Gulf of Tonkin Hoax Confirmed by NSA Report

Gulf of Tonkin Hoax Confirmed by NSA Report

rawstory.com

The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night,'" FAS said in a statement.

"What this study demonstrated is that the available intelligence shows that there was no attack. It's a dramatic reversal of the historical record," Aftergood said.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.fas.org
www.fas.org

The full reports and additional information can be found at the links provided, as I went and dug them up over at FAS.

I can't ever recall hearing that the Vietnamese were able to penetrate our communication systems and order false American airstrikes on their own men. That probably is just as eye-opening as the report lends credibility to the long standing controversy.

I'd really hate to be a Vietnam wounded veteran right about now learning that. They'd have every right to be rip****.

rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 8-1-2008 by TrueAmerican]

I hope ATSers read you thread and keep this information squarely in mind as the Iranian 'incident' unfolds. History repeats...

The Us government has long shown that the prevailing opinion in Washington is that the end justifies the means.

Those people who refuse to believe that the government would do such a thing, and then cover it up for thirty years need to look at this very closely.

Originally posted by jtma508
I hope ATSers read you thread and keep this information squarely in mind as the Iranian 'incident' unfolds. History repeats...

Except that your assertion is totally bogus, and you know it.

The iranian incident is nothing like the false Gulf of Tonkin incident because the iranians have already admitted that it occurred.

The only history being repeated here is the history of some on ATS to automatically assume the U.S. is at fault for any and everything that happens.

Deny ignorance? Right ....

[edit on 1/8/2008 by centurion1211]

Don't believe what the NSA is telling you right now. Its a precursor to the war with Iran.

Course the Iranians admit their involvement with U.S. warships.
But perhaps the NSA is lying on that to. Any information released by the NSA is suspect.

If this is true then this would put a new light on 9-11;but I didn't see any NSA or link to a NSA report nor have I seen anything about this in the news.Until there is proof an actual report exist then this is just hearsay.

reply to post by centurion1211


If I was one of those you were aiming your post at, then your statement is false. I don't blame the US, even it's idiot politicians, for all the world's evils. But I don't give them a blank check either.

The problem is, not many people walk the middle of the road on these things. They either blame everything bad on the US government or they do the exact opposite and absolve them of any guilt for anything.

And both camps swear they are denying ignorance.

Originally posted by deltaboy
...Any information released by the NSA is suspect.

Well it may be suspect, true, but why would the FAS regard this intel highly enough to draw the conclusion that the evidence was manipulated for political gain? I guess the FAS is suspect too? Somehow I just don't see the NSA declassifying info like this for any other reason than sheer political pressure from FOIA groups.

The bottom line is that politicians have been sacrificing their own blood for years, even in this supposed civilized age. And they will continue to do it, too- today, tomorrow and the next day. I feel so sorry for the people who unknowingly pay this price, thinking they had a legitimate purpose in war.

reply to post by deltaboy


Sometimes, as Feud said, a cigar is just a cigar. Looks like a cigar to me.

Really, Tonkin was an obvious false-flag hoax, just like the USS Liberty...is any of this invalidated now that the NSA has finally acknowledged it and the FAS reports on it?

Sorry, not that paranoid--yet.

Those of us who were alive at the time, rememeber that it was general knowledge that LBJ fabricated reports on Tonkin to continue the Vietnam war.

Let's see..the intel agencies have super secret units, that get no oversight, and they create the hard core terrorists organizations so they can attract people and identify them..and use them for their purposes, whatever they may be.

Then, they have to create business so they have something to protect us from and justify their paychecks.So they plan terrorist events and use them to make their political pals happy and make themselves rich.

Not a bad set up except for being illegal and immoral and corrupt. We ARE the terrorists, we ARE the money behind the scenes, we are the nightmare. Bush and Cheney are the front men for the cabal, and the terror is a tool for advancement of the PNAC plan. Simple.

Originally posted by forestlady
Those of us who were alive at the time, rememeber that it was general knowledge that LBJ fabricated reports on Tonkin to continue the Vietnam war.

The sad part is forestlady, that these new declassified intel reports confirm it, for real. Doesn't that bother you? It sure as hell does me. But just think what it must do to military morale...

So how farfetched now are the stories that the Bush administration did similar with CIA intelligence to justify the Iraq war? Just conspiracy theory, right? I suppose in 30 years we'll know.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
So how farfetched now are the stories that the Bush administration did similar with CIA intelligence to justify the Iraq war? Just conspiracy theory, right? I suppose in 30 years we'll know.

If the Bush/Cheney administration has it's way, we'll never know.

That, and in 30 years we'll all, long ago, be nothing but irradiated dust in the wind...

I really want to know who the hell is going to take responsibility for this?

Using an incident that never happened to back a justification for escalating a war? There is no question now then that other motives were involved. They shouldn't have been. A lot of people died and were wounded on both sides because of this and someone needs to be held held responsible if they aren't already dead.

I just cannot believe that I have to sit here and accept that many of my countrymen died in vain over this. I don't accept it.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


The blame will fall on dead guys, the perfect patsies.

Johnson comes to mind.

After all he was in charge at the time...

reply to post by TrueAmerican



TA, of coures it bothers me. It's just that I've known about the lie that was Gulf of Tonkin since I was about 18 y.o. and that's 35 years ago. When you know something for 35 years, it kinda loses some of the shock value, ya know? Also, it was already confirmed about 35 years ago, so I'm not surprised. This is not new news at all by any means. I watched the whole Vietnam War go down and I'm still angry about it. This kind of thing has happened so many times in the past, it's pretty much the way the U.S. has operated for a very long time.
It's happening right now in Iraq, we were lied to in order to get us into a war.

Originally posted by forestlady
...Also, it was already confirmed about 35 years ago, so I'm not surprised. This is not new news at all by any means....

Confirmed through what source(s)?

I've been reading about it now for over 5 years, and at least for me I haven't seen as solid proof as this. But either way, we really shouldn't lose sight of the main offense here and its implications. They are bad.

Always heard the rumors. Now this, makes one scratch the head when you hear the US/ Iranian confrontation in the Staits of Hormuz. Something interesting also, I first read about this story on Yahoo's homepage(front page on 1.8.08) and within ten minutes it was gone----you had to use the Yahoo news search engine to find it. Now, 2 days later, it is completely gone from the Yahoo news(even using the search engine). Always knew that we Americans got sanitized news, but this is rediculous. We have every right to question and be leary of our governments willingness to escalate conflict into full-blown war.

Update:

Robert McNamara deceived LBJ on Gulf of Tonkin, documents show

rawstory.com...

Official government documents reveal new side of defense secretary’s legacy

Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1967, took many secrets with him when he died Monday at 93. But probably no secret was more sensitive politically than the one that would have changed fundamentally the public perception of his role in Vietnam policy had it been become widely known.

The secret was his deliberate deceit of President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 4, 1964 regarding the alleged attack on US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Documents which have been available for decades in the LBJ Library show clearly that McNamara failed to inform Johnson that the U.S. naval task group commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, had changed his mind about the alleged North Vietnamese torpedo attack on U.S. warships he had reported earlier that day.

By early afternoon Washington time, Herrick had reported to the Commander in Chief Pacific in Honolulu that “freak weather effects” on the ship’s radar had made such an attack questionable. In fact, Herrick was now saying, in a message sent at 1:27 pm Washington time, that no North Vietnamese patrol boats had actually been sighted. Herrick now proposed a “complete evaluation before any further action taken.”

Visit story link for more details.