spartans_in_darkness

TO~ SEe~ETHeOMII4Th'X 1
Chapter 5 - (U) Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish:
The Gulf ofTonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964
(Cl/S!) The Gulf of Tonkin incidents of 2 to 4
August 1964 have come to loom over the subsequent
American engagement in Indochina. The
incidents, principally the second one of 4 August,
led to the approval of the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution by the U.S. Congress, which handed
President Johnson the carte blanche charter he
had wanted for future intervention in Southeast
Asia. From this point on, the American policy and
programs would dominate the course of the
Indochina War. At the height of the American
involvement, over a half million U.S. soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and marines would be stationed
there. The war would spread across the border
into Cambodia and escalate in Laos. Thailand
assumed a greater importance as a base for supporting
the military effort, especially for the air
war, but also for SIGINT purposes of intercept
and direction finding.
(U) At the time, the Gulf of Tonkin incidents
of August were not quite so controversial.
According to the Johnson administration, the
issue of the attacks was pretty much cut and
dried. As the administration explained, our ships
had been in international waters - anywhere
from fifty to eighty miles from the DRV coastline
by some calculations, during the alleged second
attack - and were attacked twice, even though
they were innocent of any bellicose gestures
directed at North Vietnam. Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara had assured the Senate that
there had been no connection between what the
U.S. Navy was doing and any aggressive operations
by the South Vietnamese.' Washington
claimed that the United States had to defend itself
and guarantee freedom of navigation on the high
seas.
(U) However, within the government, the
events of 4 August were never that clear. Even as
the last tlare fizzled in the dark waters of the
South China Sea on that August night, there were
conflicting narratives and interpretations of what
had happened. James Stockdale, then a navy pilot
at the scene, who had "the best seat in the house
from which to detect boats," saw nothing. "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 firepower."
2 The commander of the Maddox task
force, Captain John J. Herrick, was not entirely
certain what had transpired. (Captain Herrick
actually was the commander of the destroyer division
to which the Maddox belonged. For this mission,
he was aboard as the on-site commander.)
Hours after the incident, he would radio the Commander-in-Chief,
Pacific (CINCPAC) telling them
that he was doubtful of many aspects of the
"attack."
(U) It would be years before any evidence that
an attack had not happened finally emerged in
the public domain, and even then, most reluctantly.
Yet, remarkably, some ofthe major participants
in the events still maintained that the Gulf
of Tonkin incident had occurred just as it had
been originally reported. Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara, in his memoirs In Retrospect,
considered the overall evidence for an attack still
convincing." The U.S. Navy's history of the
Vietnam conflict, written by Edward J. Marolda
and Oscar P. Fitzgerald (hereafter referred to as
the "Marelda-Fitzgerald history"), reported that
the evidence for the second attack, especially
from intelligence, including a small amount of
SIGINT, was considered conclusive."
(U) The public literature on the Gulf of
Tonkin for years has been overwhelmingly skeptical
about the 4 August battle. Articles that
appeared in magazines within a few years illust
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