Declassified records Show Doubts on ’64 Vietnam Crisis

[JJHH]

Published: July 14, 2010


WASHINGTON — In an echo of the debates over the discredited intelligence that helped make the case for the war in Iraq, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday released more than 1,100 pages of previously classified Vietnam-era transcripts that show senators of the time sharply questioning whether they had been deceived by the White House and the Pentagon over the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.

“If this country has been misled, if this committee, this Congress, has been misled by pretext into a war in which thousands of young men have died, and many more thousands have been crippled for life, and out of which their country has lost prestige, moral position in the world, the consequences are very great,” Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, the father of the future vice president, said in March 1968 in a closed session of the Foreign Relations Committee.


President Lyndon B. Johnson cited the attacks to persuade Congress to authorize broad military action in Vietnam, but historians in recent years have concluded that the Aug. 4 attack never happened.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/world/asia/15vietnam.html?ref=world

[Mastermind]

I read a great book on the history of Vietnam, called appropriately, "Vietnam" by Stanley Karnow. He has an excellent chapter devoted to the gulf of T. incident and pretty much shows it to be nothing but a very crudly slapped together sham designed to give johnson an excuse to send in the Marines. Although Karnow does not come right out and say the congress and the American public were spoofed over the whole thing, his excellently researched citation of the events, which even at the time were pretty well discernable, gives no doubt what-so-ever the event was staged.

It is bad enough a President had to resort to such foolishness and recklessness....but, what made it worse is that the media played along. Facts on the incident were readily available to anyone who might have done the smallest of investigations. Yet, the media were all too ready to join in the charade. I also blame congress for allowing such a thing, since several Senators and Congressmen were not fooled at all by the adventure...they almost certainly were privy to the details and some probably were involved in more than an indirect way. Yet, they joined in the scam and allowed the escalation of the war to proceed even though they had to have known the whole premise for U.S. involvement was false.

Vietnam was one of the most corrupt eras in American history. That Johnson and his cronies (or vicitims...as many cases may be) got away with his lies and deceit is shameful....it resulted in massive disaster for millions of lives and litterally ruined the repuation of the United States. I am one of those wounded Vietnam vets who quite honestly hopes LBJ and some select others (McNamara for one) are rotting in flaming hell.

[Mordoror]

Declassified records Show Doubts on ’64 Vietnam Crisis


this is an open secret isn't it ?

(PS : this is a serious question. There has been a long time since a lot of concordant sources and corridor hearing highly suspected that the Tonkin incident was either grossly exagerated or even built up/stagged)

[camerashy]

I read a great book on the history of Vietnam, called appropriately, "Vietnam" by Stanley Karnow. He has an excellent chapter devoted to the gulf of T. incident and pretty much shows it to be nothing but a very crudly slapped together sham designed to give johnson an excuse to send in the Marines.
I'm going to check that one out...been reading a lot of Vietnam memoirs recently.
According to Amazon the book is called Vietnam: A History, in case anyone else is interested.

[Winger]

I'm going to check that one out...been reading a lot of Vietnam memoirs recently.
According to Amazon the book is called Vietnam: A History, in case anyone else is interested.

That was required reading for our History of Vietnam course at Maritime. With what little I know about Vietnam I can say that I agree with what Mastermind has said regarding Tonkin.

[Atlantic Friend]

Karnow's book is indeed a great one about that conflict. I remember reading it in high school, and it's high on my "to-get" list everytime I cruise the "History" section of a bookstore.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident certainly looks like a convenient casus belli at a time the Johnson Administration wanted to get involved. It also showed how easy it is to whip up patriotic fervor in a democracy, either by creating incidents almost out of the blue, or by provoking them.

[JJHH]

It is bad enough a President had to resort to such foolishness and recklessness....but, what made it worse is that the media played along. Facts on the incident were readily available to anyone who might have done the smallest of investigations. Yet, the media were all too ready to join in the charade. I also blame congress for allowing such a thing, since several Senators and Congressmen were not fooled at all by the adventure...they almost certainly were privy to the details and some probably were involved in more than an indirect way. Yet, they joined in the scam and allowed the escalation of the war to proceed even though they had to have known the whole premise for U.S. involvement was false.

Good to hear this from a Vietnam veteran..

[ferguson]

I always wonder why Johnson gets all the blame.
VN was handed to him as an ongoing affair.

There is some additional stuff on Tonkin involving NV response to some SV commando operations which I thought were public by now.

I still believe that a line in the and had been drawn in the early days reference the blossoming of Communism in Asia.

Our involvement in VN never reached our goal of turning the fight over to the South Viets.

I'm not sure where the failure there can be blamed.

[Mastermind]

I always wonder why Johnson gets all the blame.
VN was handed to him as an ongoing affair.

There is some additional stuff on Tonkin involving NV response to some SV commando operations which I thought were public by now.

I still believe that a line in the and had been drawn in the early days reference the blossoming of Communism in Asia.

Our involvement in VN never reached our goal of turning the fight over to the South Viets.

I'm not sure where the failure there can be blamed.

Johnson gets the blame for the escalation...sending in regular US forces en mass. Johnson had the opportunity to back out or to not escalate the war. The trouble we now know and Johnson knew at the time, how corrupt the South VN government was at the time. It was basically a family owned business that operated on bribes, lies and nepotism...and petty war lords disguising themselves as ARVN Generals. The US ambassador was giving regular reports on the SVN governmental situation ...along with the CIA. The USA decided to simply murder the sitting president and his brother ...an act that was given formal approval from the white house and from the US ambassador. On this, there is not a doubt. So, it comes to mind that if a sitting US President has to stoop so low as to commit murder in order to go on with "saving" a nation, is that nation worth saving? Both Johnson and Nixon had ample opportunity to make moral decisions. Yet, they did not. They chose thuggery and the easy paths to accomplish their goals. Although, they all, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, failed to accept a proper assessment of the enemy forces and determination.

It has been suggested Kennedy was actually leaning toward withdrawal of American assistance to SVN due to the impenetrable corruptions of the government there. Kennedy was trying to wait until after the election to do it since the withdrawal could have been perceived to be soft on communism by his political opponents, a tag no pol wanted on their chest in those days. Johnson was not at all thinking like that. He saw the war as a business opportunity, being heavily influenced by Litton Industries, a corporation partially created by Robert S. MacNamara. His band of "Whiz Kids" came through contacts in LI or LI subsidiaries.

It is all far too complex to delve too deeply into here. But, I can assure you, if you study the material about the inner workings of the US gvt in that era, you will find some astounding things that will give insight into how wrong things come about through seemingly good intentions...and how politicians can deceive the entire population to achieve their own versions of "success' and they don't give a damn about the tax payers money or the lives of their sons and daughters.

[timetraveller]

^^^ Didn't JFK refuse to send in any troops period and troops were only sent after his untimely death


And if JFK he had seen out his term/s I believe there would not be any US forces in Vietnam

[ferguson]

I'm not near as ignorant as you assume.
I still believe in the line in the sand-red tide-domino theories of the early days,

Communismm had risen as a major force post WW2 and the west was justifiably nervous.
China and Russia were devoured, Korea was a significant stalemate and the French had thrown in the towell, even though we were paying for 80% of their involvement.
The dragon had also raised its head in other areas.
The decision was made that a stance had to be taken.

As an advisor, I was indoctrinated to believe our mission was to train, equip and motivate the South Viets to be able to taqke over and conduct their own war.

This failed for many of the reasons you allude to.
Business and politics trumped.

Kennedy was no good guy and not to be trusted after his anandonment of the Bay of Pigs warriors on the battlefield.
There were a few of them in SF and they were not happy with that man.

I believe if we had not spent the time we did in VN that communism would have taken a firmer hold and continued to develop.
I believe the Soviet Union would still be in business.

But then we all believe something.
My personal regrets involve abandoning the Hmong and Montagnards.

[Hollis]

I think I understand MM, but agree LBJ was not to blame. Viet-Nam killed him. LBJ wanted the Great Society, building a American where every child had a great education. He inherited the war and well, his advisers led him to hell.

A lot of the perceptions of the war is based on propaganda and myths. It was a battle in the Cold War that needed to be fought, but we had some very poor people advising LBJ.

There were more than the Hmong and Montagnards that were abandoned.

[HK in AK]

The activities of Henry Kissinger in this whole mess is often overlooked.......What did Karnow say about Kissinger.

[Mastermind]

The activities of Henry Kissinger in this whole mess is often overlooked.......What did Karnow say about Kissinger.

Kissenger is a major player in the book, but, mainly as a shrewd advisor and a hawk. In fact, after the Kent state disaster, four of Kissinger's aids resigned and advised him to do the same. Kissinger was an academic, deeply repsected within the univerity elite. Yet, after kent state, his old firends and associates shunned him, leaving him very depressed over the situation. But, his loyalty to the troops, the situation in Vietnam and Nixon's almost child like dependency on him, made him soldier on. Also, leDuc Tho, the North vietnamese negotiator deeply respected Kissinger and trusted him. There was no one else int eh Nixon administration who could fill Kissinger's shoes at the negotiation table...also, the Chines and the russians had a good working rleationship with him, leaving him almost indespensible to the other important issues on Nixon's agenda, which, if we recall, included opening up China. Karnow essentially seems to revere Kissinger as one of the few who were using any sense at all. For example, when McNamra began to unilaterally cease the bombing of NV, and began stopping troop build-up in the south, Kissinger secretely worked behind the scenes to marshall forces within teh Pentagon to help stop that nonsense, which was happening at a critial time during the negotiation. If the North found out that McNamra was going to singlehandedly sell out the south, they would immediately toughen up their demands and could also begin initiating battlefield efforts to encourage McNamara and to embarrass US forces. Kissinger mananged to keep things flowing at criitcal time, even working out the slowing of supplies from Russia at critical times probably saving a great many American lives. His strategic influences on the war were probably a positive, if the US were to go on toward a win. But, when it finally became apparent the Democra congress was going to pull the plug, Kissinger's efforts would seem to have only prolonged the inevitable, especially after Lom Nol of Cambodia began begging for help against the insurgent communist forces...the expansion fo the war into areas the US was just not prepared to go decided the issue.

Of course, the real villians of the war, McNamara, the corrupt Diem and Nuh and their disgusting assisination at the hands of rebel officers supported by the CIA and the US Ambassador's approval gave a stink to the effort that was always overshadowing and even defeating the altruism of the United States people. It did not seem to matter who ran the government of South Vietnam. It remained to it's very end a criminal enterprise that was just too selfish and corrupt to survive and certainly did not deserve the massive amounts of American blood and treasure spent to prop it up over the course of the war.

Kissinger is the loyal intellectual doing just aobut everything legally possible to support the United states effort, four presidents be-damned...he served in three administration in some degree or another trying to get them to make logical, senible decisions. But, politics, emotion, corruption, and uncontrollable rage were the effective motivations that controlled the Vietnam disaster from beginning to end.

[sgt_G]

Johnson gets the blame for the escalation...sending in regular US forces en mass. Johnson had the opportunity to back out or to not escalate the war. The trouble we now know and Johnson knew at the time, how corrupt the South VN government was at the time. It was basically a family owned business that operated on bribes, lies and nepotism...and petty war lords disguising themselves as ARVN Generals. The US ambassador was giving regular reports on the SVN governmental situation ...along with the CIA. The USA decided to simply murder the sitting president and his brother ...an act that was given formal approval from the white house and from the US ambassador. On this, there is not a doubt. So, it comes to mind that if a sitting US President has to stoop so low as to commit murder in order to go on with "saving" a nation, is that nation worth saving? Both Johnson and Nixon had ample opportunity to make moral decisions. Yet, they did not. They chose thuggery and the easy paths to accomplish their goals. Although, they all, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, failed to accept a proper assessment of the enemy forces and determination.

It has been suggested Kennedy was actually leaning toward withdrawal of American assistance to SVN due to the impenetrable corruptions of the government there. Kennedy was trying to wait until after the election to do it since the withdrawal could have been perceived to be soft on communism by his political opponents, a tag no pol wanted on their chest in those days. Johnson was not at all thinking like that. He saw the war as a business opportunity, being heavily influenced by Litton Industries, a corporation partially created by Robert S. MacNamara. His band of "Whiz Kids" came through contacts in LI or LI subsidiaries.

It is all far too complex to delve too deeply into here. But, I can assure you, if you study the material about the inner workings of the US gvt in that era, you will find some astounding things that will give insight into how wrong things come about through seemingly good intentions...and how politicians can deceive the entire population to achieve their own versions of "success' and they don't give a damn about the tax payers money or the lives of their sons and daughters.


Kissenger is a major player in the book, but, mainly as a shrewd advisor and a hawk. In fact, after the Kent state disaster, four of Kissinger's aids resigned and advised him to do the same. Kissinger was an academic, deeply repsected within the univerity elite. Yet, after kent state, his old firends and associates shunned him, leaving him very depressed over the situation. But, his loyalty to the troops, the situation in Vietnam and Nixon's almost child like dependency on him, made him soldier on. Also, leDuc Tho, the North vietnamese negotiator deeply respected Kissinger and trusted him. There was no one else int eh Nixon administration who could fill Kissinger's shoes at the negotiation table...also, the Chines and the russians had a good working rleationship with him, leaving him almost indespensible to the other important issues on Nixon's agenda, which, if we recall, included opening up China. Karnow essentially seems to revere Kissinger as one of the few who were using any sense at all. For example, when McNamra began to unilaterally cease the bombing of NV, and began stopping troop build-up in the south, Kissinger secretely worked behind the scenes to marshall forces within teh Pentagon to help stop that nonsense, which was happening at a critial time during the negotiation. If the North found out that McNamra was going to singlehandedly sell out the south, they would immediately toughen up their demands and could also begin initiating battlefield efforts to encourage McNamara and to embarrass US forces. Kissinger mananged to keep things flowing at criitcal time, even working out the slowing of supplies from Russia at critical times probably saving a great many American lives. His strategic influences on the war were probably a positive, if the US were to go on toward a win. But, when it finally became apparent the Democra congress was going to pull the plug, Kissinger's efforts would seem to have only prolonged the inevitable, especially after Lom Nol of Cambodia began begging for help against the insurgent communist forces...the expansion fo the war into areas the US was just not prepared to go decided the issue.

Of course, the real villians of the war, McNamara, the corrupt Diem and Nuh and their disgusting assisination at the hands of rebel officers supported by the CIA and the US Ambassador's approval gave a stink to the effort that was always overshadowing and even defeating the altruism of the United States people. It did not seem to matter who ran the government of South Vietnam. It remained to it's very end a criminal enterprise that was just too selfish and corrupt to survive and certainly did not deserve the massive amounts of American blood and treasure spent to prop it up over the course of the war.

Kissinger is the loyal intellectual doing just aobut everything legally possible to support the United states effort, four presidents be-damned...he served in three administration in some degree or another trying to get them to make logical, senible decisions. But, politics, emotion, corruption, and uncontrollable rage were the effective motivations that controlled the Vietnam disaster from beginning to end.


funny as comparing to the modern conflicts it seems history is repeating itself...

just a humble observation

[REDCO_R.NEGRO]

MM, very good comments! Is the most of these info. on the book you told about?!
And the stuff really seems to repeat nowadays...

I believe if we had not spent the time we did in VN that communism would have taken a firmer hold and continued to develop.
I believe the Soviet Union would still be in business.

But then we all believe something.
My personal regrets involve abandoning the Hmong and Montagnards. I think if there was a Gorbachev and a Boris, the USSR was doomed... With or without scalation on VN.

[Connaught Ranger]

The activities of Henry Kissinger in this whole mess is often overlooked.......What did Karnow say about Kissinger.

Blame the juice?

[commanding]

funny as comparing to the modern conflicts it seems history is repeating itself...

just a humble observation
History....always repeats itself. That, my friend, is why Patton and many other brilliant military minds studied history.

[Jacknola]

Karnow's book, like most of his books, is very slanted toward a pre-ordained, hindsight political opinion. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was the end result of quite a number of incidents and while tied to that naval event, was nothing more than the catalyist for action that was one straw away from happening anyway.

First: The world cold war with the communists and the mortal threat to the West was the key to the decision to support the South Vietnamese directly in response to overt military attack from the North. You really need to see Vietnam in the context of everything in the time period, from the Berlin blockade, Communist victory in China, Korea, ICBMs and nuclear threats, Cuba, Berlin Wall, Sakarno in Indonesia, the Malay insurrection, Greece gurriella war, Truman doctrine, Laos, The Congo, etc.

Second: Two far better little books are available on Vietnam which deal with the two most important subjects... the military campaigns and the underlying failure of the strategy adopted by the allies. Summons of the Trumpet by Palmer, and On Strategy by Summers. These detail the military history of the V-war and McNamera's confusion about the use of military force.

Furthermore, I personally am sick of hearing one particular thing... that is heaping blame on the people who resisted open military aggression by a totalitarian idiology ... for the casualties that resulted from that resistence. That is not only foolish but rediculous.

Third... the Viet war could have been won, just as Korea was "won." That means forceably containing the efforts of the North Vietnamese and the communists to impose their rule on S.E.Asia. That the tactical aim of the allies ulitmately failed in Indo-China was because of mistaken military strategy imposed by Johnson and McNamera based on a political misconception about the war.

However, it now can reprospectively seen that the 10 year holding action in Indo-China did allow the remainder of S.E.Asia countries to gain a surer footing, rid Indonesia of Sukarno and his communist rule, etc. And by knocking most of the teeth out of the NVA the V-war played a role in the ulitmate victory of the West in the "cold-hot war."

By the way... the issue of the start of the war to rid the world of Saddam seems to the subject to the same propaganda and mis-information as was the war in Vietnam. Saddam brought the war on himself, murdering, attacking every country in the region, using all and any weapons from poison gas to environmental terror, including two and possibly three attempts to develop nuclear weapons over two decades. His forces were increasingly shooting at American planes enforcing the no-fly zones. He ignored 9 separate UN resolutions, playing games with the UN inspectors when they were finally allowed in, and he refused multiple ultimatums spread over a three month period.

The debate in the US Congress was really not about WMD at all... they were barely mentioned ... and the final vote and declaration of war was just the last step tied to the Bush doctrine. There was little choice when our military was finally sent in after 9 months of waiting. We could not sustain that force level in the Gulf much longer.

I cannot understand the people who bemoan the demise of Saddam Hussain and his sons. What the world would look like today with that bunch of sadist still holding the geopolitical epi-center of the Arab world is frightening to contemplate.

[Jacknola]

^^^ Didn't JFK refuse to send in any troops period and troops were only sent after his untimely death

And if JFK he had seen out his term/s I believe there would not be any US forces in Vietnam

Wrong. JFK committed the Special Forces early in his term, first in Laos and then in Vietnam. Read his innagaration address to understand how committed to resistence to the communists expansion he was. When he was assassinated, almost 30,000 US troops were in Vietnam and more undercover in Laos, plus a brigade of Marines in Thailand.

Furthermore on his watch the Berlin wall was built, Cuba missle crisis etc., were tests that did not help him in the view and mood of the American people at the time. You must understand that the people had a far different idea about the need to confront communism (read the Gulag if you need to refresh your memorey just how evil and threatening it was) than existed in the 1970s. The "space race" was only one indication of the competitive mood of the US.

Many people seem to believe the "anti-war" (actually pro-NVA) movement defined the mood of the country during the war. In 1965 there was no "anti-war" movement, no hippies, no waving VC flags, no demonstrations. The idea of dodging military service did not exist... and if someone did avoid service, he was in serious trouble explaining it. Geeezzzz Elvis Presley served and when Mohamad Ali refuese to serve, it was a scandel and he was black-listed even in the NAACP establishment.

The mood of the country was to fight. Johnson committed regular US forces in 1965 only after the NVA launched a potentially war-winning intervention after the RVN was getting the upper hand in 1964.


The activities of Henry Kissinger in this whole mess is often overlooked.......What did Karnow say about Kissinger.

Cm'on... get real. Kissinger was a professor at Harvard until 1969. He was best known for his book "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy" until Nixon tapped him for National Security Advisor in 1969. In case you have forgotten, that is long after the regular ground war reach a crescendo at Tet.

Perhaps this will help ... if Kennedy had not been assassinated and had failed to defend RVN, he would have been defeated in 1964 or impeached... that was the overwhelming mood of the country at that time. Hard to believe today after 40 years of inellectual opposition to US policy has become so entrenched that it is a fact in any US military action. That did not exist anywhere in 1965.


At least get the basic facts right. I can stand debate on the meaning of facts... but to not even have a knowledge what happened, and then attempt to apply world viewpoints from 1970-2010 and assume those views were existent in 1965 is to just ignore the truth. Hummmmmm

[Jurinko]

If US were ready to apply the tactics of communism containment, you would have once stepped in whether Tonkin or not. Or would US just watch and in case of massive Northern invasion, pull out its troops?

[Jacknola]

If US were ready to apply the tactics of communism containment, you would have once stepped in whether Tonkin or not. Or would US just watch and in case of massive Northern invasion, pull out its troops?

Not sure I completely understand the question... but... the US did intervene with regular ground troops in response to a massive NVA invasion in 1965 - that NVA invasion was blunted in the Ia Drang valley campaign.

The Viet war was always a consequence of NV aggression, the early SVN communist (VC) elements being mostly support and cover for the North's efforts. From 1965 to 1975, the NVA launched at least 7 major direct invasions from their occupied territories in Laos and Cambodia. Only the last one suceeded.

The major strategic error made by Johnson and McNamera was the failure to understand the essentially military nature of the war. Instead, McNamara and his "whiz kids" (system analysis) and a lot of semi-hostility and contempt for the military and pretty much ignored their advice. Relying on McNamara, Johnson (neither had any experience in the miltary) was obsessed by (1) belief that the war could be won by COIN and hearts-and-minds operations; (2) a belief in the rationality of war .... ie the NV would "listen to reason" if the war was slowly racheted up instead of conducted with terminal violence.

McNamara was reported to have said that he didn't understand why the NV continued with the war against all the incentives for peace offered by the US. He was a man spectacularly ill-equiped to be Sec. of Defense during war-time. Mcs true folly was in the failure to appreciate who was better equiped to withstand a war of attrition which became the default strategy when he rejected most other alternatives ... a dictatorship-led North Vietnam or a demorcratic U.S.?

The winning strategy for the allies would have been to pursue a "Korea" solution... a stalemated line from the South China Sea to the Mekong. This would not have risked Chinese intervention and the line would have been much easier to defend than the impossible 1,000 mile long border with Laos and Cambodia sanctuaries.

The occupation and organization of the line would have allowed the quick clean-up of the regular NVA forces south of it. The VC were largely spent after Tet and were already being finished off by Delta, and Phoenix programs.

This is why NVA reacted so dramatically throwing three full divisions against the brigade sized RVN attack Lon Som 719. They recognized the decisive nature of that threat. Unfortunately that thrust came too late with too little force. Just prior to it, the US Congress, led by anti-war Democrat, interferred in active military operations banning US troops from participation.

The US political leadership did not understand the importance of the purely military side of the war ... and to this day,one of the great keys to the success of the North communists was the sucessful desimination of mis-information characterizing the war as a "nationalist insurgency." A great many people seem to believe it today.