Maddox suffered only minor damage from a single 14.5mm bullet from a P-4's KPV heavy machine gun into her superstructure. [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]. According to his New York Times obit, the elder Morrison "commanded American naval forces in the gulf [of Tonkin] when the destroyer Maddox engaged three North Vietnamese torpedo boats on Aug. 2, 1964. "[66], Hanyok included his study of Tonkin Gulf as one chapter in an overall history of NSA involvement and American SIGINT, in the Indochina Wars. 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. Tonkin definition, a former state in northern French Indochina, now part of Vietnam. What was happening at the time were aggressive South Vietnamese raids against the North in the same general area. It was no surprise that when two Persian Gulf oil tankers were attacked last Thursday, "Gulf of Tonkin" immediately spiked on Google, while right-wing sites played up claims of a false flag attack. After learning about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, check out these photos from the anti-Vietnam War movement. But once-classified documents and tapes released in the past several years, combined with previously uncovered facts, make clear that high government officials, including the then US President Lyndon Johnson, distorted facts, lied and deceived the American public about the events that led to full US involvement in the Vietnam War. As Hanyok put it, The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred.. In fact the Maddoxs captain, John J. Herrick sent an urgent message to Pacific Command in Honolulu saying that the Maddox and C. Turner Joy had never been attacked: "No actual visual sightings by MADDOX. At the end of July 1964, the USS Maddox was sent to patrol the waters off the North Vietnamese coastline in the Gulf of Tonkin. Polmar, Norman "The U. S. Navy Electronic Warfare (Part 1)", OAH Magazine of History, fall 1992. As the evening progressed, further signals intelligence (SIGINT) did not support any such ambush, but the NSA personnel were apparently so convinced of an attack that they ignored the 90% of SIGINT that did not support that conclusion, and that was also excluded from any reports they produced for the consumption by the president. This release includes a variety of articles, chronologies of events, oral history interviews, signals intelligence (SIGINT) reports and translations, and other related memoranda. North Vietnam did not adhere to an 8-kilometer (5mi) limit for its territorial waters; instead it adhered to a 20-kilometer (12mi) limit claimed by French Indochina in 1936. Gulf of Tonkin incident. On August 2, 1964 the USS Maddox was on DEOSTO Patrol in international waters off North Vietnam. [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. 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. "[43] Morse's efforts were not immediately met with support, largely because he revealed no sources and was working with very limited information. [26] Four USN F-8 Crusader jets launched from Ticonderoga and 15 minutes after Maddox had fired her initial warning shots, attacked the retiring P-4s,[5] claiming one was sunk and one heavily damaged. In addition, many nations had previously carried out similar missions all over the world, and the destroyer USSJohn R. Craig had earlier conducted an intelligence-gathering mission in similar circumstances without incident. 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. [44] Various news sources, including Time, Life and Newsweek, published articles throughout August on the Tonkin Gulf incident. Tapes included in this release of documents also reveal President Johnson saying, Hell, those damn, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish.. Memorandum for Mr. J. Fred Buzhardt, General Counsel OSD from Vice Admiral Noel Gayler, Subj: Request from Senator Fulbright, Memorandum for the Record, Subj: Church Committee Interest in Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Memorandum for the Record; Subj: Interview with Mr. Arthur McCafferty, White House Staff, Commercial Solutions for Classified Material (CSFC), Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil. According to National Security Archive research fellow John Prados, "the American people have long . What the Maddox operators were probably hearing was the ships propellers reflecting off its rudder during sharp turns. There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." fact that several Senators knew that the White House and the Pentagon had deceived the American people over the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. [47] George Ball stated that the mission of the destroyer warship involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident "was primarily for provocation. This time their orders indicated that the ships were to close to no less than 11 miles (18km) from the coast of North Vietnam. By the end of July, they were tracking the USS Maddox, which was stationed in international waters just a few miles outside of Hn M Island in the Gulf of Tonkin. [47], By early afternoon of August 4, Washington time, Herrick had reported to the Commander in Chief Pacific in Honolulu that "freak weather effects" on the ship's radar had made such an attack questionable. [46], The use of the set of incidents as a pretext for escalation of U.S. involvement followed the issuance of public threats against North Vietnam, as well as calls from American politicians in favor of escalating the war. They stepped up sabotage and hit-and-run attacks on the coast of North Vietnam." This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first. History of American False Flag Operations . L. Paul Epley/National ArchivesTwo soldiers next to a fallen man during the Vietnam War. Two soldiers next to a fallen man during the Vietnam War. One soldier, Peter Lemon, even managed to earn a Medal of Honor while stoned out of his mind. [5] As the ships approached from the southwest, Maddox changed course from northeasterly to southeasterly and increased speed to 25 knots.[5]. Some of the most horrible Vietnam War facts . [52] As a result of his testimony, on August 7, Congress passed a joint resolution (H.J. Viet Minh political cadres, who were legally campaigning for the promised elections between 1955 and 1957, were suppressed by the government. 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. But false flags are a very real and very present feature of geopolitics and denying that is simply denying reality. Port Arthur, AUS, .all very real illusions. 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. [5] In this context, on July 31, Maddox began patrols of the North Vietnamese coast to collect intelligence, coming within a few miles of Hn M island. 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,. 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. [13] In March 1956, the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956. Debunking the myths and propaganda behind 'D-Day'. President Lyndon Johnson had deliberately lied and misled the American public into the Vietnam War when he used the justification of the non existent 4th of August attack on the "Maddox" and "Turner". They showed that there was no attack on August 4. Domestically speaking, a large-scale false flag such as . . Johnson dispatched U.S. planes against the attackers and asked Congress to pass a resolution to . USS Liberty. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. All 18 of the witnesses testified at a hearing in Olongapo, Philippines, and their testimony is a matter of public record. For example, some of the signals intercepted during those August evenings were falsified, while others were altered to show different time receipts. The next day, the USS Maddox once again resumed its normal patrol, this time alongside another U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. 1964 naval confrontation between North Vietnam and the United States, Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1964. In 1967, former naval officer John White wrote a letter to the editor of the New Haven (CT) Register. Gulf of Tonkin confirmed as False Flag Reprehensor Wed, 01/09/2008 - 11:51am Daniel Ellsberg Gulf of Tonkin Strait of Hormuz (For anyone still harboring doubts about the status of the Gulf of Tonkin incident as an example of a False Flag event, a report made public by the NSA clears it up. 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.. Theyd disappear, only to reappear seconds or minutes later in a completely different location. Although the Johnson administration knew that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was, in fact, no incident at all, they still made the executive decision to distort the events in their favor. 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. Indeed, this concept is so well-accepted that rules of engagement for naval, air and land warfare all prohibit false flag attacks. The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964, a definitive study of the events in the gulf, including the manipulation of signals intelligence. Despite this, he led a strike of 18 aircraft against an oil storage facility located just inland of where the alleged Gulf of Tonkin incident had occurred. [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. The Gulf of Tonkin incident: the false flag operation that started the Vietnam war. [16]:26 The rebellion, headed by the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, or Viet Cong) under the direction of North Vietnam, had intensified by 1961. U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage CommandThree North Vietnamese torpedo boats approaching the USS Maddox. No further details were forthcoming. 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. The outcome of the incident was the passage by U.S. Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression". But he did not immediately call Johnson to tell him that the whole premise of his decision at lunch to approve McNamara's recommendation for retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam was highly questionable. 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. As Commander James Stockdale, one of the pilots at the Gulf of Tonkin incident, later said, I had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets there were no PT boats therenothing there but black water and American firepower.. Stanislav Petrov, the man who stopped a USSR - US nuclear war by doing nothing. [24] On July 31, 1964, Maddox had begun her mission in the Gulf of Tonkin. There were no U.S. According to Edwin Mose, the Hanoi government (which, unlike the U.S. government, had to give permission at the highest levels for the conduct of such missions) probably assumed that they were all a coordinated effort to escalate military actions against North Vietnam. [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. on the platform of Responsibility to Protect similar to the Gulf of Tonkin. He later said he was concerned that his captors would eventually force him to reveal what he knew about the second incident. The Gulf of TonkiMonday, May 31, 2010 n Incident, in 1964, was a major turning point in US military involvement in Vietnam. As the torpedo boats neared, Maddox fired three warning shots. [34], In the face of growing uncertainties over the course of the day regarding whether the attack had occurred, the Johnson administration ended up basing its conclusion that it had mostly on communications intercepts erroneously assessed to be North Vietnamese preparations to carry out an attack and a North Vietnamese after action report. Cecil Stoughton/U.S. [38], He emphasized commitment to both the American people, and the South Vietnamese government. The Cold War policy of containment was to be applied to prevent the fall of Southeast Asia to communism under the precepts of the domino theory. Yoichi Okamoto/U.S. As a result, planes from the aircraft carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation were sent to hit North Vietnamese torpedo boat bases and fuel facilities during Operation Pierce Arrow. The first incident took place on August 2, 1964, when the destroyerUSSMaddox, engaged three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats seen approaching the Maddox. [36][37] Johnson's speech repeated the theme that "dramatized Hanoi/Ho Chi Minh as the aggressor and which put the United States into a more acceptable defensive posture. . "[55] White continued his whistleblowing activities in the 1968 documentary In the Year of the Pig. "[33], McNamara later testified that he had read the message after his return to the Pentagon that afternoon. The conversation between President Lyndon B. Johnson andSecretary of State Robert McNamara in the video below starts at 1:14 minutes. In 1967, former naval officer John White, who had spoken to the men involved in the alleged attack on August 4, 1964, wrote a letter stating, I maintain that President Johnson, Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave false information to Congress in their report about U.S. destroyers being attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin.. involvement in Vietnam. No boats, he would later write, no boat wakes, no ricochets off boats, no boat impacts, no torpedo wakes nothing but black sea and American fire-power. False. The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: S kin Vnh Bc B) was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. False flags are real and have been used on many occasions to advance nations into war, change regimes or radically sway public opinion. [47] U.S. Stockdale at one point recounts seeing Turner Joy pointing her guns at Maddox. The Gulf of Tonkin incident is the name given to two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two allegedly unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy of the U.S. He also reminded Americans that there was no desire for war. Gulf of Tonkin - FalseFlag.info FalseFlag.info True Patriotism is questioning your government because you Love your country Home False Flags Nero Ft. Sumter USS Maine RMS Lusitania Reichstag Fire Pearl Harbor Operation Gladio Operation Paperclip Operation Northwoods Gulf of Tonkin U.S.S. [45] Time reported: "Through the darkness, from the West and south intruders boldly sped at least six of them they opened fire on the destroyers with automatic weapons, this time from as close as 2,000 yards. Martens Meyer, who was head of department at the military intelligence staff, operated on behalf of U.S. intelligence. Stockdale was always adamant that no attack ever occurred on August 4. But false flags are a very real and very present feature of geopolitics and denying that is simply denying reality. He revealed that 90 percent of the relevant intercepts, including those from the North Vietnamese, had been kept out the NSA's final . National Archives and Records Administration. Shortly after the attack was reported, President Johnson made his decision to retaliate. The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a "people's war" on the South at a session in January 1959,[15]:119120 and on July 28, North Vietnamese forces invaded Laos to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, in support of insurgents in the south. In fact, Herrick stated in a message sent at 1:27 pm Washington time that no North Vietnamese patrol boats had actually been sighted. Two well-known incidents in American history the explosion of the U.S.S. National Archives and Records AdministrationPresident Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara meet with Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky in Honolulu. On August 2, Capt. Oskar Schindler: how Hollywood turned a Nazi into a hero, Israel's former head of Space program says that Aliens exist and that they're among us, The secret truth about the Saddam Hussein - USA relationship, Ben & Jerrys are as 'woke' as they are hypocrites. From this point on, the American policy and programs would dominate the course of the Indochina.. The term is from old-timey naval warfare, where one ship flew a different nation's colors before attacking as a means to get closer to their target. 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. Hanyok attributed this to the deference that the NSA would have likely given to the analysts who were closer to the event. 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. [60], In 2014, as the incident's 50th anniversary approached, John White wrote The Gulf of Tonkin EventsFifty Years Later: A Footnote to the History of the Vietnam War. Suggest thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft. All subsequent Maddox torpedo reports are doubtful in that it is suspected that sonarman was hearing the ship's own propeller beat" [sic]. 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. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, also called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, resolution put before the U.S. Congress by Pres. 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). 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. An incredible 15 percent of American soldiers were addicted to heroin, while others were so desperate for escape that they ate C-4 explosives just to get high. Johnson had fended off proposals from McNamara and other advisers for a policy of bombing North Vietnam on four occasions since becoming president. [47], North Vietnam's General Gip suggested that the DESOTO patrol had been sent into the gulf to provoke North Vietnam into giving the U.S. an excuse for escalation of the war. Memorandum for Lt Gen Fitch from George C. Denney Jr. Graeme Shimmin Amateur military historian. ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! Liberty Waco Oklahoma City 9/11 London 7/7 Sandy Hook And while the Maddox remained in international waters, three North Vietnamese patrol boats began tracking the destroyer in early August. RES 1145), titled the Southeast Asia Resolution, which granted Johnson the authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without the benefit of a declaration of war. "[61] The story discusses Lt. White reading Admiral Stockdale's In Love and War[57] in the mid 1980s, then contacting Stockdale who connected White with Joseph Schaperjahn, chief sonarman on Turner Joy. Soon thereafter theGulf of Tonkin Resolutionwas approved by the U.S. Congress, which gave LBJ the go to initiate a war against North Vietnam. See more. In the case of the PRESUMED DEAD (BODY REMAINS RECOVERED) and PRESUMED DEAD (BODY REMAINS NOT RECOVERED) categories of the table, the record counts are based on the codes in both the CASUALTY CATEGORY and REMAINS RECOVERED fields. It covers everything.. Afraid of attackers, Captain Herrick sent flash messages to U.S. officials while desperately trying to move the ships out of harms way. The destroyer was ordered to fire warning shots if the enemy vessels closed within 10,000 yards. The LBJ Presidential tapes, declassified and released in 2001, prove that LBJ knew the Tonkin incident never happened, prior to the war. Florida, Texas, New Mexico and California were Spanish possessions that revolted for independence. Declassified documents reve. 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.. The US's National Security Agency then fabricated a second false flag attack two days later and the US subsequently passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress which led to the deployment of ground troops in what would become the calamitous debacle that was the Vietnam War. Later investigation revealed that the second attack never happened; the American claim is that it was based mostly on erroneously interpreted communications intercepts. [5], On August 3, 1964, destroyer USSTurner Joy joined Maddox and the two destroyers continued the DESOTO mission. Vietnam Gulf Of Tonkin False Flag Attack By US CIA In 1965 - Warmongering Military Industrial Complex Used Propaganda, Pro War Mass Media Coverage And Fake Outrage By US President In Order To Start Vietnamese War - All Wars Are Based On Fear, Hatred, Greed And War Profiteering - Hugh Thompson And My Lai Massacre 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. Updated: Aug 4, 2022 Did you know that the Gulf of Tonkin Bay incident that led the US to wage all out war on Vietnam was based on a false flag, or in other words, a lie? 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. As at least two millennia have proven, false flag operations, with healthy doses of propaganda and ignorance, provided a great recipe for endless war. There were 18 witnesses, both enlisted and officers, who reported various aspects of the attack; smoke from the stricken torpedo boat, torpedo wakes (reported by four individuals on each destroyer), sightings of the torpedo boats moving through the water and searchlights. Hannah McKennett is a Dublin-based freelance writer that is dedicated to traveling the world while writing about it. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further. [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. At the same time it gathered this intelligence, the South Vietnamese navy conducted strikes on multiple North Vietnamese islands. Lots of the 'nuts' sure . 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. 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 . [18] Johnson's views were likewise complex, but he had supported military escalation as a means of challenging what was perceived to be the Soviet Union's expansionist policies. 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. After decades of public skepticism and government secrecy, the truth finally came out: In the early 2000s, nearly 200 documents were declassified and released by the National Security Agency (NSA). [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. Recently released tapes and documents reveal the truth and lies of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and its resolution. The Gulf of Tonkin false flag operation actually happened. Commander James Bond Stockdale exiting his aircraft. 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. BRITISH RIOT PHOTOS: The Brits Finally Begin to Take Back Their PowerBIG TIME! [5] According to Hanyok, "it would be attacks on these islands, especially Hn M, by South Vietnamese commandos, along with the proximity of the Maddox, that would set off the confrontation", although the Maddox did not participate in the commando attacks.