Illumination rounds shot skyward, catching the patrol boats in their harsh glare. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. 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. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. On July 31, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox commenced a Desoto patrol off North Vietnam. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. . The Desoto patrol continued with another destroyer, the Turner Joy (DD-951), coming along to ward off further trouble. The Maddox fired againthis time to killhitting the second North Vietnamese boat just as it launched two torpedoes. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. That night and morning, while cruising in heavy weather, the ships received radar, radio, and sonar reports that signaled another North Vietnamese attack. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. The rounds set some of the buildings ablaze, keeping the defenders off balance. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. . Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. NSA officials handed the key August SIGINT reports over to the JCS investigating team that examined the incident in September 1964. As the enemy boat passed astern, it was raked by gunfire from the Maddox that killed the boats commander. Cruising twenty-eight miles offshore in international waters, Maddox was approached by the North Vietnamese. Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. All missed, probably because the North Vietnamese had fired too soon. A Senate investigation revealed that the Maddox had been on an intelligence 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. 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. Under cover of darkness, four boats (PTF-2, PTF-3, PTF-5, and PTF-6) left Da Nang, racing north up the coast toward the demilitarized zone (DMZ), then angling farther out to sea as they left the safety of South Vietnamese waters.2 About five hours later they neared their objective: the offshore islands of Hon Me and Hon Nieu. Until 1964, Desoto patrols stayed at least 20 miles away from the coast. The Maddox was attacked at 1600. "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 Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. How the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Embroiled the US in the Vietnam The conspiracy theory has been dying for several years, and this work will probably be a stake through its heart. Most uncertainty has long centered on the alleged second attack of August 4. Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. The captain of Maddox, Commander Herbert L. Ogier Jr., ordered his ship to battle stations shortly after 1500 hours. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese. 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." . Covert maritime operations were in full swing, and some of the missions succeeded in blowing up small installations along the coast, leading General Westmoreland to conclude that any close connection between 34A and Desoto would destroy the thin veneer of deniability surrounding the operations. Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? 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 Dollar Bill . To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. The battle was over in 22 minutes. 1. The history stops with the U.S. Navy moving into full combat duty -- the naval and air interdictions in South and North Vietnam -- the subject of future volumes. . Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964. 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. 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. 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. For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. The Health Conspiracy. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) decided to resume Maddoxs Desoto patrol, but at a greater distance from the coast, accompanied by Turner Joy and supported by aircraft from Ticonderoga. Aircraft from Ticonderoga arrived on-scene at 1528 hours and fired on the boats. The only solution was to get rid of the evidence. 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. 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. Gulf of Tonkin incident | Definition, Date, Summary, Significance The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. Hickman, Kennedy. 4. It can be deceived and it is all too often incomplete. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Given the maritime nature of the commando raids, which were launched from Da Nang, the bulk of the intelligence collecting fell to the Navy. As Communist communications activity was rising rapidly, American senior leaders were increasing support to the South Vietnamese government. :: 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.". 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. 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. 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. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident took place on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, and helped lead to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. Moving in closer, the crew could see their targeta communications towersilhouetted in the moonlight. 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. In Saigon, General William C. Westmoreland, the new commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), approved of the plan, and SOG began testing 81-mm mortars, 4.5-inch rockets, and recoilless rifles aboard the boats. 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." Then North Vietnams naval authorities either became confused or were seized by indecision. To the northwest, though they could not see it in the blackness, was Hon Me; to the southwest lay Hon Nieu. This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. PTF-6 took up station at the mouth of the Ron River, lit up the sky with illumination rounds, and fired at the security post. Gulf of Tonkin incident - Wikipedia 9/11. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. The after-action reports from the participants in the Gulf arrived in Washington several hours after the report of the second incident. 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. 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. No one was hurt and little damage wasdone in the attack, but intercepted cables suggested a second attack might be imminent. 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. 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. Soon came a second more sinister interpretation -- that the incident was a conspiracy not only provoked by the Johnson administration but one in fact "scenarioed." By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. 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. "11 This explanation held briefly, long enough for President Johnson -- admittedly not inclined to engage in what might be called oververification -- to rush the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress. 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. "5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. 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. Neither ships crew knew about the North Vietnamese salvage operation. 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. The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. 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). While 34A and the Desoto patrols were independent operations, the latter benefited from the increased signals traffic generated by the attacks of the former. 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). . 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. 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. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) 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.. Seeking to follow the established policy of containment, Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, began increasing military aid to South Vietnam. . Despite this tremendous uncertainty, by midafternoon, the discussion among Johnson and his advisers was no longer about whether to respondbut how. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. No actual visual sightings by Maddox.". Senator Morse was one of the dissenters. Gulf of Tonkin & the Vietnam War. 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. It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . 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. Thus, this is an "official" history, not an official one because "the authors do not necessarily speak for the Department of Navy nor attempt to present a consensus." In a conversation with McNamara on Aug. 3, after the first incident, Johnson indicated he hadalready thought about the political ramifications of a military response and hadconsulted with several allies. The House passed the resolution unanimously.17 Reinforced by Turner Joy, Herrick returned to the area on Aug. 4. 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. Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. 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. The U.S. Navy stressed that the two technically were not in communication with one another, but the distinction was irrelevant to the North Vietnamese. The subsequent North Vietnamese reporting on the enemy matched the location, course and speed of Maddox. At Hon Nieu, the attack was a complete surprise. WebThe Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. 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. . 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. American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. 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. 3. It is not NSA's intention to prove or 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. McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.15. Hickman, Kennedy. 14. The truth about 'False Flags' from Nazi Germany to the Vietnam War William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. 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. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. A U.S. Navy SEAL (Sea Air Land) team officer assigned to the SOG maritime operations training staff, Lieutenant James Hawes, led the covert boat fleet out of Da Nang and down the coast 300 miles to Cam Ranh Bay, where they waited out the crisis in isolation. 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. 426-436. 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. Each sides initial after-action review was positive. Unlike McNamara, Johnson, on the morning of Aug.4,1964, was in less of a hurry to respond to an attack. Everything went smoothly until the early hours of 2 August, when intelligence picked up indications that the North Vietnamese Navy had moved additional Swatows into the vicinity of Hon Me and Hon Nieu Islands and ordered them to prepare for battle. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. What will be of interest to the general reader is the treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The first such Desoto mission was conducted off the North Vietnamese coast in February 1964, followed by more through the spring. 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 2005 documents were released proving that Johnson had fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify attacking North Vietnam. Herrick requested aerial reconnaissance for the next morning to search for the wreckage of the torpedo boats he thought he had sunk. 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? Ten shocking conspiracy theories that were completely ." WebThe Gulf of Tonkin While Kennedy had at least the comforting illusion of progress in Vietnam (manufactured by Harkins and Diem), Johnson faced a starker picture of confusion, disunity, and muddle in Saigon and of a rapidly growing Viet Cong in the countryside. While there was some doubt in Washington regarding the second attack, those aboard Maddox and Turner Joy were convinced that it had occurred. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Naval History this month. 14. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Taliban silenced him. However, unlike the good old days when -- as the wizened cynical Frenchmen put it, history was a lie agreed-on -- no longer can governments after the battle simply set down how it went and that is that. Even in the darkness, the commandos could see their targeta water tower surrounded by a few military buildings. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. Vietnam is a very watery country. The Pyramid and All-Seeing Eye . It took only a little imagination to see why the North Vietnamese might connect the two. 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. 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. WebUnderground Knowledge host James Morcan discloses what really happened in 1964's Gulf of Tonkin Incident which started the Vietnam War.