen in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 and 4 has long been in dispute, but the decisions that the Johnson Administration and Congress made based on an interpretation of those events were undeniably monumental. Based on this, they launched the political process that led to the wars escalation. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. 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. Moving in closer, the crew could see their targeta communications towersilhouetted in the moonlight. At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. "13 As far as the State Department was concerned, there was no need to "review" the operations. . Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two The subsequent North Vietnamese reporting on the enemy matched the location, course and speed of Maddox. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. . 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. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. Both boats opened fire, scoring hits on the tower, then moved on to other buildings nearby. Top Essentials to Know About the Vietnam War, Timeline of the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War), Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland, M.S., Information and Library Science, Drexel University, B.A., History and Political Science, Pennsylvania State University. 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 Today, it is believed that this second attack did not occur and was merely reports from jittery radar and sonar operators, but at the time it was taken as evidence that Hanoi was raising the stakes against the United States. During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. 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. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 8. The publicity caused by the Tonkin Gulf incident and the subsequent resolution shifted attention away from covert activities and ended high-level debate over the wisdom of secret operations against North Vietnam. 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. He then requested the passage of a resolution "expressing the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in Southeast Asia." But only a few minutes later, McNamara was back on the line with news of a second incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. But, interestingly, on Sept. 18, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. On 28 July, the latest specially fitted destroyer, the Maddox (DD-731), set out from Taiwan for the South China Sea. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. WebGulf of Tonkin Resolution, also called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, resolution put before the U.S. Congress by Pres. NSA analysts from shore-based stations shared Herricks belief and transmitted an immediate warning to all major Pacific Theater commandsexcept to Herrick and Maddox. 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. In July 1964, Operational Plan 34A was taking off, but during the first six months of this highly classified program of covert attacks against North Vietnam, one after the other, missions failed, often spelling doom for the commando teams inserted into the North by boat and parachute. The Health Conspiracy. 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. 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 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." The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. 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. 302-303. 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. In less than 25 minutes, the attack was over. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. 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." :: Douglas Pike, director of the Indochina Studies Program at the University of California-Berkeley, is the author of the forthcoming "Vietnam and the U.S.S.R.: Anatomy of an Alliance.". 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. They issued a recall order from Haiphong to the port commander and communications relay boat two hours after the torpedo boat squadron command issued its attack order. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. Thousands of passengers are stranded after Colombias Viva Air grounds flights, The last of Mexicos artisanal salt-makers preserve a 2,000-year-old tradition, I cannot give up: Cambodian rapper says he will sing about injustice despite threats from govt, Ukrainian rock star reflects on a year of war in his country, Ukrainian refugees in Poland will now be charged to stay in state-funded housing, This Colombian town is dimming its lights to attract more tourists to view the night sky, Kneel and apologize!: 76 years after island-wide massacre, Taiwan continues to commemorate and debate the tragedy. Hanoi denied the charge that it had fired on the U.S. destroyers on 4 August, calling the charge "an impudent fabrication. 11. The disclaimer is required, if for no other reason than because of Chapter 15, "The American Response to the Gulf of Tonkin Attacks," about which more later. 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. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated PTF-3, PTF-4, PTF-5, PTF-6 (PTFfast patrol boat). 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. So, whether by accident or design, American actions in the Tonkin Gulf triggered a response from the North Vietnamese, not the other way around. 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. These secret intelligence-gathering missions and sabotage operations had begun under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1961, but in January 1964, the program was transferred to the Defense Department under the control of a cover organization called the Studies and Observations Group (SOG). 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. "4 In any event, the attack took place in broad daylight under conditions of clear visibility. 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. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. In this case, perception was much more important than reality.10. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. 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 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. He headed seaward hoping to avoid a confrontation until daybreak, then returned to the coast at 1045, this time north of Hon Me. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. "The North Vietnamese are reacting defensively to our attacks on their offshore islands. He readthe chiefs a cable from the captain of the Maddox. ", "No," replied McCone. Unlike much else that followed, this incident is undisputed, although no one from the US government ever admitted publicly that the attack was likely provoked by its covert actions. At about the same time, there were other "secret" missions going on. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." 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 U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. Most uncertainty has long centered on the alleged second attack of August 4. Congress supported the resolution with 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. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. Cruising twenty-eight miles offshore in international waters, Maddox was approached by the North Vietnamese. "1 Most of these would be shore bombardment. This volume deals only with the former. The threat removed, Maddox retired from the area to rejoin friendly forces. Senator Morse was one of the dissenters. No actual visual sightings by Maddox.". 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." To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. Our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. Herricks concerns grew as the SIGINT intercepts indicated that the North Vietnamese were concentrating torpedo boats off Hon Me Island, 25 nautical miles to his southwest. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. Simultaneously, U.S. SIGINT was placed on increased alert to monitor indications of future North Vietnamese threats to the Desoto Missions, and additional air and naval forces were deployed to the Western Pacific. He is the author of. 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. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. 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. The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. 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. 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. 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). Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m.. 13. They were nicknamed "gassers" because they burned gasoline rather than diesel fuel. 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. They never intended to attack U.S. forces, and were not even within 100 nautical miles of the U.S. destroyers position at the time of the purported second engagement.. CIA Director John McCone was convinced that Hanoi was reacting to the raids when it attacked the Maddox. The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. 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. President Johnson ordered a halt to all 34A operations "to avoid sending confusing signals associated with recent events in the Gulf of Tonkin."
— Actualités —