Two days later, on August 7, Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the president authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam. Indeed, this concept is so well-accepted that rules of engagement for naval, air and land warfare all prohibit false flag attacks. People on Reddit say the Gulf of Tonkin incident is an example of a conspiracy that turned out to be true. [57], In 1995, retired Vietnamese Defense Minister, V Nguyn Gip, meeting with former Secretary McNamara, denied that Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers on August 4, while admitting to the attack on August 2. 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 unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. At about 1505G, Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist [North Vietnamese] boats. In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, the former United States Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted that the August 4 Gulf of Tonkin attack never happened. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara in a cabinet room meeting. 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. Proudly powered by WordPress. U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage CommandThree North Vietnamese torpedo boats approaching the USS Maddox. One US aircraft was damaged, one 14.5mm round hit the destroyer. [25], In July 1964, "the situation along North Vietnam's territorial waters had reached a near boil", because of South Vietnamese commando raids and airborne operations that inserted intelligence teams into North Vietnam, as well as North Vietnam's military response to these operations. Due to the age and poor quality of some of the PDF images, a screen reader may not be able to process the images into word documents. They showed that there was no attack on August 4. [58], 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. Additionally, he concluded that many pieces of evidence were carefully picked to distort the truth. History of American False Flag Operations . Use tab to navigate through the menu items. For some two hours (from about 21:40 to about 23:35, local time) the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of enemies. About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated the south from 1961 to 1963. Two well-known incidents in American history the explosion of the U.S.S. [13] In March 1956, the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956. 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. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken." As the battle continued, Captain Herrick too began to have doubts about these attacks. Charleston church shooting. This article will show that President Lyndon B. Johnson twisted the Gulf of Tonkin incident into aFalse Flagto start a war between America and North Vietnam. Civil Liberties,Privacy,& Transparency Office, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility, An official website of the United States government, National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Declassification & Transparency Initiatives, Commercial Solutions for Classified Program (CSfC), Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility, Col Ralph Steakley, USAF; Chronology of Events Relating to DESOTO Patrol Incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin on 2 and 4 August 1964, Lawrence Levinson, Chronology of Events - Tuesday, 4 August and Wednesday, 5 August 1964 Tonkin Gulf Strike, Lt Col Delmar C. Lang, USAF; Chronology of Events of 18-20 September 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin, Marshall Wright & Sven Kraemer, Vietnam Information Group; Presidential Decisions- The Gulf of Tonkin Attacks of August 1964, Memorandum by Lt Col Delmar Lang USAF regarding United States Intelligence Board: Special Annex USIB-M-345, Memorandum by NSA General Counsel Banner regarding 16 August 1964 Washington Post article, Memorandum for Commander Naval Security Group from N. Klar. How The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident Sparked The Vietnam War. . The second Tonkin Gulf incident was claimed to have taken place on August 4, 1964. [63]:4849, On November 30, 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. Brought to you by the CDC. And then, two days later, on August 4, the Johnson administration claimed that it had been attacked again. The planes pilot, Commander James B. Stockdale, later wrote: I had the best seat in the house to watch and I saw no boats, no boat wakes, no boat gunfire, no torpedo wakesnothing but black sea and American firepower. Despite the captains efforts to correct the errors of his original messages during the Gulf of Tonkin incident, U.S. officials took the idea of unprovoked attacks and ran with it. Dispropaganda is 100% independent non partisan and non profit, in order to keep the site up we rely on financial supprt from our readers. 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. It involved both a proven confrontation on August 2, 1964, carried out by North Vietnamese forces in response to covert operations in the coastal region of the gulf, and a second, claimed confrontation on August 4, 1964, between North Vietnamese and United States ships in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Fifty years ago, a controversial confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin between the United States and North Vietnam forces set the stage for what eventually became US involvement in the Vietnam War. As President and Commander in Chief, he said, it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply., The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes.. After the second attack, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution almost unanimously, allowing the federal government to take all necessary measures to protect U.S. forces in Vietnam. 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. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed unanimously in the Senate. In August 1964, the United States entered the Vietnam War after reports of an unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. 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". List of Mass Shootings in the United States in 2021, CLICK FOR RECENT POSTS, SEARCH & ARCHIVES , Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964, PRESUMED DEAD (BODY REMAINS NOT RECOVERED). Nations have often done this by staging a real or simulated attack on their own side. 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. [6][7] 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. Maddox was under orders not to approach closer than eight miles (13km) from North Vietnam's coast and four miles (6km) from Hon Nieu island. His actions would lead to the deaths of 58,220 Americans and an untold number of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. Historians have concluded that the attack never happened and Johnson's ploy is now seen as the quintessential false flag operation. The three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were killed. Months before an alleged attack was being blamed on Iran, a US Army Colonel predicted this very scenario playing out to start a war. However, with this birds eye view, something wasnt adding up. The NSA historian said agency staff "deliberately skewed" the evidence to make it appear that an attack had occurred. 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. Shortly thereafter, radar contact of "several high speed contacts closing in on them" was acquired by the USS Turner Joy, which locked on to one of the contacts, fired and struck the torpedo boat. While we cannot be sure whether this is a Gulf of Tonkin . [49], 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 provocateurto 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. During the early hours of the morning of August 5, Herrick sent a message to Honolulu that said, Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Stockdale at one point recounts seeing Turner Joy pointing her guns at Maddox. Sweden and Denmark said that they had detected underwater blasts in the area. Stockdale later said, We were about to launch a war under false pretenses, in the face of the on-scene military commanders advice to the contrary.. It authorized Prezi Johnson by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to retaliate for the purported attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin and to start an official war against N-Vietnam. Because the enemy's flag, instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, was hung, it was called a "false flag" attack. The U.S. Navy destroyer didnt attack the North Vietnamese directly, but it did gather intelligence in sync with South Vietnamese attacks on the North.