When the enemy boats closed to less than 10,000 yards, the destroyer fired three shots across the bow of the lead vessel. They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. 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. One element of American assistance to South Vietnam included covert support for South Vietnamese commando raids against North Vietnams coastal transportation facilities and networks. (The recent NBC television movie In Love and War had Navy pilot James B. Stockdale flying over the scene at the time saying, "I see nothing"; now a retired vice admiral, Stockdale has reiterated the "phoney attack" charge in writings and public speaking.). 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 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. Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. 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. To subscribe to Vietnam Magazine, click here! The Pyramid and All-Seeing Eye . In this case, perception was much more important than reality.10. 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. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese boats continued to close in at the rate of 400 yards per minute. "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. 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. Hanoi denied the charge that it had fired on the U.S. destroyers on 4 August, calling the charge "an impudent fabrication. "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 These types of patrols had previously been conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. 2. 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. Just after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. Codenamed Desoto, they were special U.S. Navy patrols designed to eavesdrop on enemy shore-based communicationsspecifically China, North Korea, and now North Vietnam. And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. 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 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." 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. 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. Early Military Career 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. 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. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. 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 The North Vietnamese turned for shore with the Maddox in pursuit. 14. The captain of Maddox, Commander Herbert L. Ogier Jr., ordered his ship to battle stations shortly after 1500 hours. Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. Reinforced by Turner Joy, Herrick returned to the area on Aug. 4. Moises book, however, was based on only the few SIGINT reports he was able to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. Both of these messages reached Washington shortly after 1400 hours EDT. The Navys seaborne SIGINT effort in support of OPLAN-34, called Desoto Missions, played a key role in the events that ultimately led to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Meanwhile, by late August 3, the North Vietnamese had learned the condition of their torpedo boats and ordered a salvage tug to recover the damaged craft. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. Within days, Hanoi lodged a complaint with the International Control Commission (ICC), which had been established in 1954 to oversee the provisions of the Geneva Accords. 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 :: 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.". Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. It is not NSA's intention to prove or 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. But the administration dithered, informing the embassy only that "further OPLAN 34A operations should be held off pending review of the situation in Washington. So, whether by accident or design, American actions in the Tonkin Gulf triggered a response from the North Vietnamese, not the other way around. Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m., Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968, vol. The stage was set. Most uncertainty has long centered on the alleged second attack of August 4. The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." Surprised by the North Vietnamese response, Johnson decided that the United States could not back away from the challenge and directed his commanders in the Pacific to continue with the Desoto missions. 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. It took only a little imagination to see why the North Vietnamese might connect the two. 12. CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, 5. 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. https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). Two nearly identical episodes six weeks apart; two nearly opposite responses. "4 Here's why he couldn't walk away. The Gulf of Tonkin act became more controversial as opposition to the war mounted. WebNational Security Agency/Central Security Service > Home The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. Originally begun by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, 34A was a highly-classified program of covert operations against North Vietnam. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. 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). 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. 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 The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. U.S. SIGINT support had provided ample warning of North Vietnams intentions and actions, enabling the American ship to defend itself successfully. 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. PTF-1 and PTF-2 were U.S.-built 1950s vintage boats pulled out of mothballs and sent to Vietnam. It set a very terrible precedent, which is that he would go on to escalate further, not with any striking confidence that his objectives will be achieved, but only with the assurance that, unless he embarked on these massive military escalations, America would fail in Vietnam and he might well be labeled the only president in American history to lose a war.. The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Naval History this month. In the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson needed a pretext to commit the American people to the already expanding covert war in South East Asia. 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. . One 12.7mm machine bullet hit Maddox before the boats broke off and started to withdraw. 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. It was 20 minutes into the new day, 31 July, when PTF-3 and PTF-6, both under the command of Lieutenant Sonconsidered one of the best boat skippers in the covert fleetreached Hon Me and began their run at the shore. Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. "5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. With this information, back in Washington President Johnson and his advisers considered their options. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. 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. 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. 15. They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. $22. 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. 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. 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." He has appeared on The History Channel as a featured expert. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. 17. He is the author of Shadow War: The Secret War in Laos, as well as several short studies on special operations, including The War in Cambodia (Osprey Books, 1988), The War in Laos (Osprey Books, 1989), and Southeast Asian Special Forces (Osprey Books, 1990). 4. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. Hickman, Kennedy. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam War. Through the evening of Aug. 4, while no new information arrivedto clarify the eventin the Gulf, the White House narrative was firmly in place. 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. In addition, the destroyer USS Turner Joy began moving to support Maddox. 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.. Gulf of Tonkin & the Vietnam War. Neither Herricks doubts nor his reconnaissance request was well received, however. 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. McNamara was ready to respond. 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 When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. 14. The World is a public radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter. 10. 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. 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. Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. As a result, the ships offshore were able to collect valuable information on North Vietnamese military capabilities. Hereafter referred to as FRUS, Vietnam 1964; Congressional Research Service, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part II, 1961-1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 287; Message CTG72.1 040140Z August 1964 (Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 425). The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American 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). Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. 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. Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution. 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 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. IV-2 to IV-4. He is the author of. North Vietnams immediate concern was to determine the exact position and status of its torpedo boats and other forces. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. 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. Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. 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. . 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. But we sure ought to always leave the impression that if you shoot at us, you're going to get hit, Johnson said. Aircraft from Ticonderoga arrived on-scene at 1528 hours and fired on the boats. Whats not in dispute is the aftermath: A resolution from the Senate 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.
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