spartans_in_darkness

lOP SESREli'fSOMINTmE1
action. This summary contained quotes from the
earlier after-action translation. These quotes
were placed in the summary in such a way as to
substantiate collateral radar, sonar, and visual
information from the Desoto patrol. On 6 August
two more summaries were released by NSA
which carried more SIGINT which the Agency
asserted supported the second attack scenario.
Publicly, at least, and probably from the very
beginning, NSA supported the Johnson administration's
claim for a second attack. 15 5 These
reports are important in understanding the postattack
position taken by NSA and will be discussed
in detail shortly.
(8//8I) As for the doubts about the second
attack among the analysts at NSA, it appears that
none of them were ever publicized during the
briefings with officials at the Defense Department.
Or, if they were mentioned, they were
downplayed. In fact, it seems that the NSA position
was a fairly straightforward one: that the
second attack occurred.l'" So firm was NSA's
position, that one previous NSA historian has
suggested that this allowed President Johnson to
shift the blame for the final decision from himself
to the "experts" who had assured him of the
strength of the evidence from the SIGINT. 157
CU) Officially, everyone else in Washington
supported the notion that there had been an
attack. Later statements by various intelligence
and Defense Department officials suggest that
there was a large group who simply did not
believe that the attack had happened or that the
evidence even pointed to an attack. Many highranking
officials from CIA, the Department of
State, and the Pentagon could not see the evidence
assembled by McNamara as supporting a
Vietnamese attack. Some of them were skeptical
Cor claim to have been so) from almost the beginning
of the incident. This group of doubters
included the then U.S. Army's deputy chief of
staff for military operations, General Bruce
Palmer Jr., Ray Cline, the CIA's deputy director
for intelligence, the heads of the Department of
State's Intelligence and Far Eastern Divisions, as
well as a host of staffers on the National Security
Council and in the Defense Department, who, in
years to come, would become notable: Daniel
Ellsberg, Alvid Friedman, and Alexander Haig. 15 8
CU) Yet, despite doubts, people in the intelligence
and defense communities kept their
silence. As much as anything else, it was an
awareness that President Johnson would brook
no uncertainty that could undermine his position.
Faced with this attitude, Ray Cline was quoted as
saying: "... we knew it was bum dope that we
were getting from the Seventh Fleet, but we were
told only to give the facts with no elaboration on
the nature of the evidence. Everyone knew how
volatile LBJ was. He did not like to deal with
uncertainties." 159
(8//8I) And there were plenty of people in
NSA and the cryptologic community who doubted
that the SIGINT was convincing evidence of an
attack. Notable among these were the chief of B
Group, who seems to have been skeptical from
the morning of 5 August, and the NSA Pacific
Representative CNSAPAC),who sent a message to
DIRNSA listing his doubts after reviewing a
CINCPAC study of the affair. 16 0
(Te//eI) With all of the doubters about the
attack, whether they were uncertain from the
beginning, or saw the problems with the "evidence"
later on, it is surprising that what emerged
from various intelligence and Defense Department
studies of the 4 August event were even
more confirmations that the attack had occurred.
Within weeks of the event, teams from the navy
commands in the Pacific region, CINCPAC and
Seventh Fleet, conducted reviews which verified
the attack. A Defense Department team arrived in
mid-August and conducted interviews of the
pilots and the crews of the destroyers. They found
strong evidence for the attack as well. 16 l The Joint
Reconnaissance Center issued a chronology of
events, while ASA Pacific Headquarters conducted
a critique of the reporting by Phu Bai during
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