The Vietnam War

Taken from the U.S. Naval Institute after top secret files were de-classified in 2008.

Historians have long suspected that the second attack in the Gulf of Tonkin never occurred and that the resolution was based on faulty evidence. But no declassified information had suggested that McNamara, Johnson, or anyone else in the decision-making process had intentionally misinterpreted the intelligence concerning the 4 August incident. More than 40 years after the events, that all changed with the release of the nearly 200 documents related to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and transcripts from the Johnson Library.

These new documents and tapes reveal what historians could not prove: There was not a second attack on U.S. Navy ships in the Tonkin Gulf in early August 1964. Furthermore, the evidence suggests a disturbing and deliberate attempt by Secretary of Defense McNamara to distort the evidence and mislead Congress.

The historian also concluded that some of the signals intercepted during the nights of 2 and 4 August were falsified to support the retaliatory attacks. Moreover, some intercepts were altered to show different receipt times, and other evidence was cherry picked to deliberately distort the truth. According to Hanyok, "SIGINT information was presented in such a manner as to preclude responsible decision makers in the Johnson Administration from having the complete and objective narrative of events of 04 August 1964."

Subsequently, Secretary McNamara intentionally misled Congress and the public about his knowledge of and the nature of the 34A operations, which surely would have been perceived as the actual cause for the 2 August attack on the Maddox and the apparent attack on the 4th. On 6 August, when called before a joint session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees to testify about the incident, McNamara eluded the questioning of Senator Wayne Morse (D-OR) when he asked specifically whether the 34A operations may have provoked the North Vietnamese response. McNamara instead declared that "our Navy played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were any."
Later that day, Secretary McNamara lied when he denied knowledge of the provocative 34A patrols at a Pentagon news conference. When asked by a reporter if he knew of any confrontations between the South and North Vietnamese navies, he responded: "No, none that I know of. . . . [T]hey operate on their own. They are part of the South Vietnamese Navy . . . operating in the coastal waters, inspecting suspicious incoming junks, seeking to deter and prevent the infiltration of both men and material." Another reporter pressed the issue, "Do these [patrol boats] go north, into North Vietnamese waters?" McNamara again eluded the question, "They have advanced closer and closer to the 17th parallel, and in some cases, I think they have moved beyond that in an effort to stop the infiltration closer to the point of origin."
In reality, McNamara knew full well that the 34A attacks had probably provoked the 2 August attacks on the Maddox. On an audio tape from the Johnson Library declassified in December 2005, he admitted to the President the morning after the attacks that the two events were almost certainly connected:
 
And lastly and what's most shameful... :mad:

For his part, McNamara never admitted his mistakes. In his award-winning 2003 video memoirs Fog of War, he remained unapologetic and even bragged of his ability to deceive: "I learned early on never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you. And quite frankly, I follow that rule. It's a very good rule."
 

For the first time in Australian history, the nationā€™s troops received no universal embrace when they returned home. When that long war ended for Australia in 1972, Vietnam veterans were given no welcome home march. No cheering, no bunting. It left a legacy of bitterness and confusion that claimed more lives through alcoholism and suicide.
 
That doesn't answer my question. Are you saying the press knowingly printed government lies; IOW that the press & the government were involved together in spreading the false information?@oldiebutgoody. Thanks.
 
Pepper said:
That doesn't answer my question. Are you saying the press knowingly printed government lies; IOW that the press & the government were involved together in spreading the false information?@oldiebutgoody. Thanks.
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Back then there was no indication that the news media engaged in fakery. But the government clearly did.

By contrast, when Bush faked news of WMD in Iraq, the American media refused to publish the Downing Street Memo like the British press did. There, clearly the controlled pro war news media did report fake news in the USA. Publication of the Memo is what led to the immediate downfall of the Tony Blair regime in the UK as well as the end of Aznar regime in Spain. Had the media reported it in the USA, Bush would also have lost his position in the White House.


memo.indd (gwu.edu)

Downing Street memo - Wikipedia
 
squatting dog said:
Taken from the U.S. Naval Institute after top secret files were de-classified in 2008.

Historians have long suspected that the second attack in the Gulf of Tonkin never occurred and that the resolution was based on faulty evidence. But no declassified information had suggested that McNamara, Johnson, or anyone else in the decision-making process had intentionally misinterpreted the intelligence concerning the 4 August incident. More than 40 years after the events, that all changed with the release of the nearly 200 documents related to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and transcripts from the Johnson Library.

These new documents and tapes reveal what historians could not prove: There was not a second attack on U.S. Navy ships in the Tonkin Gulf in early August 1964. Furthermore, the evidence suggests a disturbing and deliberate attempt by Secretary of Defense McNamara to distort the evidence and mislead Congress.

The historian also concluded that some of the signals intercepted during the nights of 2 and 4 August were falsified to support the retaliatory attacks. Moreover, some intercepts were altered to show different receipt times, and other evidence was cherry picked to deliberately distort the truth. According to Hanyok, "SIGINT information was presented in such a manner as to preclude responsible decision makers in the Johnson Administration from having the complete and objective narrative of events of 04 August 1964."

Subsequently, Secretary McNamara intentionally misled Congress and the public about his knowledge of and the nature of the 34A operations, which surely would have been perceived as the actual cause for the 2 August attack on the Maddox and the apparent attack on the 4th. On 6 August, when called before a joint session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees to testify about the incident, McNamara eluded the questioning of Senator Wayne Morse (D-OR) when he asked specifically whether the 34A operations may have provoked the North Vietnamese response. McNamara instead declared that "our Navy played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were any."
Later that day, Secretary McNamara lied when he denied knowledge of the provocative 34A patrols at a Pentagon news conference. When asked by a reporter if he knew of any confrontations between the South and North Vietnamese navies, he responded: "No, none that I know of. . . . [T]hey operate on their own. They are part of the South Vietnamese Navy . . . operating in the coastal waters, inspecting suspicious incoming junks, seeking to deter and prevent the infiltration of both men and material." Another reporter pressed the issue, "Do these [patrol boats] go north, into North Vietnamese waters?" McNamara again eluded the question, "They have advanced closer and closer to the 17th parallel, and in some cases, I think they have moved beyond that in an effort to stop the infiltration closer to the point of origin."
In reality, McNamara knew full well that the 34A attacks had probably provoked the 2 August attacks on the Maddox. On an audio tape from the Johnson Library declassified in December 2005, he admitted to the President the morning after the attacks that the two events were almost certainly connected:
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... and during all of that (before it, and after it for that matter) American tax dollars were being rushed off to GM (and the other Industrial-cum-military organs) to build tanks and weaponry .... and more ... still more ... even more .... more yet still ... Americans and Vietnamese were being vaporized and having holes put through them so that more American tax dollars could be rushed off to plastic manufacturers of body bags and then PR'd as a worthy revenge tactic - "Let's get them there Commie bastards, America! They done went and killed more or our boys! We gots to show 'em who's boss over there in Asia! So make sure to have your nearest high school host some ribbon-infested soldier stop by and fill your sons' heads with Joan Wayne stories!"
 
Pepper said:
That doesn't answer my question. Are you saying the press knowingly printed government lies; IOW that the press & the government were involved together in spreading the false information?@oldiebutgoody. Thanks.
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That's often a difficult question to answer. The reporter. The editor. The boss. The owner. Industrial-Political coercion? We can say that I name them in reverse order of importance. Independent journalism? Where is it? Where was it? Julian Assange can tell us but he's been gaged and muzzled. The next time he surfaces I wouldn't be surprised to learn and he's had his tongue and fingers amputated.

But to answer your question as best as possible it was the Washington Post (back then, mind!!!!!) that dared print the truth while no one else did ... so you're probably right about the press being accomplices in the dirty deeds of the Whine Hose and Pentagram.
 
 
Frogfur said:
I was in country August of 68. I served with U.S. Marines. I had to let all that go to have a better quality of life. Its all water under the bridge.
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Thank you for your service and commitment, also welcome to the site and above all enjoy your weekend.
 
I don't think the war was lost because of antiwar sentiment at home. Nor do I believe it was due to lack of fighting skills by the US et al. It was an unwinnable war. The North was infiltering the South in huge numbers. There's not a good military solution to that problem. And Vietnam was more of a civil war than a strictly aggression war. There was great support for the North throughout the South- again, not a true military addressable problem. And China was never going to let the North fall, and have a US allied state on its border. I don't believe the North wholeheartedly bled its sons, and daughters into a war that depended on US home opinion. The North's determination was the basis of the defeat of the South. I think the Vietnam war was not a war with a military solution. The objective were fuzzy, sever military constraints, and quite frankly an opponent, who was more willing to sacrifice its citizens.
 
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The imperialistic war of colonialist terrorism was unwinnable for the simple reason that the USA invaders never got majority support from the populace. This is why the imperialists lost the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan as well. You just cannot win a war if the people that you claim to be liberating are against you and in support of their own government. Had any of those terrorist wars been just, the populace would have joined with the invaders and all three wars would have been won rather than lost. But they never joined and fought bravely for their own liberation from the invaders. History has plenty of precedent for this as shown in 1776 and in 1812.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I don't think the war was lost because of antiwar sentiment at home. Nor do I believe it was due to lack of fighting skills by the US et al. It was an unwinnable war. The North was infiltering the South in huge numbers. There's not a good military solution to that problem. And Vietnam was more of a civil war than a strictly aggression war. There was great support for the North throughout the South- again, not a true military addressable problem. And China was never going to let the North fall, and have a US allied state on its border. I don't believe the North wholeheartedly bled its sons, and daughters into a war that depended on US home opinion. The North's determination was the basis of the defeat of the South. I think the Vietnam war was not a war with a military solution. The objective were fuzzy, sever military constraints, and quite frankly an opponent, who was more willing to sacrifice its citizens.
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There was no war until the U.S. created one. The Geneva Conference of 1954 stated that Vietnam would conduct free Democratic National Elections in 1956. The U.S. refused to allow it to happen and instead sent troops to occupy the country and wage war against the Vietnamese people.
 
There is a documentary on WWI showing the young men called to serve and they were all laughing and celebrating. It is sickening to see knowing what was waiting for them. If it weren't for young people there would be no wars. There is the story about the military deciding whether or not to release films of the American dead on D-Day for fear of a reduction in recruiting. They decided to show the films in theaters across America and recruiting tanked to an all time low.
 
fmdog44 said:
There is a documentary on WWI showing the young men called to serve and they were all laughing and celebrating. It is sickening to see knowing what was waiting for them. If it weren't for young people there would be no wars. There is the story about the military deciding whether or not to release films of the American dead on D-Day for fear of a reduction in recruiting. They decided to show the films in theaters across America and recruiting tanked to an all time low.
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Yes.šŸ˜ Yes. ā˜¹ļø Yes. :cry:
 
North Vietnam was aggressively infiltrating the South. The military problem was the North could not be invaded. It would have ignited WWIII. The US had to resort to bombing, the North, which is not all that effective. militarily, it was what would have happen , during WWII, if the allies stopped their invasion at the German boarder.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
North Vietnam was aggressively infiltrating the South. The military problem was the North could not be invaded. It would have ignited WWIII. The US had to resort to bombing, the North, which is not all that effective. militarily, it was what would have happen , during WWII, if the allies stopped their invasion at the German boarder. Without a way to inflict serious damage to the North, they could continue to bleed men in a war of attrition..
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&(*$&%^$&* I am really getting tired of you anti war &(&% that think you know it all about Vietnam and the ideas/faults behind southeast asia....get a *&($&^() life for chits sake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Like my son asked "When will your generation stop fighting over Vietnam?" My answer "When we're dead."
I've enjoyed meeting many vets on this site. We shared a bad experience, no matter what your point of view.
Peace, man.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
North Vietnam was aggressively infiltrating the South. The military problem was the North could not be invaded. It would have ignited WWIII. The US had to resort to bombing, the North, which is not all that effective. militarily, it was what would have happen , during WWII, if the allies stopped their invasion at the German boarder.
Click to expand...



The 1954 Accords which partitioned Vietnam was to be temporary only. At no point did anyone in Vietnam consent to a permanent partition the way the USA and its puppet regime in Saigon demanded. Ho Chi Minh and his forces fought to liberate the South from the colonialist regime imposed by Washington DC. He and his forces got majority support from the southern people and that is how he readily defeated the imperialist forces.
 
mellowyellow said:
For the first time in Australian history, the nationā€™s troops received no universal embrace when they returned home. When that long war ended for Australia in 1972, Vietnam veterans were given no welcome home march. No cheering, no bunting. It left a legacy of bitterness and confusion that claimed more lives through alcoholism and suicide.
Click to expand...



My dad (born in 1911) spent 20+ years in the Merchant Marines and Navy. He served in the South Pacific during WW II. Some of his johnnies (sailor's terms for brothers) were assigned to the Indianapolis. When my dad returned to Brooklyn, NY after the war he sought a job as a dock worker. He was told "we don't hire s_____s" (the insulting term used for Hispanics). After sacrificing 20 years of his life for his country he was still nothing more than a third class citizen. Other browns and blacks suffered the same fate and worse. That's just the way it always was.
 

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