gulf of tonkin conspiracy

Ten shocking conspiracy theories that were completely A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. 9. The secondary mission of the Gulf of Tonkin patrols was to assert American freedom of navigation in international waters. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. We have no intention of yielding to pressure. 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). Scattered small-arms sent tracers toward the commandos, but no one was hurt. The Maddox was attacked at 1600. Media Manipulation. In turn, that means a minimum of several hundred persons were party to a plot that has remained watertight in sieve-like Washington for two decades. 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. Ogier then opened fire at 1508 hours, when the boats were only six minutes from torpedo range. 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. The first such Desoto mission was conducted off the North Vietnamese coast in February 1964, followed by more through the spring. On July 31, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox commenced a Desoto patrol off North Vietnam. As far as the headlines were concerned, that was it, but the covert campaign continued unabated. 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 after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. Heavy machine-gun bullets riddled PTF-6, tearing away part of the port bow and wounding four South Vietnamese crewmen, including Lieutenant Son. Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. The stakes were high because Hanoi had beefed up its southern coastal defenses by adding four new Swatow gunboats at Quang Khe, a naval base 75 miles north of the DMZ, and ten more just to the south at Dong Hoi. "1 Most of these would be shore bombardment. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History And who is going to believe that? 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 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. Gulf of Tonkin incident | Definition, Date, Summary, Significance It can be deceived and it is all too often incomplete. 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." Milestones: 19611968 - Office of the Historian 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 combating unconventional opponents and the potential consequences of relying too heavily on a single source of intelligence. . The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History 313-314. 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. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. 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. 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. 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. Conspiracy FACT #8: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - YouTube While 34A and the Desoto patrols were independent operations, the latter benefited from the increased signals traffic generated by the attacks of the former. Tonkin Gulf 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. The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. Westmoreland reported that although he was not absolutely certain why the Swatows were shifted south, the move "could be attributable to recent successful [34A] operations. 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. It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . Each sides initial after-action review was positive. President Johnson and his advisers nevetheless went forward with a public announcement of an attack. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. "4 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - Definition, Cause & Significance 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 To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. 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. This is another government conspiracy that's true. 302-303. The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. Hanoi was more than willing to tell the world about the attacks, and it took either a fool or an innocent to believe that the United States knew nothing about the raids. 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." Gulf of Tonkin incident Facts 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. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two "The North Vietnamese are reacting defensively to our attacks on their offshore islands. The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. 15. At the time, the Navy relied heavily on Naval Support Group Activity (NSGA), San Miguel, Philippines, for SIGINT support, augmented by seaborne SIGINT elements called Direct Support Units (DSUs). Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964, FRUS 1964, vol. 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. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) 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. 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. For the maritime part of the covert operation, Nasty-class fast patrol boats were purchased quietly from Norway to lend the illusion that the United States was not involved in the operations. 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 first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. To the northwest, though they could not see it in the blackness, was Hon Me; to the southwest lay Hon Nieu. Our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. "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.