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 Gulf of Tonkin incident - Vietnam War the Gulf of Tonkin The report covers all aspects of the efforts of the various American SIGINT agencies from the early postWorld War II years through the evacuation of Saigon. 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. In November of 2001, the LBJ Presidential library and museum released tapes of phone conversations with the President and then Defense By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. 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. And who is going to believe that? The Johnson Administration initially limited its response to a terse diplomatic note to Hanoi, the first-ever U.S. diplomatic note to that government. 11. This time the U.S. ships detected electronic signals and acoustic indications of a likely second North Vietnamese naval attack, and they requested U.S. air support. Then they boarded their boats and headed back to Da Nang.12 "1 Most of these would be shore bombardment. At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. In the future, conventional operations would receive all the attention. 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 electronic intercept traffic cited here is too voluminous to permit a conclusion that somehow everything was the figment of the collective imaginations on both sides. 17. 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." As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. The Pyramid and All-Seeing Eye . People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. 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. Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. 1. Scattered small-arms sent tracers toward the commandos, but no one was hurt. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. While 34A and the Desoto patrols were independent operations, the latter benefited from the increased signals traffic generated by the attacks of the former. 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. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | History, Facts, & Significance 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. On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. 302-303. 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? 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. Hickman, Kennedy. It is not NSA's intention to prove or Within the year, U.S. bombers would strike North Vietnam, and U.S. ground units would land on South Vietnamese soil. 13. Typically, the missions were carried out by a destroyer specially outfitted with sensitive eavesdropping equipment. 9. 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. No actual visual sightings by Maddox.". . Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. 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. 14. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. Conspiracy 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. 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. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. Send the First Troops to Vietnam? But only a few minutes later, McNamara was back on the line with news of a second incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. President Johnson himself apparently questioned the sailorsu0019 report of an attack. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. The boats followed at their maximum speed of 44 knots, continuing the chase for more than 20 minutes. "11 Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. 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. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. The Maddox was attacked at 1600. Operation Fast and Furious 10 When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Unlike McNamara, Johnson, on the morning of Aug.4,1964, was in less of a hurry to respond to an attack. Each sides initial after-action review was positive. Case Closed: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - HistoryNet 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." North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. The bullets struck the destroyer; the torpedo missed. 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). ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. Incidentally, the first volume, Setting the Stage: To 1959, contains one of the best brief summaries I've read of Vietnam history from the end of World War II through the 1954 Geneva Conference. 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. 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. 12. Gulf of Tonkin incident Facts In the end the Navy agreed, and in concert with MACV, took steps to ensure that "34A operations will be adjusted to prevent interference" with Desoto patrols.7 This did not mean that MACV did not welcome the information brought back by the Desoto patrols, only that the two missions would not actively support one another. For 25 minutes the boats fired on the radar station, then headed back to Da Nang. Gulf of Tonkin - National Security Agency Unable to catch the fast South Vietnamese PTFs, the government in Hanoi elected to strike instead at USS Maddox. 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. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. The rounds set some of the buildings ablaze, keeping the defenders off balance. This volume deals only with the former. . Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. The NSA report is revealing. It reveals what commanders actually knew, what SIGINT analysts believed and the challenges the SIGINT community and its personnel faced in trying to understand and anticipate the aggressive actions of an imaginative, deeply committed and elusive enemy. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. 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. This was the only time covert operations against the North came close to being discussed in public. Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a 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 unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy of the U.S. . 5. The captain of Maddox, Commander Herbert L. Ogier Jr., ordered his ship to battle stations shortly after 1500 hours. 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. 9/11. Heavy machine-gun bullets riddled PTF-6, tearing away part of the port bow and wounding four South Vietnamese crewmen, including Lieutenant Son. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. 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. The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. On 6 August, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara told a joint session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees that the North Vietnamese attack on the Maddox was ". Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964, FRUS 1964, vol. We still seek no wider war.. The ships sonar operator reported a noise spikenot a torpedowhich the Combat Information Center (CIC) team mistook for report of an incoming torpedo. 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. The first critic report from Phu Bai reached Washington at about 0740 hours, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. WebThe Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. "14, Nasty fast patrol boats demonstrated their versatility in the Pacific Ocean before going to Vietnam.U.S. The commander also added the requirement of collecting photographic intelligence of ships and aircraft encountered, as well as weather and hydrographic information. 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. The three torpedo boats continued through the American barrage and launched their torpedoes at 1516. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History 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.. The NSA report exposes translation and analytical errors made by the American SIGINT analystserrors that convinced the naval task force and national authorities that the North had ordered a second attack on August 4, and thus led Maddoxs crew to interpret its radar contacts and other information as confirmation that the ship was again under attack. WebMany historians now agree that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which many believed North Vietnamese ships had attacked American naval forces, may not have occurred in the way it was described at the time. 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. At the White House, administration officials panicked as the public spotlight illuminated their policy in Vietnam and threatened to reveal its covert roots. The stage was set. Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . 8. The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. 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. 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 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. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. The truth about 'False Flags' from Nazi Germany to the Vietnam War Early Military Career Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m.. 13. Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. McNamara was ready to respond. Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE GULF OF TONKIN? 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. In any event, the attack took place in broad daylight under conditions of clear visibility. This time, however, President Johnson reacted much more skeptically and ultimately decided to take no retaliatory action. Moving in closer, the crew could see their targeta communications towersilhouetted in the moonlight. 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. Forty-five minutes after beginning their attack, the commandos withdrew. Like all intelligence, it must be analyzed and reported in context. When the contacts appeared to turn away at 6,000 yards, Maddoxs crew interpreted the move as a maneuver to mark a torpedo launch. Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. With this information, back in Washington President Johnson and his advisers considered their options. These types of patrols had previously been conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. 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. Gulf of Tonkin incident | Definition, Date, Summary, Significance Congress supported the resolution with WebNational Security Agency/Central Security Service > Home 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 basic story line of the Gulf of Tonkin incident is as follows: At approximately 1430 hours Vietnam time on August 2, 1964, USS Maddox (DD-731) detected three North Vietnamese torpedo boats approaching at high speed. 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. In the subsequent exchange of fire, neither American nor North Vietnamese ships inflicted significant damage. . The contacts were to the northeast of the ship, putting them about 100 nautical miles from North Vietnam but very close to Chinas Hainan Island. In August 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf resolutionor Southeast Asia Resolution, as it is officially knownthe congressional decree that gave President Lyndon Johnson a broad mandate to wage war in Vietnam. When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. His assessment of the evidence now raised doubts in his mind about what really had happened. In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. Captain John J. Herrick, Commander Destroyer Division 192, embarked in the Maddox, concluded that there would be "possible hostile action." To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. 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. He spoke out against banning girls education. The Gulf of Tonkin act became more controversial as opposition to the war mounted. 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. 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). In the meantime, aboard Turner Joy, Captain Herrick ordered an immediate review of the nights actions. 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. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. Hickman, Kennedy. U.S. soldiers recall Cam Ranh as a sprawling logistic center for materiel bolstering the war effort, but in the summer of 1964 it was only a junk force training base near a village of farmers and fishermen. While there was some doubt in Washington regarding the second attack, those aboard Maddox and Turner Joy were convinced that it had occurred. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American 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 Truth About Tonkin | Naval History Magazine - February 2008 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.