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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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 Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:37 am Post subject: Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam |
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| Quote: | Tonkin Gulf Intelligence "Skewed"
According to Official History and Intercepts
Newly Declassified National Security Agency Documents Show Analysts Made "SIGINT fit the claim" of North Vietnamese Attack
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 132 - Update
Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam
Washington, D.C., 1 December 2005 - The largest U.S. intelligence agency, the National Security Agency, today declassified over 140 formerly top secret documents -- histories, chronologies, signals intelligence [SIGINT] reports, and oral history interviews -- on the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. Included in the release is a controversial article by Agency historian Robert J. Hanyok on SIGINT and the Tonkin Gulf which confirms what historians have long argued: that there was no second attack on U.S. ships in Tonkin on August 4, 1964. According to National Security Archive research fellow John Prados, "the American people have long deserved to know the full truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The National Security Agency is to be commended for releasing this piece of the puzzle. The parallels between the faulty intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq War make it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the events of August 1964 in light of new evidence." Last year, Prados edited a National Security Archive briefing book which published for the first time some of the key intercepts from the Gulf of Tonkin crisis.
The National Security Agency has long resisted the declassification of material on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, despite efforts by Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer Carl Marcy (who had prepared a staff study on the August 4 incident); former Deputy Director Louis Tordella, and John Prados to push for declassification of key documents. Today's release is largely due to the perseverance of FOIA requester Matthew M. Aid, who requested the Hanyok study in April 2004 and brought the issue to the attention of The New York Times when he learned that senior National Security Agency officials were trying to block release of the documents. New York Times reporter Scott Shane wrote that higher-level officials at the NSA were "fearful that [declassification] might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with the flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq." The glaring light of publicity encouraged the Agency's leaders finally to approve declassification of the documents.
Hanyok's article, "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964," originally published in the National Security Agency's classified journal Cryptologic Quarterly in early 2001, provides a comprehensive SIGINT-based account "of what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin." Using this evidence, Hanyok argues that the SIGINT confirms that North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a U.S. destroyer, the USS Maddox, on August 2, 1964, although under questionable circumstances. The SIGINT also shows, according to Hanyok, that a second attack, on August 4, 1964, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on U.S. ships, did not occur despite claims to the contrary by the Johnson administration. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara treated Agency SIGINT reports as vital evidence of a second attack and used this claim to support retaliatory air strikes and to buttress the administration's request for a Congressional resolution that would give the White House freedom of action in Vietnam.
Hanyok further argues that Agency officials had "mishandled" SIGINT concerning the events of August 4 and provided top level officials with "skewed" intelligence supporting claims of an August 4 attack. "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack occurred." Key pieces of evidence are missing from the Agency's archives, such as the original decrypted Vietnamese text of a document that played an important role in the White House's case. Hanyok has not found a "smoking gun" to demonstrate a cover-up but believes that the evidence suggests "an active effort to make SIGINT fit the claim of what happened during the evening of 4 August in the Gulf of Tonkin." Senior officials at the Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House were none the wiser about the gaps in the intelligence. Hanyok's conclusions have sparked controversy among old Agency hands but his research confirms the insight of journalist I.F. Stone, who questioned the second attack only weeks after the events. Hanyok's article is part of a larger study on the National Security Agency and the Vietnam War, "Spartans in Darkness," which is the subject of a pending FOIA request by the National Security Archive. |
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rbshirley
Founder
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 394
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| Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 5:42 pm Post subject: Re: Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam |
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| Quote: | The parallels between the faulty intelligence on the Tonkin Gulf
and the manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq
War make it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the events
of August 1964 in light of new evidence |
Notice how easily these words roll off the tongues of liberal "cut and run" anti-war attackers
Guilt by association: LBJ manipulated Tonkin, ergo Bush must have manipulated Iraq. There
has yet to be any substantial evidence that the Bush administration manipulated anything
associated with the Iraq war. But just like "swiftboating" is being cast as a pejorative by
repetative use in that context, "Bush lied" and "Bring the troops home now" are being
repeated again & again in the hopes that they will somehow become perceived as "truths"
and will never be exposed as the political propoganda which they are.
Goebbels would be proud of these spinmeisters.
This is all part of the "smoke and mirrors" designed to promote erroneous lessons learned from
Vietnam. The John Kerrys and Howard Deans of this world would have you believe that because
we went to war in Vietnam in 64 (during a Democratic admistration) for faulty and manipulated
reasons, that it was the correct and honorable course of action for the US to pull out of that
war unilaterally. And that history demands that we do the same in Iraq for the same reasons.
They want you disregard that both Vietnam and Iraq are only battles in a much larger conflict
The real lesson of Vietnam and its relationship to Iraq are much much starker and tragic
than this charade practiced for political advantage only. The parallels between the killing
fields outside of Baghdad and those in South East Asia make it all the more worthwhile
to re-examine the real effects of a unilateral pull out from Iraq, whether immediate or not.
Is it the sensible, honorable and humane action of a nation that was committed to the
ideal of carrying the torch of freedom by the real JFK to abandon our allies to suffer
grave consequences, and even genocide, in order to increase the chances of winning
an election here at home?
The liberal wing of the Democratic Party wants you believe that, and BTW, vote for them
Those of us that lived through the horrors of such policies in the 1970's cry out for
unilateral action to put a stop to this travesty by greedy and dishonest politicians
....................  ..........................
... "Graduates" of the South East Asia "Cut-and-Run Re-education Institutes" ...
------------ Can we allow this to happen again in the Middle East? -----------------
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Last edited by rbshirley on Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:15 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DADESID
Seaman
Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Posts: 157
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| Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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>>>Using this evidence, Hanyok argues that the SIGINT confirms that North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a U.S. destroyer, the USS Maddox, on August 2, 1964, although under questionable circumstances.<<<
What in hell does this mean??
Who ever heard of having to have TWO attacks on your ships before you could retaliate?
There is a lot more confirmation of the 2 August attacks than just "SIGINT":
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/dd731-k.htm |
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Anker-Klanker
Admiral
Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1033
Location: Richardson, TX
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| Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:00 am Post subject: |
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There is a lot of BS and very subtle spin in this article - apparently written by someone who is heavily biased against the war in Iraq.
I was aboard one of the three first ships to re-enter the Gulf of Tonkin after the Tonkin Gulf Incident. One of my very good friends was in CIC of the Turner Joy the night of the second incident, and a couple of months later my friend & I discussed the events of that night (4 Aug) over a beer at Subic.
The first attack - August 2nd - was very real, and there are even photographs to prove it. Very significantly, the attack occurred in daylight.
The second "attack" - August 4th - was at night. I don't think anything has been produced that proves it didn't happen, but the evidence strongly suggests that the tension caused by the first attack and a radar phenomenon not widely known (see below) were the most likely explanation for the second "attack."
Most EMPHATICALLY, the second "attack" on 4 August 1964 WAS NOT the result of faulty intelligence, and I fail to see how it can have any parallel with Iraq (except in the mind of a person predisposed to make it so.)
The second "attack" was almost certainly the result of not recognizing what we later came to recognize as a very weird radar phenomenon called "spooks" or "ghosts." About a year after the Tonkin Gulf Incident I was OOD on a DLG (later "cruiser") at night. CIC informed us that there were 8 surface search radar contacts, first detected at about 12 miles (appoximately the range that a PT-like boat would first appear) closing us in line-abreast formation, with a closing speed of about 35-40 kts. The sea surface was perfectly calm, and there was a bright moon that night, such that after you had gotten your night vision you could look across the water and see almost as well as you could at dusk. These contacts continued to close in on us in "attack formation" until they split - four going closely down our port side and four going down our starboard side. NOTHING! But they continued to track solidly outbound until they disappeared over the radar horizon.
What we witnessed that night and subsequent nights (it always seemed to be a night time phenomenon) is beyond me to explain. (There were other, similar, but also different phenomenon that we observed, but that's another story.) But I strongly suspect from my friend's account, and what I witnessed myself over 3 full deployments, was what the Maddox and Turner Joy encountered the night of 4 August 1964. The difference in our reactions is our later understanding of these phenomena (at least that they occurred), and the relative inexperience of the Maddox and Turner Joy crews in encountering them.
So in the final analysis IMHO the second Tonkin Gulf Incident has to be chalked up to one of those "fog of war" things. (And incidentally, if the people on the scene did not know about these radar "ghosts," then it is certain that the people back in Washington knew even less about them.)
Last edited by Anker-Klanker on Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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| Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:05 am Post subject: |
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The ironic thing here is that LBJ was a Democrat. If he was a Republican, this would have made the front page of the NYT every single day.
The reason I posted the story was more for the historical documents that were released which are now open for examination.
SBD |
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I B Squidly
Vice Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 879
Location: Cactus Patch
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| Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:09 am Post subject: |
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SBD,
It was in the NYT every day. It said Goldwater was a war monger who would expand the war. LBJ had his deployment plans in place for after the election.
AnkerKlanker,
My faith (or lack thereof) in radar was firmly set when the OSs in CIC called me in the signal shack asking to identify what it was their radars showed them to starboard. I pointed out to them we were in an all-hands evolution, unrepping from from the USS Constellation and I couldn't see through her. Another time two Taiwanese Fletcher destroyers caught us flatfooted when their guns locked on and woke up the ECM suite at 3000 yards; about the same time they visually broke through the glare of a setting sun.
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dusty
Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 1264
Location: East Texas
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:31 am Post subject: |
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Who ever heard of having to have TWO attacks on your ships before you could retaliate? |
Seems that small point has gone unnoticed in the rush to spin an agenda point and propagate another deception.
This sort of logic leads me to believe we must be dealing with complete idiots.
Well said RB.
Dusty
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