Tonkin incident

Tonkin incident

Part of: Vietnam War

date	2nd and 4th August 1964
place	Gulf of Tonkin , off the coast of North Vietnam
Exit	Tonkin resolution , de facto entry into the war by the USA

The Tonkin Incident (also Tongking Incident ) is the name given to the events on August 2 and 4, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam . According to the United States Navy, North Vietnamese speedboats are said to have fired at two US warships several times without cause. This is how the US government under President Lyndon B. Johnson justified its Tonkin resolution : This called for direct intervention by the United States of America in the Vietnam War, which had been going on since 1956, and, after its adoption in the US Congress from 1965 to 1973, legalized all US war measures .

Whether the alleged attacks actually took place has been controversial since the 1960s. It has been proven since the 1980s that no torpedo attack took place on the US warships on August 4, 1964. The Pentagon Papers (published 1971) and the memoirs of Robert McNamara (1995) show that the US government used the incidents through deliberate misrepresentation to enforce its planned direct entry into the war since 1963.

procedure

The United States had significantly increased support for its South Vietnamese allies by the early 1960s . This concerned, among other things, the delivery of speedboats to South Vietnam as well as the training of the crews and support in acts of sabotage by the CIA (so-called 34A operations ). The ships were used for commando operations on the North Vietnamese coast. Units in the US 7th Fleet had routinely conducted operations in the waters of the South China Sea since the end of World War II .

Incident on August 2nd

USS Maddox (1966)

Immediately before the Tonkin incident, on July 30, 1964, South Vietnamese units allied with the USA shelled the North Vietnamese islands of Hòn Ngư and Hòn Mê . On the morning of July 31, 1964, the American destroyer USS Maddox drove into the Gulf of Tonkin on a scouting voyage . The aim of this trip was apparently to obtain reconnaissance data on North Vietnamese radar systems and military installations in the target area of ​​the South Vietnamese naval operations ( Operation Desoto ). The presence of a US warship was intended to provoke the North Vietnamese Coast Guard to react, which could be recorded by the National Security Agency (NSA) and then analyzed by the US Department of Defense. The Maddox remained, according to the US military outside the internationally recognized twelve-mile zone ; however, this representation is disputed. On their return from Hòn Mê and Hòn Ngư, South Vietnamese speedboats approached the Maddox within seven kilometers , so that the North Vietnamese defense could have the impression that they were offering the South Vietnamese fire protection from any pursuers.

North Vietnamese speedboats on August 2nd, photographed from the USS Maddox

On the evening of August 1, the US destroyer approached the island of Hòn Mê, where the consequences of the attack were still being overcome. The NSA wiretapping experts on board reported obvious preparations on the part of the North Vietnamese Navy to attack the destroyer. At noon on August 2, Maddox , who was already in readiness for action, encountered three North Vietnamese speedboats while traveling along the coast. However, their attempts to orbit the destroyer and place it off the coast failed. The Maddox went out to sea and immediately requested air support from the nearby aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga , where operational attack aircraft were already in the air. According to the American representation, one of the speedboats was shot incapable of maneuvering and the other two damaged, while the Maddox was able to dodge several torpedoes and only had to accept light hits from machine gun fire. The ship then withdrew from the waters.

News of these first clashes reached Washington immediately. President Johnson expressly rejected military retaliation and only responded with a protest note to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam .

Incident on August 4th

US illustration of the alleged incident on August 4, 1964

USS Turner Joy (1962)

Captain Herrick of the Maddox had intended to leave the area after the incident, but was instructed by his superiors at the United States Department of Defense to continue to take a stand. With the addition of a second destroyer , the USS Turner Joy , the interrupted mission should be continued. Although those responsible in Washington were aware that the attack on the Maddox was linked to the operation on Hòn Mê and Hòn Ngư, a new attack was launched by a South Vietnamese commando. On August 3, targets on the mainland were attacked for the first time.

Meanwhile, in Washington, President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara were negotiating how to proceed. The main issue was how far the US Congress should be informed about the background to the Maddox incidents that had come to light in the media . Johnson eventually instructed McNamara to also brief Parliament on support for the speedboat operations against North Vietnam. However, it is important to emphasize that the North Vietnamese attacked first. Johnson also stressed that reconnaissance operations should continue. Even when McNamara Johnson announced a few hours later on the basis of North Vietnamese radio intercepted by the NSA that a new attack on the ship was likely to be imminent, the President stuck to this instruction. McNamara recommended responding to a second attack with retaliatory strikes.

An hour later, on the evening of August 4, McNamara relayed a message from Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp , commander of Task Force Pacific, to Johnson that the two ships were further south under further torpedo fire. When asked by the President, he could not identify the attackers exactly, but explained that the torpedoes were probably coming from North Vietnamese ships. Historically, however, it has been proven that the North Vietnamese did not attack on August 4th. In his memoirs, the Minister of Defense later wrote that despite repeated inquiries, he had not received any exact information from the area of ​​operation and had relied on Sharp's identical assessment. Where this assessment comes from is still controversial today. Sharp may have just relied on the afternoon's NSA reports. In 2001 historical research by NSA historian Robert Hanyok identified these reports as "fake". NSA employees had deliberately "produced" a report that was supposed to indicate a second attack in order to cover up mistakes they had previously made.

A few hours later, Johnson gave the order to retaliate with air strikes on North Vietnamese port facilities and anti-aircraft positions.

On August 5, around 30 carrier-supported aircraft launched attacks on North Vietnamese naval bases in Hòn Gay, Loc Chad, Phuc Loi, Vinh and Quang Khe. Shortly before the start of the bombing, President Johnson announced the attacks in a televised address, invoking the right of defense against unprovoked North Vietnamese attacks.

Later statements by those involved suggest that no skirmish had taken place on August 4 or that the Maddox and Turner Joy had not encountered opponents. However, even after the investigation, initially kept secret by Hanyoks, was published in autumn 2005, not all files on the Tonkin incident are accessible to the public.

According to Ray McGovern , former CIA officer, CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and chairman of the National Intelligence Estimates in the 1980s , the CIA was pretty clear, “let alone President Johnson, Defense Secretary McNamara and NSA advisor Bundy that the Evidence of any armed attack on the evening of August 4, 1964, called the 'Second Tonkin Incident', was highly questionable ... During the summer of 1964, Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were eager to expand the war in Vietnam. They intensified the sabotage and lightning attacks on the North Vietnamese coast ”. The Maddox, equipped with espionage technology, was supposed to monitor radio messages and radar activity along this coast and the raids caused the North Vietnamese to switch on their coastal radars. For this purpose, the Maddox was expressly authorized to approach up to 8 miles from the coast and up to 4 miles from the offshore islands. These islands had already been bombed from the sea.

James Bamford , who served three years in the US Navy as a data analyst, describes in his book “NSA. The anatomy of the most powerful secret service in the world (Body of Secrets) " , provocation as the most important goal of the Maddox:" As a provocateur at sea, the ship should put its sharp, gray bow and the American flag as close as possible in the belly of North Vietnam, so to speak ramming his 5-inch cannons into the noses of the communist navy ... The Maddox's mission was even more provocative in that it coincided with the raids on the coast, creating the impression that she was in charge of those raids… ”So the North Vietnamese had everyone Reason to believe the Maddox was involved.

Tonkin resolution

→ Main article : Tonkin resolution

Development in Indochina after the Tonkin incident until 1967

President Lyndon B. Johnson, who wanted to be confirmed in office by presidential elections that same year , used the incident to legitimize US involvement in the Vietnam War . Defense Minister Robert McNamara denied a connection with the South Vietnamese commandos before the US Congress and therefore described the North Vietnamese attacks as unprovoked. On August 7, Congress passed the Tonkin resolution . This gave the US government the power to "take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to support every member [...] of the Southeast Asian Collective Defense Treaty [...] in the defense of their freedom". The resolution was passed in the House of Representatives with 416 to 0, in the Senate with 88 against two votes. This enabled the US government to send troops to Vietnam without having to officially declare war . A State Department official called this the "functional equivalent of a declaration of war."

Later classification

In 1971, the Pentagon employee Daniel Ellsberg gave the " Pentagon Papers " he had co-authored to the US media and through them uncovered the official presentation of the incident as deliberate misinformation. He thus contributed to the withdrawal of the Tonkin resolution in the US Congress, but also triggered the illegal surveillance of representatives of the Democratic Party and, as a result, the Watergate affair .

Documents released by the US secret service NSA on November 30, 2005 once again confirmed that the attack on North Vietnam on August 4, 1964 reported to US President Johnson was suggested by a one-sided selection of radio messages, that is, deliberately faked.

literature

• Tim Weiner : CIA: The whole story . Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-10-091070-7 , pp. 326-330.
• Eric Alterman: When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences. Viking Adult, 2004, ISBN 0670032093 (3rd chapter Lyndon B. Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin Incidents , pp. 160-232).
• James Bamford: NSA - The Anatomy of the Most Powerful Intelligence Agency in the World. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-442-15151-1 , p. 356ff.

Movie

• “ The publisher ”, 2017

Web links

Commons : Tonkin Incident  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• National Security Archives documents and reports: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Joachim Hoelzgen: Vietnam War: The torpedo attack that never existed. In: Spiegel Online . November 15, 2005, accessed July 20, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Lyndon B. Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin incidents , in: Eric Alterman: When Presidents Lie , Penguin, 2004, pp. 160-232 .
3. ^ Donald E. Schmidt: The Folly of War - American Foreign Policy, 1898-2004. Algora Publishing, 2005, ISBN 0-87586-383-3 , p. 264.
4. ↑ Bamford: NSA - The anatomy of the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. Munich 2002, p. 372.
5. ↑ Bamford: NSA - The anatomy of the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. Munich 2002, p. 373.
6. ↑ Report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (August 4, 1964) ( July 1, 2014 memento in the Internet Archive ) - video and speech
7. ↑ consortiumnews.com
8. ↑ James Bamford: Body of Secrets. Anchor, New York 2002, ISBN 0-385-49908-6 .