The Gulf of Tonkin incident () refers to a naval confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam, which led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. On 2 August 1964 there was a clash between a destroyer of the United States Navy that was collecting signals intelligence close to North Vietnamese waters, and three North Vietnamese naval vessels. On the night of 4 August, two US destroyers reported they were attacked by North Vietnamese vessels and that they were returning fire. Later investigation revealed that the 4 August attack did not happen; no North Vietnamese vessels had been present. Shortly after the events, the National Security Agency, an agency of the US Defense Department, deliberately skewed intelligence to create the impression that an attack had been carried out.

On the night of 30 July, South Vietnamese commandos raided a North Vietnamese radar station on the island of Hòn Mê in the Gulf of Tonkin. The next day the destroyer commanded by Commander Herbert L. Ogier began patrolling near the North Vietnamese coast. On 2 August, the Maddox, while performing a signals intelligence patrol as part of DESOTO operations, near one of the islands that had been shelled two nights before, was approached by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron. Maddox fired warning shots and the North Vietnamese boats attacked with torpedoes and machine gun fire. In the ensuing engagement, one US aircraft (which had been launched from aircraft carrier ) was damaged, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were killed, with six more wounded. There were no US casualties. Maddox was "unscathed except for a single bullet hole from a [North] Vietnamese machine gun round".

On 3 August, destroyer joined Maddox and the two destroyers continued the DESOTO mission. On the evening of 4 August, the ships opened fire on radar returns that had been preceded by communications intercepts, which US forces claimed meant an attack was imminent. The commodore of the Maddox task force, Captain John Herrick, reported that the ships were being attacked by North Vietnamese boats when, in fact, there were no North Vietnamese boats in the area. While Herrick soon reported doubts regarding the task force's initial perceptions of the attack, the Johnson administration relied on the wrongly interpreted National Security Agency communications intercepts to conclude that the attack was real.

While doubts regarding the perceived second attack have been expressed since 1964, it was not until years later that it was shown conclusively never to have happened. In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, the former United States secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara, admitted that there was no attack on 4 August. In 1995, McNamara met with former North Vietnamese Army General Võ Nguyên Giáp to ask what happened on 4 August 1964. "Absolutely nothing", Giáp replied. Giáp confirmed that the attack had been imaginary. In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on 2 August, but that the incident of 4 August was based on bad naval intelligence and misrepresentations of North Vietnamese communications. The official US government claim is that it was based mostly on erroneously interpreted communications intercepts. because of what he perceived to be the ineptitude of the Saigon government and its inability and unwillingness to make needed reforms (which led to a U.S.-supported coup which resulted in the death of Diem). Shortly before Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, he had begun a limited withdrawal of 1,000 U.S. forces before the end of 1963. Johnson's views were likewise complex, but he had supported military escalation as a means of challenging what was perceived to be the Soviet Union's expansionist policies. The Cold War policy of containment was to be applied to prevent the fall of Southeast Asia to communism under the precepts of the domino theory. After Kennedy's assassination, Johnson ordered in more U.S. forces to support the Saigon government, beginning a protracted United States presence in Southeast Asia.

left|thumb|upright=.8|Two of the United States Navy [[United States Nasty-class patrol boat|PTF boats training in 1963.]]

A highly classified program of covert actions against North Vietnam, known as Operation Plan 34-Alpha, in conjunction with the DESOTO operations, had begun under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1961. In 1964, the program was transferred to the Defense Department and conducted by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). For the maritime portion of the covert operation, a set of fast patrol boats had been purchased quietly from Norway and sent to South Vietnam. In 1963, three young Norwegian skippers traveled on a mission in South Vietnam. They were recruited for the job by the Norwegian intelligence officer Alf Martens Meyer. Martens Meyer, who was head of department at the military intelligence staff, operated on behalf of U.S. intelligence. The three skippers did not know who Meyer really was when they agreed to a job that involved them in sabotage missions against North Vietnam.

Although the boats were crewed by South Vietnamese naval personnel, approval for each mission conducted under the plan came directly from Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp Jr., CINCPAC in Honolulu, who received his orders from the White House. After the coastal attacks began, Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, lodged a complaint with the International Control Commission (ICC), which had been established in 1954 to oversee the terms of the Geneva Accords, but the U.S. denied any involvement. Four years later, Secretary McNamara admitted to Congress that the U.S. ships had in fact been cooperating in the South Vietnamese attacks against North Vietnam.

In 1962, the U.S. Navy began an electronic warfare support measures (intelligence gathering) program, conducted by destroyer patrols in the western Pacific, with the cover name DESOTO. The first missions in the Tonkin Gulf began in February 1964. While intelligence collected by DESOTO missions could be used by OPLAN-34A planners and commanders, they were separate programs not known to coordinate mission planning except to warn DESOTO patrols to stay clear of 34A operational areas.

right|thumb|upright=1|[[USS Maddox (DD-731)|USS Maddox.]]

On July 29, 1964, the night before it launched actions against North Vietnamese facilities on Hòn Mê and Hòn Ngư islands, the MACV-SOG had launched a covert long-term agent team into North Vietnam, which was promptly captured. On 1 and 2 August, flights of CIA-sponsored Laotian fighter-bombers (piloted by Thai mercenaries) attacked border outposts well within southwestern North Vietnam. According to Edwin Moïse, the Hanoi government (which, unlike the U.S. government, had to give permission at the highest levels for the conduct of such missions) probably assumed that they were all a coordinated effort to escalate military actions against North Vietnam.

Incident

Daniel Ellsberg, who was on duty in the Pentagon the night of 4 August, receiving messages from , reported that she was on a DESOTO mission near Northern Vietnamese territorial waters. On 31 July 1964, Maddox had begun her mission in the Gulf of Tonkin. Maddox was under orders not to approach closer than eight miles (13 km) from North Vietnam's coast and four miles (6 km) from Hon Nieu island. When a MACV-SOG commando raid was being carried out against Hon Nieu, the ship was away from the attacked area. Maddox stated she had evaded a torpedo attack and opened fire with its five-inch (127 mm) guns, forcing the torpedo boats away. Two of the torpedo boats had come as close as and released one torpedo each, but neither one was effective, coming no closer than about after Maddox evaded them.

Sharp also noted that orders given to Maddox to stay off the North Vietnamese coast put the ship in international waters, as North Vietnam claimed only a limit as its territory (or off of its off-shore islands). In addition, many nations had previously carried out similar missions all over the world, and the destroyer had earlier conducted an intelligence-gathering mission in similar circumstances without incident.

Sharp's claims, however, included some factually incorrect statements. North Vietnam did not adhere to an 8-kilometer (5 mi) limit for its territorial waters; instead it adhered to a limit claimed by French Indochina in 1936. Moreover it officially claimed a 12 nmi limit, which is practically identical to the old 20 km French claim, after the incidents of August, in September 1964. The North Vietnamese stance is that they always considered a 12 nautical mile limit, consistent with the positions regarding the law of the sea of both the Soviet Union and China, their main allies.

Second alleged attack

left|thumb|upright=.8|A sonar console.

On 4 August, another DESOTO patrol off the North Vietnamese coast was launched by Maddox and Turner Joy, to "show the flag" after the first incident. This time their orders indicated that the ships were to close to no less than from the coast of North Vietnam.

thumb|upright=.8|left|William Bundy.

The use of the set of incidents as a pretext for escalation of U.S. involvement followed the issuance of public threats against North Vietnam, as well as calls from American politicians in favor of escalating the war. On 4 May 1964, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs William Bundy had called for the U.S. to "drive the communists out of South Vietnam", even if that meant attacking both North Vietnam and communist China. Even so, the Johnson administration in the second half of 1964 focused on convincing the American public that there was no chance of war between the United States and North Vietnam.

North Vietnam's General Giáp suggested that the DESOTO patrol had been sent into the gulf to provoke North Vietnam into giving the U.S. an excuse for escalation of the war. Various government officials and men aboard Maddox have suggested similar theories. U.S. Undersecretary of State George Ball told a British journalist after the war that "at that time ... many people ... were looking for any excuse to initiate bombing". George Ball stated that the mission of the destroyer warship involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident "was primarily for provocation."

According to Ray McGovern, CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, the CIA, "not to mention President Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy all knew full well that the evidence of any armed attack [...] was highly dubious.... During the summer of 1964, President Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were eager to widen the war in Vietnam. They stepped up sabotage and hit-and-run attacks on the coast of North Vietnam." Maddox, carrying electronic spying gear, was to collect signals intelligence from the North Vietnamese coast, and the coastal attacks were seen as a helpful way to get the North Vietnamese to turn on their coastal radars. For this purpose, it was authorized to approach the coast as close as 13 kilometers (8 mi) and the offshore islands as close as four; the latter had already been subjected to shelling from the sea.

In his book, Body of Secrets, James Bamford, who spent three years in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst, writes that the primary purpose of the Maddox "was to act as a seagoing provocateur—to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its five-inch cannons up the nose of the communist navy. ... The [Maddoxs] mission was made even more provocative by being timed to coincide with commando raids, creating the impression that the Maddox was directing those missions ..." Thus, the North Vietnamese had every reason to believe that Maddox was involved in these actions.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs John McNaughton suggested in September 1964 that the U.S. prepared to take actions to provoke a North Vietnamese military reaction, including plans to use DESOTO patrols. William Bundy's paper dated 8 September 1964, suggested more DESOTO patrols as well.

Consequences

right|thumb|upright=1|Johnson as he signs the resolution on 10 August 1964.

By early afternoon of 4 August, Washington time, Herrick had reported to the Commander in Chief Pacific in Honolulu that "freak weather effects" on the ship's radar had made such an attack questionable. In fact, Herrick stated in a message sent at 1:27 pm Washington time that no North Vietnamese patrol boats had actually been sighted. Herrick proposed a "complete evaluation before any further action taken.

right|thumb|upright=1|Tonkin Gulf Resolution.

McNamara later testified that he had read the message after his return to the Pentagon that afternoon. But he did not immediately call Johnson to tell him that the whole premise of his decision at lunch to approve McNamara's recommendation for retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam was highly questionable. Johnson had fended off proposals from McNamara and other advisers for a policy of bombing North Vietnam on four occasions since becoming president.

Although Maddox had been involved in providing intelligence support for South Vietnamese attacks at Hòn Mê and Hòn Ngư, Johnson denied, in his testimony before Congress, that the U.S. Navy had supported South Vietnamese military operations in the Gulf. He thus characterized the attack as "unprovoked" since the ship had been in international waters. As a result of his testimony, on 7 August, Congress passed a joint resolution (H.J. RES 1145), titled the Southeast Asia Resolution, which granted Johnson the authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without the benefit of a declaration of war. The resolution gave Johnson approval "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom."

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident also had impacts in China, where it increased perceptions among Chinese Communist Party leadership that the United States would eventually invade China. This triggered greater support among leadership for Mao Zedong's Third Front Construction campaign to develop heavy industry and defense industry in China's interior where it would be more protected in the event of foreign invasion.

Later statements about the incident

Johnson commented privately: "For all I know, our navy was shooting at whales out there."

In 1967, former naval officer John White wrote a letter to the editor of the New Haven (CT) Register. He asserts "I maintain that President Johnson, Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave false information to Congress in their report about US destroyers being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin." White continued his whistleblowing activities in the 1968 documentary In the Year of the Pig.

left|thumb|upright=.8|Map in the U.S. Navy [[All Hands magazine.]]

In 1981, Captain Herrick and journalist Robert Scheer re-examined Herrick's ship's log and determined that the first torpedo report from August 4, which Herrick had maintained had occurred—the "apparent ambush"—was in fact unfounded. Although information obtained well after the fact supported Captain Herrick's statements about the inaccuracy of the later torpedo reports as well as the 1981 Herrick and Scheer conclusion about the inaccuracy of the first, indicating that there was no North Vietnamese attack that night, at the time U.S. authorities and all of the Maddoxs crew stated that they were convinced that an attack had taken place. As a result, planes from the aircraft carriers Ticonderoga and were sent to hit North Vietnamese torpedo boat bases and fuel facilities during Operation Pierce Arrow.

Squadron Commander James Stockdale was one of the U.S. pilots flying overhead during the second alleged attack. Stockdale writes in his 1984 book Love and War: "[I] had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there ... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." Stockdale at one point recounts seeing Turner Joy pointing her guns at Maddox. Stockdale said his superiors ordered him to keep quiet about this. After he was captured, this knowledge became a heavy burden. He later said he was concerned that his captors would eventually force him to reveal what he knew about the second incident.

In 1995, retired Vietnamese defense minister, Võ Nguyên Giáp, meeting with former Secretary McNamara, denied that Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers on 4 August, while admitting to the attack on 2 August. A taped conversation of a meeting several weeks after passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was released in 2001, revealing that McNamara expressed doubts to Johnson that the attack had even occurred.

In the fall of 1999, retired Senior CIA Engineering Executive S. Eugene Poteat wrote that he was asked in early August 1964 to determine if the radar operator's report showed a real torpedo boat attack or an imagined one. He asked for further details on time, weather and surface conditions. No further details were forthcoming. In the end he concluded that there were no torpedo boats on the night in question, and that the White House was interested only in confirmation of an attack, not that there was no such attack.

thumb|[[Võ Nguyên Giáp (1911–2013)]]

In 2014, as the incident's 50th anniversary approached, John White wrote The Gulf of Tonkin Events—Fifty Years Later: A Footnote to the History of the Vietnam War. In the foreword, he notes "Among the many books written on the Vietnamese war, half a dozen note a 1967 letter to the editor of a Connecticut newspaper which was instrumental in pressuring the Johnson administration to tell the truth about how the war started. The letter was mine." The story discusses Lt. White reading Admiral Stockdale's In Love and War in the mid 1980s, then contacting Stockdale who connected White with Joseph Schaperjahn, chief sonarman on Turner Joy. Schaperjahn confirmed White's assertions that Maddoxs sonar reports were faulty and the Johnson administration knew it prior to going to Congress to request support for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. White's book explains the difference between lies of commission and lies of omission. Johnson was guilty of willful lies of omission. White was featured in the August 2014 issue of Connecticut Magazine.

NSA report

In October 2005, The New York Times reported that Robert J. Hanyok, a historian for the NSA, concluded that the NSA distorted intelligence reports passed to policy makers regarding the 4 August incident. The NSA historian said agency staff deliberately skewed the evidence to make it appear that an attack had occurred. Hanyok's conclusions were initially published in the Winter 2000/Spring 2001 Edition of Cryptologic Quarterly about five years before the Times article. According to intelligence officials, the view of government historians that Hanyok's report should become public was rebuffed by policy makers concerned that comparisons might be made to intelligence used to justify the Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom) which commenced in 2003. But within weeks, NSA did release a moderately sanitized version of Hanyok's study.

Reviewing the NSA's archives, Hanyok concluded that the 4 August incident began at Phu Bai, where intelligence analysts mistakenly believed the destroyers would soon be attacked. This would have been communicated back to the NSA along with evidence supporting such a conclusion, but in fact the evidence did not do that. Hanyok attributed this to the deference that the NSA would have likely given to the analysts who were closer to the event. As the evening progressed, further signals intelligence (SIGINT) did not support any such ambush, but the NSA personnel were apparently so convinced of an attack that they ignored the 90% of SIGINT that did not support that conclusion, and that was also excluded from any reports they produced for the consumption by the president.

On 30 November 2005, the NSA released a first installment of previously classified information regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident, including a moderately sanitized version of Hanyok's article. The Hanyok article states that intelligence information was presented to the Johnson administration "in such a manner as to preclude responsible decision makers in the Johnson administration from having the complete and objective narrative of events." Instead, "only information that supported the claim that the communists had attacked the two destroyers was given to Johnson administration officials."

With regard to why this happened, Hanyok writes:

Hanyok included his study of Tonkin Gulf as one chapter in an overall history of NSA involvement and American SIGINT, in the Indochina Wars. A moderately sanitized version of the overall history was released in January 2008 by the National Security Agency and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

See also

  • Niger uranium forgeries
  • Sinking of the RMS Lusitania
  • Sinking of the
  • War Powers Clause
  • PTF 3

References

Footnotes

Citations

Sources

  • <!--|access-date=October 28, 2009-->
  • The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later; Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam – National Security Archive at George Washington University
  • The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Escalation of the Vietnam War – EDSITEment lesson from the National Endowment for the Humanities
  • US Navy Historical Site showing charts and photos of the incident (archived)
  • Tonkin Gulf Intelligence "Skewed" According to Official History and Intercepts – National Security Archive at George Washington University
  • Ronnie E. Ford "New Light on Gulf of Tonkin"
  • Original Document: Tonkin Gulf Resolution
  • "Aboard the Maddox" LIFE Magazine Aug. 14, 1964

;Declassified documents

  • NSA Topic Collection
  • Chronologies of Events
  • Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Reports (R) and Translations (T) Mar–Oct 1964
  • Related Command and Technical Messages, 2–26 Aug 1964
  • Oral History Interviews
  • OSD & Joint Staff FOIA Service Center
  • Transcript of Telephone Conversations, Gulf of Tonkin Transcripts
  • US Navy
  • Formerly Classified Documents from 2 August 1964
  • Formerly Classified Documents Subsequent to 4 August 1964
  • Tonkin Gulf: Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Code Words Used in Original Documents
  • US State Department
  • U.S. Reaction To Events in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1–10, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1964–1968, VOLUME I, VIETNAM, 1964.