Each boat carried a 16-man crew and a 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus machine guns. 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. In addition, the US Navy was instructed to conduct Desoto patrols off North Vietnam. 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 ". 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. The boats followed at their maximum speed of 44 knots, continuing the chase for more than 20 minutes. 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. Two hours later, Captain Herrick reported the sinking of two enemy patrol boats. 1. It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. 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. This was the only time covert operations against the North came close to being discussed in public. . Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese boats continued to close in at the rate of 400 yards per minute. The NSA report is revealing. CIA Director John McCone was convinced that Hanoi was reacting to the raids when it attacked the Maddox. The only solution was to get rid of the evidence. I would not suggest that he learned from the Gulf of Tonkin incident so much as that he got from it exactly what he wanted, which was an enormous bump in approval ratings 30 percent overnight, says historian Chris Oppe. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. The attack is a signal to us that the North Vietnamese have the will and determination to continue the war." 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. 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 13. Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. At the White House, administration officials panicked as the public spotlight illuminated their policy in Vietnam and threatened to reveal its covert roots. 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. Until 1964, Desoto patrols stayed at least 20 miles away from the coast. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. 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. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. . HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. President Johnson and his advisers nevetheless went forward with a public announcement of an attack. But we sure ought to always leave the impression that if you shoot at us, you're going to get hit, Johnson said. The United States denied involvement. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), pp. Although North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap admitted in a 1984 discussion with Robert S. McNamara that the first attack was deliberate, he denied that a second attack had ever taken place. Based on this, they launched the political process that led to the wars escalation. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. The World is a public radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter. Over the next few years, Johnson used the resolution to rapidly escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. 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. ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. "4 He also requested air support. He reported those doubts in his after action report transmitted shortly after midnight his time on August 5, which was 1300 hours August 4 in Washington. Sign up to get updates about new releases and event invitations. 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. In addition, the destroyer USS Turner Joy began moving to support Maddox. $22. Seeking to follow the established policy of containment, Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, began increasing military aid to South Vietnam. Forced Government Indoctrination Camps . To the northwest, though they could not see it in the blackness, was Hon Me; to the southwest lay Hon Nieu. 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. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. 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. :: 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.". The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. 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. And it didnt take much detective work to figure out where the commandos were stationed. 8. Send the First Troops to Vietnam? The stage was set. Both men believed an attack on the American ships was imminent. "14, Nasty fast patrol boats demonstrated their versatility in the Pacific Ocean before going to Vietnam.U.S. . People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. 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). 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." https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. WebLyndon Johnson signed the Tonkin Gulf resolution on August 10, 1964. 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. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. Air action is now in execution against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations., The next day, the president addressed Congress, seeking the power to to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia.. . 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. WebGulf of Tonkin Resolution, also called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, resolution put before the U.S. Congress by Pres. 14. The Health Conspiracy. Captain Herrick had been ordered to be clear of the patrol area by nightfall, so he turned due east at approximately 1600. 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." ." 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. Vaccines. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964, FRUS 1964, vol. Then North Vietnams naval authorities either became confused or were seized by indecision. 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. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. 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. Alerted to the threat, Herrick requested air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. The Maddox planned to sail to 16 points along the North Vietnam coast, ranging from the DMZ north to the Chinese border. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. 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. 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. 9/11. IV-2 to IV-4. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Any escalation in the bombing of the North risked provoking the Russians or, more likely, the Chinese. Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.15. Then, everyones doubts were swept away when a SIGINT intercept from one of the North Vietnamese torpedo boats reported the claim that it had shot down two American planes in the battle area. "Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident." ", "No," replied McCone. American aircraft flying over the scene during the "attack" failed to spot any North Vietnamese boats. 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. Thus, the South Vietnamese raid on Hon Me Island, a major North Vietnamese infiltration staging point, became the tripwire that set off the August 2 confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. 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. The Maddox was attacked at 1600. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident took place on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, and helped lead to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. 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. A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. These warning shots were fired and the P-4s launched a torpedo attack. And who is going to believe that? Hanoi denied the charge that it had fired on the U.S. destroyers on 4 August, calling the charge "an impudent fabrication. We're going to retaliate and well make an announcement a little later in the evening, in the next hour or so and well ask Congress for a resolution of war the next day to support us, Johnson toldan old friend. Listen to McNamara's conversation with Johnson. 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. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. 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. Media Manipulation. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. The rounds set some of the buildings ablaze, keeping the defenders off balance. ThoughtCo. For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. Whats not in dispute is the aftermath: A resolution from the Senate Changing course in time to evade the torpedoes, the Maddox again was attacked, this time by a boat that fired another torpedo and 14.5-mm machine guns. . And so, in the course of a single day, and operating on imperfect information,Johnson changedthe trajectory of the Vietnam War. 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. It is not NSA's intention to prove or PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. By then, early news accounts had already solidified some opinions, and the Johnson Administration had decided to launch retaliatory strikes. Both were perceived as threats, and both were in the same general area at about the same time. This article is based on the PRI podcast, LBJ's War, hosted by David Brown. 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. In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese. 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 Unlike McNamara, Johnson, on the morning of Aug.4,1964, was in less of a hurry to respond to an 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Forty-eight hours earlier, on Aug. 2, two US destroyers on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin the Maddox and the Turner Joy were attacked by North Vietnamese boats. On July 31, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox commenced a Desoto patrol off North Vietnam. 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. Cruising twenty-eight miles offshore in international waters, Maddox was approached by the North Vietnamese. The Johnson Administration initially limited its response to a terse diplomatic note to Hanoi, the first-ever U.S. diplomatic note to that government. Hickman, Kennedy. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. This time, however, President Johnson reacted much more skeptically and ultimately decided to take no retaliatory action. WebCongress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. He spoke out against banning girls education. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Oklahoma City Bombing. 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. The battle was over in 22 minutes. Then they boarded their boats and headed back to Da Nang.12 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. 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. What will be of interest to the general reader is the treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History 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. As the torpedo boats continued their high-speed approach, Maddox was ordered to fire warning shots if they closed inside 10,000 yards. 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 This mission coincided with several 34A attacks, including an Aug. 1 raid on Hon Me and Hon Ngu Islands. 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? 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 122 additional relevant SIGINT products confirmed that the Phu Bai station had misinterpreted or mistranslated many of the early August 3 SIGINT intercepts. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. The USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin is shown in 1963. In the first few days of August 1964, a series of events off the coast of North Vietnam and decisions made in Washington, D.C., set the United States on a course that would largely define the next decade and weigh heavily on American foreign policy to this day. No one was hurt and little damage wasdone in the attack, but intercepted cables suggested a second attack might be imminent. A firewall existed between covert patrol-boat attacks on North Vietnamese positions and Desoto patrols eavesdropping on shore-based communications. 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. When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. The Pentagon had already released details of the attack, and administration officials had already promised strong action. In fact, the United States had been waging a small, secret war against North Vietnam since 1961. The Americans claimed they sank two torpedo boats and damaged a third, while the torpedo boats claimed to have shot down two American aircraft. 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. 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. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. Along with other American warships, Maddox was steaming in international waters some 28 nautical miles off North Vietnams coast, gathering information on that countrys coastal radars. That initial error shaped all the subsequent assessments about North Vietnamese intentions, as U.S. SIGINT monitored and reported the Norths tracking of the two American destroyers. Each sides initial after-action review was positive. Navy, Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. 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. He headed seaward hoping to avoid a confrontation until daybreak, then returned to the coast at 1045, this time north of Hon Me. 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. Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. 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. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. 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." 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. Here's why he couldn't walk away. 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. A North Vietnamese patrol boat also trailed the American ships, reporting on their movements to Haiphong. Suns and Stars After the incident, Herrick was unsure that his ships had been attacked, reporting at 1:27 a.m. Washington time that "Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. When Did the U.S. We have no intention of yielding to pressure. 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. 10. But in the pre-dawn hours of July 31, 1964, U.S.-backed patrol boats shelled two North Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution. While many facts and details have emerged in the past 44 years to persuade most observers that some of the reported events in the Gulf never actually happened, key portions of the critical intelligence information remained classified until recently. including the use of armed force" to assist South Vietnam (the resolution passed the House 416 to 0, and the Senate 88 to 2; in January 1971 President Nixon signed legislation that included its "repeal"). Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. NSA officials handed the key August SIGINT reports over to the JCS investigating team that examined the incident in September 1964. 426-436. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. 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. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos.