spartans_in_darkness

"FOP SEeRE"FUeOMINfg*1
DRV command as late as 4 August. It was still
considered sunk.)
(U) The congruence of the NSA and the San
Miguel reports has been noted elsewhere. In
Edwin Moise's book on the Tonkin Gulf, he discusses
the resemblance between a "longer" message
and a "shorter" one he had received from
NSA in response to a FOIA request. Since he had
received heavily redacted versions of "TlO" and
"R38" and "R39" from San Miguel, it was difficult
for him to determine the critical fact that the two
reports from the Philippines were issued before
the NSA translation. However, he did catch the
similarity among them, especially the phrases
14~
about the downed planes. '
(05//0£1) This finding that San Miguel had
issued two separate reports, which probably had
been conflated into a single translation by NSA,
may explain the description by President
Johnson of the discussions with the so-called
technical experts at the White House the afternoon
of the attack. The major point that Johnson
related was the explanation that the expression
"sacrificing two comrades" could have meant two
enemy boats or two men. The fact that this issue
was brought up strongly suggests that the reports
from San Miguel probably were circulating
among intelligence and defense officials, and that
questions were being raised as to which version
was correct, the boats or the comrades. But it is
still not clear from this incident what the source
was of the NSA version which claimed that two
boats were lost instead of two men. As we stated
earlier, without the original Vietnamese text, we
are left with conjecture. However, with the great
divergence between the reports issued by San
Miguel and NSA, attention must fall primarily on
the actions of the NSA analysts. Why did they
change San Miguel's original translation
(5//5I) This analysis of the NSAtranslation of
the so-called after-action report may appear
excessive. Yet it is warranted because of the crucial
role played by it in convincing the Johnson
administration of the validity of the claim that the
two destroyers indeed had been attacked by the
North Vietnamese. The critical analysis of the
translation has revealed several problems with
the text itself, the context and timing of the intercept,
that is, whether it was really related to the
attack, and finally, the circumstances of the original
analysis of the intercept.
(e//SI) If the results of this analysis of the
translation were not enough to make one suspect
its validity, the difficulties with the documentary
source record undermine it all the more. For the
sources we do not have, that is, the missing technical
supplements and the translation, "T162,"
leave us with a serious gap: we have only the two
field reports and single NSA English translation.
The differences between the field version and the
one published by NSA are too large to ignore;
depending on which translation one accepts, the
possible interpretations of the incident of 4
August are either that nothing happened or that
there was an attack.
(U) Exhibit D: A Matter ofCertainty
(D) A question remains, What were the circumstances
surrounding the issuance of this last
translation The answer is that we do not exactly
know the details of how it was put together.
However, we do have some clues as to the environment
in which the analysis reporting by NSA
was done.
(S//SI) After the 2 August attack, the analytic
division concerned with the North Vietnamese
problem, B26, had established an informal twenty-four-hour
watch center to handle the SIGINT
reporting from the Gulf of Tonkin. A pair of small
teams, consisting of about 6 or 7 analysts,
linguists, and supervisory personnel, staffed the
center. Unfortunately, there were what can be
called "environmental pressures" on the staff.
Notably, a crisis atmosphere surrounding everyone
and everything, which, combined with
twelve- to sixteen-hour days, probably led to
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