The official line put forth at the time was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. Destroyer.
The Destroyer was only just on a "routine patrol" in the Tonkin Gulf.
It was then stated that North Vietnamese PT boats, followed up with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later.
However, this was far from the truth of what really happened.
The ships were in fact not on some routine patrol.
The U.S. destroyer "Maddox" had been engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers.
This was done in coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and Laotian air force.
Those assaults were part of a campaign the United States had been pursuing since early 1964.
Secret Army, Secret War: Washington's Tragic Spy Operation in North Vietnam
Aug. 4: Pentagon proclaimed a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had taken place in the Tonkin Gulf.
President Johnson went on national TV that evening to announce an escalation in the war.
Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened.
This lead to a war in which more then 1 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans would die.
Later, released tapes of White House phone conversations indicate the attack never happened.
Although the United States attended the Geneva Conference (1954), it refused to sign the Geneva Accords (1954). The Accords mandated, among other measures, a ceasefire line, intended to separate Vietnamese independence and French forces, and elections to determine the rulership of Vietnam on both sides of the line, within 2 years. It also forbade the political interference of other countries in the area, the creation of new governments without the stipulated elections, and foreign military presence. The United States promptly subverted all of the measures of the Accords at once when it installed anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem as President of South Vietnam, and gave him military backing. By 1961, poor decisions by Diem, almost all against the counsel of his American advisors, including refusals to hold elections, and attacks on Buddhism (the majority religion in southern Vietnam), and other ethnic groups, had made him unpopular.
In that year, a popular uprising began, headed by the National Liberation Front. The U.S. also began providing direct support to the South Vietnamese in the form of military and financial aid and military advisors, the number of which grew from 600 in 1961 to 16,000 by the end of John F. Kennedy's presidency in 1963.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred during the first year of the Johnson administration. While Kennedy had originally supported the policy of sending military advisors to Vietnam, he had begun to alter his thinking due to the military ineptitude of the Saigon government and its inability and unwillingness to make needed reforms. Shortly before his assassination in November 1963, he had begun limited recall of American forces. Johnson's views were likewise complex, but he had supported military escalation in Vietnam as a means to challenge the expansionist policies of the Soviet Union. The Cold War policy of containment was to be applied to prevent the "fall" of Southeast Asia under the precepts of the domino theory. After Kennedy's assassination, Johnson ordered in more American forces to support the Saigon government, beginning a protracted United States presence in Southeast Asia.
According to the U.S. Naval Institute, a highly classified program of covert attacks against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) known as Operation 34A, 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 (SOG). For the maritime portion of the covert operation, Tjeld-class fast patrol boats had been purchased quietly from Norway and sent to South Vietnam. Although the crews of the boats were South Vietnamese naval personnel, approval of the plan came directly from Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, Jr., CINCPAC in Honolulu. After the coastal attacks began, Hanoi 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 of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted to Congress that the U.S. ships had in fact been cooperating in the South Vietnamese attacks against the DRV. The Maddox, although aware of the operations, was not directly involved in these attacks.
Veterans of U.S. Navy SEAL teams stated that U.S.-trained South Vietnamese commandos were active in the area on the days of the attacks. Deployed from Da Nang in Norwegian-built fast patrol boats, the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDNN, 'soldiers that fight under the sea') made attacks in the Gulf area on the nights of 31 July and 3 August.
On July 31, LDNN commandos in "Nasty" fast attack boats attacked a radio transmitter on the island of Hon Nieu. On 3 August, they used a shipboard cannon to bombard a radar site at Cape Vinh Son. The North Vietnamese responded by attacking hostile ships visible in the area. While US officials were less than honest about the full extent of hostilities that led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, critical claims that a naval commander fired weapons solely to create an international incident tend to overlook circumstances and opportunistic responses that suggest a less intentional motivation.
On 4 August 1964, squadron commander James Stockdale was one of the U.S. pilots flying overhead during the second alleged attack; unlike the first attack, this one was believed to have been a false alarm.
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 this terrible secret.
In 1995, retired Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, meeting with former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, categorically 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 President Lyndon B. Johnson that the attack had even occurred.
Taking into consideration documents and transcripts released by the U.S. National Security Agency and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, the consensus is that this second attack never happened.
On 30 November 2005, the NSA released the first installment of previously classified information regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident, including Mr. Hanyok's article, "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964" Cryptologic Quarterly, Winter 2000/Spring 2001 Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 / Vol. 20, No. 1.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is a pair of supposed attacks allegedly carried out by naval forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (commonly referred to as North Vietnam) against two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy.
The incident occurred on August 2 and 4, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Although it is possible that the first attack, on the destroyer Maddox, was in fact carried out after the Maddox fired first, some altercation did occur. The second supposed attack almost certainly did not occur.
Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful.
Freak weather effects and overeager sonarman may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox.
Project Alpha: Washington's Secret Military Operations in North Vietnam
On 2 August the Maddox claimed it was attacked by three North Vietnamese P-4 patrol torpedo boats 28 miles (45 km) away from the North Vietnamese coast in international waters.
The Maddox claimed to have evaded a torpedo attack and opened fire with its five-inch (127 mm) guns, forcing the patrol craft away. U.S. aircraft launched from Ticonderoga then attacked the retiring P-4s, claiming one as sunk and one heavily damaged. In fact, none of the three vessels was sunk.
The Maddox, suffering very minor damage from a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet, retired to South Vietnamese waters where she was joined by the destroyer Turner Joy.
However, this account has come into sharp dispute with an official 2005 NSA declassified report which stated:
"At 1500G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first."
If this new account is accurate, the U.S. fired the first shots in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Shortly after 3 p.m. [on Aug 2], the Maddox fired three times at the North Vietnamese patrol boats. The shots were never reported or acknowledged by the Pentagon or the White House; they maintained the communists shot first.
The Maddox was still firing when four navy F-8E jets blasted the patrol boats, killing four sailors .... On Aug 3 [Washington] proclaimed ... patrols would continue in the Gulf of Tonkin, and the State Department announced it had sent its first-ever diplomatic note to Hanoi, warning of "grave consequences" of "further unprovoked military action."
At that hour, another provocative OPLAN 34A mission was dispatched to sabotage a radar station ... on island of Hon Matt. Then on ... August 4, the American commanders ... received urgent alert from onshore SIGINT operators: the three North Vietnamese patrol boats encountered off Hon Me Island on August 2 were returning ... McNamara called the President ... at 10 p.m. ... 10 a.m. in Washington ...American destroyers sent flash message they were under attack ... operators aboard Maddox and Turner Joy reported seeing ghostly blotches in the night. Their captains opened fire.
The NSA report ... described how "these two destroyers gyrated wildly in the dark waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, the Turner Joy firing over 300 rounds wildly," both ships taking furious evasive maneuvers. "It was this high-speed gyrating by the American warships through the waters that created all the additional sonar reports of more torpedoes." They had been firing at their own shadows. The president immediately ordered an air strike ... to begin that night. Within an HOUR, Captain Herrick reported: "ENTIRE ACTION LEAVES MANY DOUBTS." Ninety minutes later these doubts vanished in Washington.
The NSA told the secretary of defense and the president of the United States that it had intercepted a North Vietnamese naval communique reading: "SACRIFICED TWO SHIPS AND ALL THE REST ARE OKAY." But after the American air strikes against North Vietnam had begun, the NSA reviewed the day's communications intercepts. There was nothing. Every SIGNIT eavesdropper in South Vietnam and the Philippines looked again.
Nothing. The NSA reexamined the intercept it had handed to the president, double-checking the translation and the time stamp on the original message. Upon review, the message actually read: "WE SACRIFICED TWO COMRADES BUT ALL ARE BRAVE." The message had been composed either immediately before or at the moment when the Maddox and the Turner Joy opened fire on August 4. It was not about what had happened that night.
It was about the first clash, two nights earlier, on August 2. The NSA buried this salient fact. It told no one. Its analysts and linguists looked a third time, and a fourth time, at the time stamp. Everyone -- everyone, even the doubters -- decided to stay silent.
The Tunnels of Cu Chi
On 4 August, another Desoto patrol on the North Vietnam coast was launched by Maddox and the Turner Joy, led by Captain John J. Herrick. This time their orders indicated that the ships were to close no more than 11 miles (18 km) from the coast of North Vietnam.
The destroyers received radar and radio signals that they believed signaled another attack by the North Vietnamese navy. For some two hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of enemies.
An hour later, at 1:27 p.m. Washington time, Herrick sent a cable in which he admitted that the attack may never have happened and that there may actually have been no Vietnamese naval craft in the area:
"Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken".
An hour later, Herrick sent another cable, stating, "Entire action leaves many doubts except for apparent ambush at beginning.
Suggest thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft".
In response to requests for confirmation, at around 4:00 p.m. Washington time, Herrick cabled, "Details of action present a confusing picture although certain that the original ambush was bona fide."
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."
Although information obtained well after the fact supported Turner Joy Captain Herrick's statements about the inaccuracy of the later torpedo reports as well as the 1981 Herrick/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 Maddox crew said they were convinced that an attack had taken place.
As a result, planes from the carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation were sent to hit North Vietnamese torpedo boat bases and fuel facilities (Operation Pierce Arrow).
There are differing views about whether the 2 August incident was provoked by the U.S. One view is that the actions of the Maddox were provocative to the North Vietnamese because they coincided with the covert South Vietnamese raids.
Since the Desoto patrols were conducted in order to gather just the sort of electronic emissions that the SOG 34A raids would provoke, it was a reasonable assumption that the two were "piggybacked." The destroyer's presence also may have been mistaken by the North Vietnamese as a sign that it was also involved directly in the raids.
Others, such as Admiral Sharp, maintained that U.S. actions did not provoke the confirmed 2 August attack. He claimed that DRV radar had tracked Maddox along the coast, thus being aware that the destroyer had not actually attacked North Vietnam. Yet they ordered their patrol boats to engage it anyway.
He also noted that orders given to Maddox to stay eight miles (13 km) off the DRV coast put the ship in international waters, as North Vietnam claimed only a five-mile (8 km) nautical limit as its territory. In addition, many nations had previously carried out similar missions all over the world, and the USS John R. Craig had earlier conducted an intelligence-gathering mission in similar circumstances without incident.
Project Alpha: Washington's Secret Military Operations in North Vietnam
Lyndon Johnson, who was up for election that year, launched retaliatory air strikes and went on national television on 4 August.
Although the Maddox had been involved in providing intelligence support for South Vietnamese attacks at Hon Me and Hon Ngu, Defense Secretary McNamara 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.
He also claimed that there was "unequivocable proof" of an "unprovoked" second attack against the Maddox.
As a result of his testimony, on 7 August, Congress passed a joint resolution (H.J. RES 1145), titled the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Johnson the authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without the benefit of a declaration of war.
The Resolution gave President 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." Both Johnson and President Richard Nixon used the Resolution as a justification for escalated involvement in Indochina.
The "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" defined the beginning of large-scale involvement of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam. Historians have shown that the second incident was, at its best interpretation, an overreaction of eager naval forces.
Vietnam's Navy Anniversary Day is August 5, the date of the second attack, Vietnamese time, where "one of our torpedo squadrons chased the U.S.S. Maddox from our coastal waters, our first victory over the U.S. Navy".
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The Tunnels of Cu Chi
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