The National Security Agency released a paper entitledSkunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964. It was a false alarm, and he soon rescinded the report. The US elite is very partial to Modern False Flags (Spanish Maine, Gulf of Tonkin, Pearl Harbour, Oklahoma Bombings etc), but on home soil they often resort to Hoaxes, the purpose of which is to justify retaliation against an idea (eg Islam, gun ownership, drugs) but in which nobody actually gets killed (Sandy Hook, Boston Bombings etc). A false flag is a political or military action carried out with the intention of blaming an opponent for it. National Archives and Records Administration. Nazi war criminals became high ranking commanders in NATO after WW2. Not every lie made the war seem better, though. [5] A U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Ticonderoga, was also stationed nearby. In 1962 McNamara presented President Kennedy withOperation Northwoods, a series of False Flag proposals designed to initiate violence against Americans and deceive the American people into a war with Cuba. Tucson (AZ) shooting. Following this incident, President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnamese military targets and bases and authorized sending US troops into Vietnam and by late 1965 some 180,000 American troops were on the ground, with more on the way. Prior to the two incidents the U.S. had provided substantial aid to South Vietnam and also had a number of military advisers in South Vietnam. The Maddox' 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. 5 (May 1970), pp. The U.S. vessels were now more than 100 miles away from the North Vietnamese coastline when their trackers started to light up. Martens Meyer, who was head of department at the military intelligence staff, operated on behalf of U.S. intelligence. "[39][40], Within thirty minutes of the August 4 incident, Johnson had decided on retaliatory attacks (dubbed "Operation Pierce Arrow"). 88408, 78 Stat. It had been ordered to locate and identify all coastal radar transmitters, note all navigation aids along the DVRs [Democratic Republic of Vietnams] coastline, and monitor the Vietnamese junk fleet for a possible connection to DRV/Viet Cong maritime supply and infiltration routes.. 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.. The floodgates had opened. It is not NSA's intention to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material. After the skirmish, Johnson ordered Maddox and Turner Joy to stage daylight runs into North Vietnamese waters, testing the 12 nautical miles (22km; 14mi) limit and North Vietnamese resolve. This release includes a variety of articles, chronologies of events, oral history interviews, signals intelligence (SIGINT) reports and translations, and other related memoranda. Two of the torpedo boats had come as close as 5 nautical miles (9.3km; 5.8mi) and released one torpedo each, but neither one was effective, coming no closer than about 100 yards (91m) after Maddox evaded them. He contended in speeches to Congress that the actions taken by the United States were actions outside the constitution and were "acts of war rather than acts of defense. 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. Stockdale recounts the incident at 0:37 seconds in the video below. In fact, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as it became known, turned out to be a fictitious creation courtesy of the government to escalate war in Vietnam leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of U.S. troops and millions of Vietnamese, fomenting the largest anti-war movement in American history, and tarnishing the reputation of a nation once His actions would lead to the deaths of 58,220 Americans and an untold number of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. Within 24 hours, though, the Maddox resumed its normal patrolling routine. U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage CommandThe North Vietnamese torpedo boats under fire, as photographed on board the USS Maddox. [47] Various government officials and men aboard Maddox have suggested similar theories. Cecil Stoughton/U.S. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Passes House and Senate "Aggression by terror against the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the. False. Theme: Bushwick by James Dinsdale. "[34] It is likely that McNamara did not inform either the president or Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp Jr. about Herrick's misgivings or Herrick's recommendation for further investigation. Memorandum for Lt Gen Fitch from George C. Denney Jr. The LBJ Presidential tapes, declassified and released in 2001, prove that LBJ knew the Tonkin incident never happened, prior to the war. President Johnson's Vietnam Address, August 4, 1964 about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "[43] Morse's efforts were not immediately met with support, largely because he revealed no sources and was working with very limited information. [20] 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. The latest releases, which document skepticism over the pretext for entry into the Vietnam war, date from 1968. . Even the US Navy had came out later and declared that it's clear that North Vietnamese naval forces did not attack Maddox and Turner Joy that night, on August 4, 1964.. While Herrick soon reported doubts regarding the task forces 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. They do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Security Agency. Domestically speaking, a large-scale false flag such as . National Archives and Records AdministrationPresident Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara meet with Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky in Honolulu. [28], Sharp also noted that orders given to Maddox to stay 8 nautical miles (15km; 9.2mi) off the North Vietnamese coast put the ship in international waters, as North Vietnam claimed only a 5 nautical miles (9.3km; 5.8mi) limit as its territory (or off of its off-shore islands). assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a study by NSA historian Robert J. Hanyok. On the evening of August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson addressed the nation in a televised speech in which he announced that two days earlier, U.S. ships had been attacked twice in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin near North Vietnam. In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, the former United States Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted that an attack on the USS Maddox happened on August 2, but the supposed August 4 attack, for which Washington authorized retaliation, never happened. McNamara asks Giap: What happened in Tonkin Gulf? This lie jumpstarted a war that would claim 58,220 American and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Gulf of Tonkin: False Flag confirmed USS Liberty: False Flag confirmed Swine Flu : False Flag confirmed OK city: False Flag confirmed WTC 1st bombing: False Flag confirmed WTC 2nd bombing (thermite beam cutters): False Flag confirmed COVID: False Flag confirmed TRUTH YOU CANNOT HIDE. Indeed, false flags are themselves capable of taking on a wide variety of forms - domestic or foreign, small or large, economic or political, and many other designations that can often blur into one another. The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964, a definitive study of the events in the gulf, including the manipulation of signals intelligence. . 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. [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. 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. [21], 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. What was happening at the time were aggressive South Vietnamese raids against the North in the same general area. This plan, known as Operations Plan (OPLAN) 34A, was conceived and overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA, but was carried out using South Vietnamese forces. But the government itself wouldnt confirm Whites suspicions for decades. Dispropaganda is 100% independent non partisan and non profit, in order to keep the site up we rely on financial supprt from our readers. [43] It was not until after the United States became more involved in the war that his claim began to gain support throughout the United States government. According to Admiral Vasey, who was aboard USSOklahoma City, a Galveston-class guided missile cruiser, in the Gulf of Tonkin and serving as chief of staff to Commander Seventh Fleet, Turner Joy intercepted an NVA radio transmission ordering a torpedo boat attack on Turner Joy and Maddox. Afraid of attackers, Captain Herrick sent flash messages to U.S. officials while desperately trying to move the ships out of harms way. The first missions in the Tonkin Gulf began in February 1964. [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. Everyone knew how volatile LBJ was. He soon realized that the vessels they were tracking on the Maddox may have actually been the result of poor equipment performance and inexperienced sonar operators. 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. In 1964, South Vietnam began conducting a series of attacks and missions along the North Vietnamese coasts, backed by the United States. 26, No. But not every event is a false flag . After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara slowly increased military pressureon the coast of North Vietnam, aiding the South in offensive strikes and intelligence-gathering. On 30 May 2006, NSA released the second and final installment of Gulf of Tonkin materials. He asked for further details on time, weather and surface conditions. [5] The boats were from Squadron 135, commanded by Le Duy Khoai, with the boats commanded by brothers Van Bot, Van Tu, and Van Gian. According to National Security Agency documents declassified in 2005 The overwhelming body of reports told the story that no attack had happened. All 18 of the witnesses testified at a hearing in Olongapo, Philippines, and their testimony is a matter of public record. "[33], McNamara later testified that he had read the message after his return to the Pentagon that afternoon. The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces to South Vietnam and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam. 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. [34] 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 Maddox's crew stated that they were convinced that an attack had taken place. 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. "[46] Time stated that there was "no doubt in Sharp's mind that the U.S. would now have to answer this attack", and that there was no debate or confusion within the administration regarding the incident. [30][31] 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. [50], John McNaughton suggested in September 1964 that the U.S. prepare to take actions to provoke a North Vietnamese military reaction, including plans to use DESOTO patrols North. In contrast to the clear conditions two days earlier, thunderstorms and rain squalls reduced visibility and increased wave heights to six feet. More answers below Did the Gulf of Tonkin incident actually occur or was it faked to justify going to war with Vietnam? Johnson dispatched U.S. planes against the attackers and asked Congress to pass a resolution to . [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. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken." This territorial limit was unrecognized by the United States. 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. "Absolutely nothing", Gip replied. Maddox suffered only minor damage from a single 14.5mm bullet from a P-4's KPV heavy machine gun into her superstructure. 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. William Bundy's paper dated September 8, 1964, suggested more DESOTO patrols as well. [5], Maddox, when confronted, was approaching Hn M Island, three to four nautical miles (nmi) (6 to 7km) inside the 12 nautical miles (22km; 14mi) limit claimed by North Vietnam. Then read these 27 Vietnam War facts that will change the way you think about American history. Secretary of State Robert McNamara was familiar with the effectiveness of False Flags to initiate war. The commander 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. [5] As the ships approached from the southwest, Maddox changed course from northeasterly to southeasterly and increased speed to 25 knots.[5]. [38], He emphasized commitment to both the American people, and the South Vietnamese government. Although August 4 was a stormy day, Captain Herrick ordered the two destroyers further out to sea in order to give them more space in the case of an attack. However, President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara treated these original, purposefully distorted reports as crucial evidence during their arguments for retaliation, ignoring the majority of reports that concluded that no attack had occurred. A sea battle resulted, in which theMaddoxexpended over two hundred and eighty 3-inch and 5-inch shells, and in which four USNF-8 Crusaderjet fighter bombers strafed the torpedo boats. Early on August 5, Johnson publicly ordered retaliatory measures stating, "The determination of all Americans to carry out our full commitment to the people and to the government of South Vietnam will be redoubled by this outrage." It's the perfect time for a false flag attack, where one country carries out a covert attack, disguising it to look like it was done by someone else. The USS Maddox evaded the torpedo attack, suffering only slight damage, and sailed off to safer waters. [1][5] The Maddox fired warning shots and the North Vietnamese boats attacked with torpedoes and machine gun fire. Please help support Dispropaganda by clicking on the "Donate" button and making a 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. So much like with Iraq's WMD in 2003, the US launched its full scale war on Vietnam on nothing but lies and propaganda. [11] In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that the incident of August 4 was based on bad naval intelligence and misrepresentations of North Vietnamese communications.[5]. On August 2, Capt. A skirmish and confused reports of a second engagement two days later led President Lyndon B. Johnson to order airstrikes against North . [23], Daniel Ellsberg, who was on duty in the Pentagon the night of August 4, receiving messages from USSMaddox, reported that she was on a DESOTO mission near Northern Vietnamese territorial waters. actions. The deeper lesson of the Tonkin Gulf episode is how a group of senior national security officials seeks determinedly through hardball - and even illicit tactics to advance its own war agenda,. [13] In March 1956, the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956. Two soldiers next to a fallen man during the Vietnam War. Viet Minh political cadres, who were legally campaigning for the promised elections between 1955 and 1957, were suppressed by the government. The torpedo boats sped up, and the warning shots were fired. The Gulf of Tonkin incident: the false flag operation that started the Vietnam war. He claimed that the North Vietnamese had tracked Maddox along the coast by radar and were thus aware that the destroyer had not actually attacked North Vietnam and that Hanoi (or the local commander) had ordered its craft to engage Maddox anyway. 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. The first incident took place on August 2, 1964, when the destroyerUSSMaddox, engaged three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats seen approaching the Maddox. Cover-Up Worse Than Crime: Silence Around Hersh's Bombshell & Ominous Gulf of Tonkin Parallels 22 February, 18:50 GMT Sachs and McGovern: UN Probe is Global Priority Remarkably, two American experts who testified at the UNSC meeting openly said that they do not buy into the West's Nord Stream narrative. The Gulf of Tonkin by Erich Martel, The World Today, Vol. "CNN Cold War Interviews: Robert McNamara", "Vietnam War Intelligence 'Deliberately Skewed,' Secret Study Says", "Transcript of Broadcast With Walter Cronkite Inaugurating a CBS Television Program", "National Security Action Memorandum 263 - Intro", "Vi som sttter Amerika Norges rolle i Vietnamkrigen", "The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 3, Chapter 2, "Military Pressures Against North Vietnam, February 1964 January 1965," second section", "National Security Archive | 30+ Years of Freedom of Information Action", "Deceit and dishonesty: Ben Bradlee's 1987 James Cameron memorial lecture", "Robert McNamara deceived LBJ on Gulf of Tonkin, documents show", "United States Congress resolution, Pub.L. President Johnson signed this into law three days later, privately remarking that the resolution was like Grandmas nightshirt. Theyd disappear, only to reappear seconds or minutes later in a completely different location. Doubts later emerged as to whether or not the attack against the Turner Joy had taken place. [22] 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. According to National Security Archive research fellow John Prados, "the American people have long . This article will demonstrate three principal factual conclusions: (1) that Mr. Gamble is absolutely wrong, as a matter of historical fact, to claim that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a "false flag" operation; (2) that belief in "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy theories is not growing, but in fact shrinking; and (3) the conclusion . Mere hours after the speech, Commander Stockdale was ordered to launch an airstrike against the North Vietnamese forces as retaliation for their supposed attacks the evening before. Hanyok attributed this to the deference that the NSA would have likely given to the analysts who were closer to the event. voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. More posts from r/skeptic. 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. Any truth to this claim? [62], 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 August 4 incident. He revealed that 90 percent of the relevant intercepts, including those from the North Vietnamese, had been kept out the NSA's final . There were no U.S. casualties, and no further U.S. action was taken. . 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. White was featured in the August 2014 issue of Connecticut Magazine. The Johnson administration asserted that the destroyers, the "Maddox" and "Turner Joy", had been on routine patrol in international waters on August 2 when they were fired on by North Vietnamese Torpedo boats. In 1995, McNamara met with former Vietnam People's Army General V Nguyn Gip to ask what happened on August 4, 1964 in the second Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Despite the Navy's claim that two attacking torpedo boats had been sunk, there was no wreckage, bodies of dead North Vietnamese sailors, or other physical evidence present at the scene of the alleged engagement. Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 and August 4, respectively. 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. "[55] White continued his whistleblowing activities in the 1968 documentary In the Year of the Pig. Captain Herrick radioed that the USS Maddox was under attack, and U.S. officials ordered nearby aircraft from the USS Ticonderoga to fly in as backup. 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 occurredthe "apparent ambush"was in fact unfounded. Lots of the 'nuts' sure . He thus characterized the attack as "unprovoked" since the ship had been in international waters. [43] Immediately after the resolution was read and presented to Congress, Morse began to fight it. on the platform of Responsibility to Protect similar to the Gulf of Tonkin. On the evening of August 4, the ships opened fire on radar returns that had been preceded by communications intercepts which US forces claimed meant an attack was imminent. . 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. Soon thereafter theGulf of Tonkin Resolutionwas approved by the U.S. Congress, which gave LBJ the go to initiate a war against North Vietnam. [44] Various news sources, including Time, Life and Newsweek, published articles throughout August on the Tonkin Gulf incident. Crucible Vietnam: Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant. After a series of unsuccessful missions, OPLAN 34A shifted its focus from the land to the sea, attacking the Norths coastal infrastructure and defense from the water. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken. What was a low scale American involvment with Vietnam up until the Gulf of Tonkin incident, erupted into a full blown war which would end up causing the deaths of millions of Vietnamese. The accords, which were signed by other participants including the Viet Minh, mandated a temporary ceasefire line, which separated southern and northern Vietnam to be governed by the State of Vietnam and the Viet Minh respectively. Still, U.S. intelligence reportedly intercepted messages indicating that the North Vietnamese forces were planning offensive operations on the Tonkin Gulf. The NSA states, James Stockdale, then a navy pilot at the scene, who had the best seat in the house from which to detect boats, saw nothing. [26] Another P-4 received a direct hit from a five-inch shell from Maddox; its torpedo malfunctioned at launch. America had entered in the Vietnam War. 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. The planes pilot, Dispropaganda is 100% independent non partisan and non profit, in order to keep the site up we rely on financial supprt from our readers. The false flag Gulf of Tonkin Incident Vietnam 75,381 views Dec 22, 2008 613 Dislike Share kikila007 1.71K subscribers President Johnson used an alleged attack by North Vietnamese gun boats. This final release includes additional articles, chronologies of events, oral history interviews, and other related memoranda. While Johnson's final resolution was being drafted, U.S.

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