ATS: NSA Study From 2001 Might Show Tonkin Resolution Falsified

An NSA historian reported back in 2001 that a number of the events surrounding the Gulf of Tonkin resolution (August, 1964) were based on false claims, and were in fact a series attempts by the NSA to cover up their mistakes. Since then he and a group of others have been working to get his report declassified. One such example is reported as a translation error. The report that two ships had been attacked was actually a mistranslation of two people being attacked, reports the New York Times.



I think Mr. Aid (haha) put it well: "This material is relevant to debates we as Americans are having about the war in Iraq and intelligence reform. To keep it classified simply because it might embarrass the agency is wrong."

I'm pretty much in shock at this. Everyone seems to agree that not only should it be declassified, but that all signs pointed to this. Vietnam is already one of the most controversial events in American history, and if the pivotal event responsible for the mass escalation of the conflict is shown to be based on false information, I can't see how anyone could really support most of anything that happened after August 4th, 1964.

It also seems as if this was a simple NSA job. Defense Secretary McNamara not only claims to have had no idea about this, but also feels 100% everything, report and background information, should be declassified.

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident: Is Iran Next?

This is such an interesting article.

I've often wondered what we were not told about Vietnam and how it would be different in the 24/7 news today.
Sadly, we need to know our country didn't just discover corruption, greed, bad judgment in the last 15 years.

Mr. Hanyok concluded that they had done it not out of any political motive but to cover up earlier errors, and that top N.S.A. and defense officials and Johnson neither knew about nor condoned the deception.

NSA attempting to cover their mistakes, eh? figures. its just like the CIA now making the same mistakes along with other intelligence agencies.

Originally posted by Amorymeltzer
It also seems as if this was a simple NSA job. Defense Secretary McNamara not only claims to have had no idea about this, but also feels 100% everything, report and background information, should be declassified.

This may prove of interest:

HANOI, Vietnam (Nov 9, 1995 - 16:06 EST) -- When former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara met the enemy's leading strategist Thursday, he raised a question he'd saved for 30 years: What really happened in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 4, 1964?

"Absolutely nothing," replied retired Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap.

Both sides agree that North Vietnam attacked a U.S. Navy ship in the gulf on Aug. 2 as it cruised close to shore. But it was an alleged second attack two days later that led to the first U.S. bombing raid on the North and propelled America deep into war.

Many U.S. historians have long believed the Johnson administration fabricated the second attack to win congressional support for widening the war. But for McNamara, Giap's word was the clincher.

"It's a pretty damned good source," he said after the meeting.

As defense secretary from 1961-68 under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, McNamara was one of the leading proponents of U.S. support for South Vietnam against the Communist North. But he left office convinced the war was doomed to failure, he says, revealing his change of heart in memoirs published this year.

McNamara asks Giap: What happened in Tonkin Gulf?

McNamara's fingerprints in this are both critical and mysterious, when taking his involvement in the Congressional hearings of the Tonkin incident:

Of course, none of this was known to Congress, which demanded an explanation for the goings-on in the Tonkin Gulf. On 6 August, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara told a joint session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees that the North Vietnamese attack on the Maddox was ". . . no isolated event. They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. . . ." McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.

The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident

This controversy over if the Tonkin Incident was actual, made-up, etc. has been ongoing for sometime within political, military, and academic sources.
The case of the mistranslation may be in relation to the recently released or declassified audio signals intercepts in 2003, together with the audio files and transcripts of the key Tonkin Gulf conversations between then President Johnson and McNamara:

* Signals Intercepts, Cited at Time, Prove Only August 2nd Battle, Not August 4; Purported Second Attack Prompted Congressional Blank Check for War

* Johnson-McNamara Tapes Show Readiness to Escalate, Even on Suspect Intel; Top Aides Knew of Mistaken Signals, but Welcomed Justification for Vote

Washington, D.C., 4 August 2004 - Forty years ago today, President Johnson and top U.S. officials chose to believe that North Vietnam had just attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, even though the highly classified signals intercepts they cited to each other actually described a naval clash two days earlier (a battle prompted by covert U.S. attacks on North Vietnam), according to the declassified intercepts, Johnson White House tapes, and related documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Compiled by Archive senior fellow and Vietnam expert John Prados, today's 40th anniversary electronic briefing book includes Dr. Prados's detailed analysis of the intercepts - only declassified in 2003 - together with audio files and transcripts of the key Tonkin Gulf conversations between President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The latter are excerpted from Dr. Prados's book, The White House Tapes (New York: The New Press, 2003). The posting also contains photographs and charts from the Tonkin Gulf incident courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center, a detailed documentary chronology compiled by the State Department's Office of the Historian for the Foreign Relations of the United States series, a CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate on possible North Vietnamese responses to U.S. actions from May 1964 (just declassified in June 2004), and links to previous and upcoming Archive publications on Vietnam.

NSA: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam





seekerof

[edit on 1-11-2005 by Seekerof]

If they declassify the SIGINT from that purported episode I expect a lot of people will talk about it. The resolution was not falsified, the incident that led to the resolution is what you are concerned with.

[edit on 1-11-2005 by Astronomer68]

I need to delve deeper into this, but I have always believed that the Gulf Of Tonkin was the 60's Pearl harbor, that is a manufactured event to ge the US into the war......................................................

The Sooner people of the world wake up and realise that the US seems to always be involved, the sooner the world will be a better place. all of the so called terrorist actions round the world seem to involve a US "Agency" although admitadly it is normally the CIA!

keep puttin them nails in the coffin.

America is the evil we are seeking.....

Daz Out.

Indeed:

Let me Quote Myself from the thread with the same Topic in the War on Terror forum - Intelligence on Vietnam War "FAKED":

Some serious Skeletons in the Closet, huh?

Interesting information, that really makes you think, if the Army and the Intel agencies really "Fake" Evidence to start Wars in the majority of the cases. Certainly makes you ask yourself:

"If they Lied to us Yesterday, why would they tell the Truth Today?"

This "Mistake" has caused a Bloody 10-Year War, 250.000+ South Vietnamese Dead, 1.100.000 North Vietnamese Dead and 58.000+ US Soldiers Dead with Civilan Casualties somewhere from 2-4 Million People.

Think about it - and remember these Threads:

Fabricated Al-Qaeda Links?

Who Forged Uranium Reports?

Certainly an interesting Read, I must Agree.

Makes you think, that if Gulf of Tonkin was like FredT said, the "Pearl Harbor of the 60's" - and was basicly FAKED; how about the Pearl Harbor of the 2001?

Also Faked?

Hmmmmmmmmmm....

Remember the url=http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf]PNAC[/url]- Project for the New American Century?

Page 51?

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions."

Interesting...



[edit on 2/11/05 by Souljah]

Knowing how long our governtment has been corrupt and how many people they are willing to slaughter for POWER makes me realize that there really is evil in the world. And I'm pretty sure I'm sitting right in the middle of it.

And for those who would call me Anti-American, go ahead. How long can I be expected to support and stand up for a country that has done what I suspect they have done to its own people?

Edit: 1400 views and 8 replies???

[edit on 10-11-2005 by Benevolent Heretic]

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
1400 views and 8 replies???

Haha, I guess people wanna either blow it off their shoulders or really can't believe it...

So wait, pearl harbor was faked?!

I think I missed something...

5864 views as of now: 8pm eastern US, Jan 7, 2006
9 replies. odd, in'nit?

[edit on 7/1/2006 by FallenOne]