The Gulf of Tonkin Incident took place on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, and helped lead to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. The North Vietnamese turned for shore with the Maddox in pursuit. . "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. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. 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. When the contacts appeared to turn away at 6,000 yards, Maddoxs crew interpreted the move as a maneuver to mark a torpedo launch. 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. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. . History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 10. "The North Vietnamese are reacting defensively to our attacks on their offshore islands. WebTo many online conspiracy theorists, the biggest false flag operation of all time was the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 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. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) Under the operational control of Captain John J. Herrick, it steamed through the Gulf of Tonkin collecting intelligence. At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. Captain John J. Herrick, Commander Destroyer Division 192, embarked in the Maddox, concluded that there would be "possible hostile action." As a result, the ships offshore were able to collect valuable information on North Vietnamese military capabilities. 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." These warning shots were fired and the P-4s launched a torpedo attack. 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. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. 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. 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. The ships gunners used the standard 5 mil offset to avoid hitting the boats. The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. But, interestingly, on Sept. 18, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. $22. 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. Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. 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. ThoughtCo. More important, they did not know the North Vietnamese had begun to react more aggressively to the commando raids. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two Here's why he couldn't walk away. Holding their vector despite the gunfire, the boats rushed in, pouring 20-mm and 40-mm fire and 57-mm recoilless rifle rounds into their target. "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 The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 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. ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. 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. Suns and Stars 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. 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, 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 5. Originally begun by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, 34A was a highly-classified program of covert operations against North Vietnam. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. 4. 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 Over the next few years, Johnson used the resolution to rapidly escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War. Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. 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). 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. At about the same time, there were other "secret" missions going on. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam War. 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. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. This article is based on the PRI podcast, LBJ's War, hosted by David Brown. In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. 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. All missed, probably because the North Vietnamese had fired too soon. 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. He has appeared on The History Channel as a featured expert. 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. Not all wars are made for navies, and the U.S. Navy had to insinuate itself into the Vietnam one and carve out a role. The North Vietnamese coastal radars also tracked and reported the positions of U.S. aircraft operating east of the ships, probably the combat air patrol the Seventh Fleet had ordered in support. 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. 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. 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). WebCongress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. Neither ships crew knew about the North Vietnamese salvage operation. A firewall existed between covert patrol-boat attacks on North Vietnamese positions and Desoto patrols eavesdropping on shore-based communications. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. 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. When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. To subscribe to Vietnam Magazine, click here! 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. To the northwest, though they could not see it in the blackness, was Hon Me; to the southwest lay Hon Nieu. With this information, back in Washington President Johnson and his advisers considered their options. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, 5. 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. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam 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. 313-314. WebJoe Rogan interview on the 911 Conspiracy Theory. No one was hurt and little damage wasdone in the attack, but intercepted cables suggested a second attack might be imminent. 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. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. Forced Government Indoctrination Camps . JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. Mr. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. 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. Despite Morses doubts, Senate reaction fell in behind the Johnson team, and the question of secret operations was overtaken by the issue of punishing Hanoi for its blatant attack on a U.S. warship in international waters. Here's why he couldn't walk away. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Defense Secretary McNamara called the president about the second Phu Bai critic report at approximately 0940 that morning. https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). Three days later, she rendezvoused with a tanker just east of the DMZ before beginning her intelligence- gathering mission up the North Vietnamese coast. Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. 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. He also requested air support. The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. 14. 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." The Gulf of Tonkin act became more controversial as opposition to the war mounted. Subsequent research and declassified documents have essentially shown that the second attack did not happen. For the rest of the war they would be truly secretand in the end they were a dismal failure. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Badly damaged, the boat limped home. 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. 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. Just after midnight on 31 July, PTF-2 and PTF-5, commanded by Lieutenant Huyet, arrived undetected at a position 800 yards northeast of the island. Moving in closer, the crew could see their targeta communications towersilhouetted in the moonlight. Until 1964, Desoto patrols stayed at least 20 miles away from the coast. 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. 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. 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. 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. On 28 July, the latest specially fitted destroyer, the Maddox (DD-731), set out from Taiwan for the South China Sea. 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. They were nicknamed "gassers" because they burned gasoline rather than diesel fuel. A North Vietnamese patrol boat also trailed the American ships, reporting on their movements to Haiphong. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States (Hanoi remains muzzy on the second incident, Aug. 4, presumably since clearly it took place in international waters, the Vietnamese claim of "defensive reaction" is a bit wobbly.). ." The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. The Desoto patrol continued with another destroyer, the Turner Joy (DD-951), coming along to ward off further trouble. Captain Herrick had been ordered to be clear of the patrol area by nightfall, so he turned due east at approximately 1600. 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. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. The ships sonar operator reported a noise spikenot a torpedowhich the Combat Information Center (CIC) team mistook for report of an incoming torpedo. 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. Both men believed an attack on the American ships was imminent. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. 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. These types of patrols had previously been conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. He has written numerous articles on Vietnam War-era special operations and is the author of two books on the war: Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, Americas Last Vietnam Battle (Hippocrene Books, 1994), and Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War (Lexington Books, 1990). When the enemy boats closed to less than 10,000 yards, the destroyer fired three shots across the bow of the lead vessel. This mission coincided with several 34A attacks, including an Aug. 1 raid on Hon Me and Hon Ngu Islands. Hickman, Kennedy. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. 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. The boats followed at their maximum speed of 44 knots, continuing the chase for more than 20 minutes. For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. The Maddox fired againthis time to killhitting the second North Vietnamese boat just as it launched two torpedoes. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. 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. McNamara and the JCS believed that this intercept decisively provided the smoking gun of the second attack, and so the president reported to the American people and Congress. But only a few minutes later, McNamara was back on the line with news of a second incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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.. 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. 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 historian here is obliged to deal with two basic considerations in offering up an accounting: the event itself -- that is, what actually happened there in the waters off North Vietnam in early August 1964; and the uses made of it by President Lyndon Johnson and his administration. We have no intention of yielding to pressure. 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 Americans claimed they sank two torpedo boats and damaged a third, while the torpedo boats claimed to have shot down two American aircraft. 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. IV-2 to IV-4. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a brief confrontation between United States and North Vietnamese warships, off the coast of northern Vietnam in August 1964. Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. . In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese. Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. 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. At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. Codenamed Desoto, they were special U.S. Navy patrols designed to eavesdrop on enemy shore-based communicationsspecifically China, North Korea, and now North Vietnam. Most uncertainty has long centered on the alleged second attack of August 4. 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. The 122 additional relevant SIGINT products confirmed that the Phu Bai station had misinterpreted or mistranslated many of the early August 3 SIGINT intercepts. 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). Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. 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 The Health Conspiracy. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. So, whether by accident or design, American actions in the Tonkin Gulf triggered a response from the North Vietnamese, not the other way around. 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. When Did the U.S. President Johnson and his advisers nevetheless went forward with a public announcement of an attack. While 34A and the Desoto patrols were independent operations, the latter benefited from the increased signals traffic generated by the attacks of the former. American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. 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. 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.

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