On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. In a conversation with McNamara on Aug. 3, after the first incident, Johnson indicated he hadalready thought about the political ramifications of a military response and hadconsulted with several allies. Background intelligence on North Vietnam, its radar networks and command-and-control systems was limited. 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. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . 2. There was no way to get a commando team ashore to plant demolition charges; they would have do what damage they could with the boats guns.3 A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. 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. 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 only opposition came from a few scattered machine guns on shore, but they did no damage. "14, Nasty fast patrol boats demonstrated their versatility in the Pacific Ocean before going to Vietnam.U.S. 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). The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History 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). WebCongress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. In 1964 the Navy was attempting to determine the extent of North Vietnams maritime infiltration into the South and to identify the Norths coastal defenses so that Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) could better support South Vietnams commando operations against the North. To increase the chances of success, SOG proposed increased raids along the coast, emphasizing offshore bombardment by the boats rather than inserting commandos. William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. Subscribe to LBJ's War onApple Podcasts. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American 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. 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. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. 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. Despite Morses doubts, Senate reaction fell in behind the Johnson team, and the question of secret operations was overtaken by the issue of punishing Hanoi for its blatant attack on a U.S. warship in international waters. President Johnson himself apparently questioned the sailorsu0019 report of an attack. PTF-1 and PTF-5 raced toward shore. At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. In 1996 Edward Moises book Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War presented the first publicly released concrete evidence that the SIGINT reporting confirmed the August 2 attack, but not the alleged second attack of August 4. These types of patrols had previously been conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. 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. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. 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. By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. Until the ICC investigation blew over a week later, the commandos camped on a small pier. In truth, two of the torpedo boats were damaged, of which one could not make it back to port, while a single American aircraft sustained some wing damage. 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 subsequent North Vietnamese reporting on the enemy matched the location, course and speed of Maddox. Gulf of Tonkin & the Vietnam War. 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. 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. Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. The NSA report is revealing. In the future, conventional operations would receive all the attention. Two nearly identical episodes six weeks apart; two nearly opposite responses. In turn, that means JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. The ships gunners used the standard 5 mil offset to avoid hitting the boats. "1 Most of these would be shore bombardment. The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. The reports conclusions about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident are particularly relevant as they offer useful insights into the problems that SIGINT faces today in combating unconventional opponents and the potential consequences of relying too heavily on a single source of intelligence. . The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. No one was hurt and little damage wasdone in the attack, but intercepted cables suggested a second attack might be imminent. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. "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. Hickman, Kennedy. 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. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) . You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Naval History this month. 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. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. U.S. SIGINT support had provided ample warning of North Vietnams intentions and actions, enabling the American ship to defend itself successfully. 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. 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. 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. 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. Media Manipulation. Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. In this case, perception was much more important than reality.10. Here's why he couldn't walk away. 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. But, interestingly, on Sept. 18, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. 9/11. 8. Captain Herrick had been ordered to be clear of the patrol area by nightfall, so he turned due east at approximately 1600. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. 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." Aircraft from Ticonderoga arrived on-scene at 1528 hours and fired on the boats. Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution.