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serious problems of pressure and fatigue. There
was also the problem that the linguists available
were relatively inexperienced, some being barely
a year or two removed from language school.
Besides just reviewing the field intercept, people
from this crisis cell also briefed the Pentagon and
National Security Council. 148
(S//8I) It appears that there was little in the
way of control or interaction between this cell and
senior NSA leadership. The director, NSA,
General Blake, was out of town at the time. The
various briefings at the Pentagon, and possibly
the White House, were handled by mid-level
managers and staffers operating out of the crisis
cell and NSA liaison positions in the Pentagon
and the White House. In fact, for the most part, it
seems that senior NSA leadership stayed out of
the proceedings, exercising little control or oversight.
149
(D) That there might have been a lot of pressure
on the NSA people to produce "proof' is
quite likely. Regarding that charged period, Ray
Cline, the former CIA deputy director, recalled
that "Everybody was demanding the sigint (signals
intelligence; intercepts); they wanted it
quick, they didn't want anybody to take any time
to analyze it." 150 It was certainly a crisis moment.
We know from the chronology mentioned earlier,
that the translation of the "after-action" report
arrived about two hours after the time that the
first news of Captain Herrick's doubts about the
action had arrived in Washington. Also, as we
have seen, McNamara's evidence contained at
least two points from the NSAtranslation. Of this,
there is little to doubt. However, it remains a
question whether the analysts and managers in
NSAwere certain of the second attack.
(8//81:) It has been reported in other histories
that the NSA analyst (or analysts) who actually
decrypted and translated the intercepts were
doubtful of the second incident from the very
beginning, believing that the message referred to
rl
the 2 August attack." Furthermore, a review of
oral histories suggests that in the watch center
there was a sort of division between those who
were certain the second attack occurred, which
was composed of mid-level management, and the
analysts who were not so sure. 15 2
(el/Sf) Actually, the doubters were not as
skeptical about the reality of the attack as much
as they as were uncertain as how to label the
intercept about the Vietnamese shooting at/down
the aircraft. Was it related to what was happening
in the Gulf of Tonkin As one linguist recalled, the
problem came down to "Was this, or was this
not" The deciding element for the analysts was
the fact that the intercept time (15502 or 15592)
of the "after action" intercept coincided with the
time frame of the attack on the two destroyers: an
analytic "coin toss" was made, and the translation
went out which was interpreted as supporting the
validity of the second attack. 153 There was no
explicit connection between the intercept and
events: it was inferred from the coincidence of
the time of the intercept and the time of the ongoing
"attack." Also implicit in this decision was a
lack of confidence concerning the validity of the
information; it could not stand by itself as the evidence,
at least in the minds of the analysts.
(D) On such small things as a mental "coin
toss," then, does history often turn.
(8//8I) As to the nature of the translation,
according to the same linguist, reportedly there
were no enforced "word changes" in this report
(or any others which were issued), though arguments
over translation "styles" did occur. These
arguments were over the rendering of the translations
from the Vietnamese original "into suitable
English." 154
(TSl/S!) This analysis by coin flip left the
door open for follow-up reports which more
openly supported the notion of an attack. Barely
six hours after it issued the "after-action" translation,
NSA released its first summary report of the
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