Talk:Gulf of Tonkin incident/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Radar/sonar

It's a little confusing to talk about radar targets, and then blame them on an overeager sonarman. Does the US Navy not distinguish? Bovlb 15:01, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

The situation seems to have been that the sonarman mistook the sound of the ship's propellers for that of torpedos, while due to the weather conditions (rain squalls), there was considerable radar clutter that made it appear as if there were NV vessels around. It could be clarified in the article text. -- Dysmorodrepanis 20:17, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

neutrality regarding iraq war

i would question the neutrality of the article with reference to the parallels between the vietnam in general and the current conflict in iraq. it seems that many assumptions are being made about the existence of wmd's and other such tactics used by the current administration. a history lesson is not the place to be making political accusations. please remove or revise the following two comments: "for a historical parallel... weapons of mass destruction" and "according to intelligence officials... to justify the iraq war that commenced in 2003." Wench1053 00:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Repetitive Notes

There are 4 seemingly duplicate links to Pentagon Papers in the "Notes".

I would remove 3 of them, but I'm not all involved with this article. I was just looking it up for other reasons. Pdquesnell 15:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Long addition

The addition of this extremely long background statement seems like editorializing to me, and at best is just too long in the context of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the issue at hand. Badagnani 01:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Resolution Repeal Date?

According to a textbook I recently read, "On December 31, 1970, Congress repealed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which had given the president near independece in conducting policy in Vietnam." Just double-checking with the June date in the article. ("The Americans," McDougal Littell, ISBN 0395851823) Eagle0Nine 19:58, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

The entire article seems to ignore that the aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard was IN the gulf of tonkin on that night. I know, I was on board. The Maddox and C. Turner Joy were the escort ships for the carrier. The Carrier & the destroyers were substantially up into the Gulf of Tonkin.

What the hell was a carrier doing IN the Gulf. Taunting the Vietnamese to respond. No doubt in my mind at all.

They talk of the other Carriers launching an attack the next morning. Well, The Bob Homme Richard also launched attacks the next morning. Funny no one mentions that.

Someone needs to check the records on what she was doing IN the Gulf of Tonkin. Also, the Maddox and C. Turner Joy would not leave her by herself while they went into the Gulf. She was there with them.

Jeez, do you have any idea ho large the Gulf is? Look at a map! RM Gillespie 16:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Your interpretation makes sense, but in an encyclopedia we cannot use it in an unreferenced way. If you write up your own website, where you state your view of things, then we can cite you as an vet and eye-witness opinion. P.jasons 11:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced statements

I removed the statement "It was highly unlikely that any North Vietnamese forces were actually in the area during this "battle". Captain John J. Herrick even admitted that it was nothing more than an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing his ship's own propeller beat." Besides being unsourced, they read like an editor's opinion of events. Equinox137 08:49, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you try out some search engines first? overeager sonarman sent me straight to a 1968 Time Magazine article. The facts are all out there, why speculate? P.jasons 11:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Intro needs serious cleanup

I heard someone on a TV show mention the Tonkin incident, so I looked it up here to find out what it was. I've learned that it was something that didn't happen, but what didn't happen and why we care I'm still in the dark on.

Never mind that - what was reported at the time? What was its place in history? It seems to be something to do with the Vietnam war, but what? The whole "it never happened" thing needs to be much shorter in the intro, and stripped of nearly all the evidence, which should be moved to the body of the article. Please think first about why readers like me come to an encyclopaedia - don't focus on what you want to persuade me of, because I don't even care about that unless I understand why the incident matters in the first place. — ciphergoth 21:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

As Pentagon insists ?

The text "On 2 August the Maddox was, as Pentagon insists" is ridiculous. Who claims otherwise ? An involved Vietnamese general even admits to it, not to mention the countless American witnesses. There is the plausible possibility the attack on the 4th did not occur (although not much evidence that they Americans on the 4th DIDN'T _think_ they were being attacked), but there is really no evidence that the 2nd August attack did not occur. The article also has the ridiculous claim "when it (the US) installed anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem as President of South Vietnam"... no wonder wikipedia gets a bad reputation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.166.167.211 (talk) 15:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, now, according to this article, which cites the National Security Agency, the attacks NEVER HAPPENED. If I was more familiar with this incident, I would change the article, but maybe somebody else wants to handle it? Murderbike (talk) 01:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
This one may be better. Murderbike (talk) 01:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080108/pl_afp/usvietnamintelligence512

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.

It's official. The article needs to show that 'no attack happened that night.' 69.220.2.188 (talk) 05:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The FAS has clarified their original statement on which that news story is based:

The most sensational part of the history (which was excerpted and disclosed by the NSA two years ago) is the recounting of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in which a second reported North Vietnamese attack on U.S. forces, following another attack two days before, triggered a major escalation of the war. The author demonstrates that not only is it not true, as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of a second attack was "unimpeachable," but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that "no attack happened that night.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/01/nsa_releases_history_of_americ.html?TB_iframe=true&height=450&width=850 63.209.224.93 (talk) 16:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

McNamara categorically asserted falseness. Why there isn't more emphasis on this? In Fog of War he is clear-cut: "It did not happen."

1995, General Vo Nguyen Giap Reports?

Was it really fifty-nine years after the imaginary attacks that the General of the North Vietnamese forces "disavowed any involvement with the August 4 incident"? Or was there a typing mistake? Anyone know for sure if it was indeed 1995 of 1965? Please write!

It was 1995 General Giap also acknowledged NK involvement in Aug 2.

http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/world198_4.html

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp951110/11100463.htm

~spiker_22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spiker 22 (talk • contribs) 03:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Your math is really bad. 1995 - 1964 = 31 years, not 59 years.

Yes - information is correct, appropriate reference added. P.jasons 11:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Allegedly - really

Look, either Moise says the attack really happened or Moise (the footnoted reference) says it was merely alleged. Which is it? Does anyone have a copy of the reference they can check and quote here? Reverting each other in front of a footnoted reference is hightly suspicious editing behavior. It suggests that neither editor is looking at the reference and just wants war! Please stop it! Student7 (talk) 01:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Aug 2 attacked occurred and the Aug 4 attack didn't. Therefore, I think it's appropriate to say "alledged". Before I make the change, I wanted to run it past the other editors. Thanks. 12.10.248.51 (talk) 15:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Let's think this thing through. You are commander of a fleet which, in today's terms, is worth maybe a $1 billion. And in charge of several thousand men. A tiny ship which could sink one of yours knowingly and perhaps with malice aforethought comes within shooting distance of your fleet. It is night.
Are they deliberately threatening you? Heck, yes! They have radar. What the heck else are they doing? Whether they actually pull the trigger or not is moot. You can't wait for them to sink your ship! Yes, sinking a ship would be considered "provocative." But the threat was coming within shooting distance. You can't allow them to shoot in the first place. Whether there were trails in the water or not is irrelevant.
It would be different BTW if the threat was not "assymetrical." So if the enemy navy is presenting the same size ship/fleet (as the Soviets did) THEN and only then, could you "afford" to wait. The threat to their navy is the same as the threat to yours.
Having said that, I don't see that we must take several peoples word for this who have generally expressed anti-American views, including Ellsberg. They can be presented separately as an alternative explanation, but their is no conclusive result without a neutral finding. Ellsberg et al are not that unbiased source. Student7 (talk) 12:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, it seems someone added "alledged" back in, someone removed it, and someone added it back again. Is there a way to phrase this to indicate that the Aug 2 attack occurred and the Aug 4 attack didn't? 12.10.248.51 (talk) 17:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Clarification

This is yet another case of the befuddled and flumoxed thinking typically found in these cases. The essence of the matter is that the veridicality of incident itself is generally considered to be highly suspect, in fact probably false and rather famously so, so that this ranks close to the Maine and WMD as a manufactured casus belli. Any attempt to directly address this and have it "objectively" reported will inevitably occassion a reaction so it's likely someone thought of doing so and just decided not to bother. Lycurgus (talk) 22:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Self-contradiction

The current revision contradicts itself about what really happened by stating in the introductory sentence that The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a pair of attacks initiated by naval forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.... Terjen (talk) 15:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If you can find a better wording without making it clunky, do it. No one credibly disputes the first attack's occurrence, and the second is highly disputed. 129.71.73.243 (talk) 15:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
How about this?
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is the name given to a two separate incidents involving the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964 two American destroyers engaged three North Vietnamese torpedo boats, resulting in one of the torpedo boat's sinking. On August 4, 1964, the American destroyers reported a second engagement with North Vietnamese boats. However, this second report was later discovered to be mistaken. Together, these two incidents prompted the first large-scale involvement of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 18:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This sounds great. No one is (currently) arguing about the second instance are they? If so, maybe "most commentators believe that...." Student7 (talk) 20:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
OK, I rewrote the opening paragraph in accordance to the discussion above. 12.10.248.51 (talk) 13:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident in other entries

Actually, the second paragraph of USS_Maddox_(DD-731)#Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident is almost completely wrong. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 20:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

this page is SOOO not neutral

I would agree it was staged. However, I think it could be presented from a more objective viewpoint that "frames" the issue as well as the events. (July 24, 2005)

RE: your article about the gulf of tonkin accident(its sexual references

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.

President Johnson admitted it (see refs). What more do you need? Where is the space for what you call neutrality between the facts? P.jasons 11:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
LOL:) What a huge waste of time instead of an article.
To put its content short:
"Um, well, something happened there in Tonkin gulf at that moment, not really sure what.
And yes, we prefer calling it "an incident". It happened, you know, quite "incidentally". Yes, that had something to do with Northern Vietnam.
What was your question again? "Was this casus belli"? - What do you mean? Never heard of this word.
"Had the CIA have any connection"? - But sure, they reported to the President (ta-da-da!) of the United States (ta-da-da-da!) about the incident (yes, we insist on the term).
"Staged"? What do you mean? It was an incident. Why do we call it an "incident" - if it was "staged"? Everyone would call it a "provocation" in this case! But nobody does!
"The IHT does?[1]" - Sorry, we never read that issue. But IHT is surely not a reliable source in this case, especially compared to the JCS, if you know what I mean. Anyway IHT is too leftish to be cited here.
Who are "we"? - Oh, well, we, the people that protected you, and Western freedom in Vietnam. From the Tonkin "incident" (yes, it's a right term) till the evacuation of Saigon. If you know what I mean.FeelSunny (talk) 11:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Navy Day?

I may have misunderstood, but if the August 4 attacks were supposedly figments of the US military and politico's imagination, why does Vietnam have a Navy Day that commemorates when "one of our torpedo squadrons chased the U.S.S. Maddox from our coastal waters, our first victory over the U.S. Navy"?

Chris (talk) 14:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


Not that this is the place for speculation, but maybe it was as good a bit of propaganda for them as it was for the US? Murderbike (talk) 03:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


I am kind of disappointed. Chris was alert enough to point out more than a year ago that what was in the section on the Navy Anniversary Day flagrantly contradicted what was in the rest of the article, but nobody has resolved the discrepancy. August 5 was chosen as the tradition day of the DRV Navy to commemorate combat between the DRV Navy and U.S. aircraft on that date, when there were U.S. air strikes against Vietnamese ships at several locations along the coast, and the Vietnamese ships shot down at least one U.S. aircraft. The Vietnamese have never suggested that they did anything to the Maddox, or to any American surface ship, on August 5. What was actually in the official history published in Hanoi that Douglas Pike was quoting was, "On 2 August 1964 one of our torpedo squadrons chased the destroyer Maddox from our coastal waters, which is regarded as our first victory over the U.S. Navy." Douglas Pike dropped the words "On 2 August 1964" from the beginning of the sentence, and presented the rest of it as a statement about August 5.
Pike's source was Vietnam: The Anti-U.S. Resistance War for National Salvation, 1954-1975: Military Events. The original was published by the People's Army Publishing House, Hanoi, 1980. The English translation that Douglas Pike used, by JPRS and/or FBIS, was published in June 1982; it is available from the National Technical Information Service as JPRS 80968, and the text is also available online The section on the Tonkin Gulf incidents of August 2 and 4, and the U.S. airstrikes of August 5, is on pages 60-61.
I am curious about what role these discussion pages actually play in Wikipedia, so I will wait for a reaction to this comment of mine. I will delete the whole section "Navy Anniversary Day" in a couple of weeks if nobody else deals with the problem sooner. Ed Moise (talk) 20:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Section has been deleted.Ed Moise (talk) 17:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

What SOG Commando raid?

When the SOG commando raid was being carried out against Hon Nieu, the ship was 120 miles (190 km) away from the attacked area.[10]

The article states this but prior to that it doesnt mention, as far as i have seen, the conducting of a raid by SOG personnel but has explained who they were and that mercenaries were employed to bomb NVA positions. Can someone elaborate on this in the article please?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Pentagon Papers

Can someone tell me WHERE in the pentagon papers it says (or implies) that these events were fabricated? I read through them and found nothing.

Don't worry about it. The incident was not fabricated. It was not staged. Just one of those simple twists of fate. Johnson's grasp of opportunity should not be seen (except by those whose minds run toward dark conspiracies in every corner) as naything more than a continuation of American policy that had been conducted by both political parties since the Truman administration. RM Gillespie 16:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The Pentagon Papers said that the text of the Resolution was drafted months before the "incident" actually "took place" (i.e. it was ready, only waiting for anything that would look like an incident take place) Johannjs (talk) 04:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
AFAIK, they don't. People don't pay attention and use words like "fabrication" rather loosely without evidence. You'll note that Johannjs's post above doesn't even address the issue of fabrication. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Tonkin Gulf Incident/SWIFT BOATS

Author Edwin E. Moise's book entitled, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, published in 1996, by the University of North Carolina Press; states beginning on page 10, and proceeding through page 58 that newly acquired US built SWIFT BOATS were used to supplement the 8 Nasty Boats (PTFs-imported from Norway) and 2 old wooden WWII PT Boats (which weren't used, due to their gasoline engines) for the OPLAN 34A missions which were coordinated with the DeSoto operations, just prior to the 02 August 1964 naval engagement in the Tonkin Gulf (USS Maddox vs 3 NVN torpedo boats).

According to Friedman's book on "Small Boat Combatants" as well as wikipedia's website; The brand new US built PCF Swift Boats were not deployed to South Vietnam until about 1965. Yet, Mr. Moise states in his book that the US was using the newly acquired Swift Boats in February and March 1964! These were for OPLAN 34A covert operatons into North Vietnam.

DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THESE SWIFT BOATS ARE THE SAME PCF BOATS USED IN THE RIVERINE FORCES IN VIETNAM (1965)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.10.11.66 (talk) 09:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Staged Gulf of Tonkin Incident

There was some previous dispute as to whether the gulf of tonkin incident was staged or not. Apparently the article previously mentioned the incident was staged and there were many complaints to edit the article to be more neutral. However now there is absolutely no mention of any of this and I think it is unfair to the otherside considering there is a significant amount of people that do believe it was staged. I did some digging and found the wikipedia article for "Casus belli" and it mentions some historians believe Gulf of Tonkin was manufactured to start the war. The sources listed for this include two interviews with McNamara -- one from CNN and the other from AP. While the article was too biased toward staging the incident, now the article is biased against it and makes absolutely no mention. I think there should be a section addressing this controversy.

I doubt that any reliable source (including CNN and AP) claims that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was staged. The only places I've heard this are from crazy conspiracy theory websites. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 18:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


Here's a couple... it seems that most of the allegations are centered around Hanyoks report
BBC - "Documents cast doubt on existance of attack" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4492190.stm
George Washington University - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.htm
seems pretty cut and dry, don't see what all the fuss is about. btw whats all this stuff i read on wiki talk pages about "reliable sources"?? From a research standpoint, i would declare a source reliable as long as it gives evidence of its claims as well as cites its own sources and leaves a clear paper trail. On most talk pages it seems that the word "reliable" is synonomous with the word 'corporate.' Just because a newspaper or website is not a fortune 500 multi-million dollar outfit does not mean the do not have reliable reporting. I'd say if anything it means they are more objective, since they have fewer interests to act on behalf of, as long as they back up what they say right? 99.198.32.36 (talk) 06:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


Captain John Herrick, the on-scene commander, thought there was a possibility (I repeat, a possibility) that the incident might have been deliberately staged (that there might have been a U.S. government conspiracy to make the destroyers' radar show spurious images of hostile torpedo boats). He asked me to look into this possibility, when I was doing my research on the Tonkin Gulf incidents. I checked as much as I could, and concluded there had been no such conspiracy. Ed Moise (talk) 19:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Why non-NPOV

That the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a lie has been a long held belief among historians, based on evidence like the Pentagon Papers. Now we have proof.

To say the Nazis and Jews were to be blamed equally for the Holocaust is not NPOV. It is just stupidity.

But there is non-NPOV in the article.

"By 1961, President Ngo Dinh Diem faced significant discontent amongst some quarters of the southern population, including some Buddhists who were opposed to the rule of Diem's Catholic supporters."

That sentence is like saying there are some white elements in the KKK. The people in the south supported the Vietminh. America supported Diem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.253.73.146 (talk) 07:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

No, you don't have proof. You have populist consensus. The people who were on the USS Maddox knew they were being attacked. As for the notion that the people of Vietnam supported the Vietminh, that's not entirley true. The people were being killed if the Vietminh, and then the Vietcong simply thought they supported the Vietquoc, not to mention any locally elected South Vietnamese leaders. ----DanTD (talk) 23:25, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. No objections, not cap'd in Google Book search results. — kwami (talk) 12:00, 13 October 2010‎ (UTC)

Gulf of Tonkin Incident → Gulf of Tonkin incident —

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not Quite the Whole Story

The article's account of the reported 4 August 1964 engagement in the Tonkin Gulf reflects the hash historians, politicians, and others have made of the events of that night. The definitive account of what actually happened has yet to be written. The lavishly praised and oft-quoted Moise book on which other historians have tended to rely is impressive in terms of the detail it musters to make its case, but it is nonetheless incomplete and a victim in part of sloppy methodology on key issues.

Moise's case rests in part on the oft-cited theory of atmospheric-caused radar "phantoms" triggering the reporting by USS Turner Joy's (DD-951) radarmen of contacts approaching USS Maddox (DD-731) and Turner Joy at high speed that night. What Moise and others who propound that theory have failed to do, however, is to distinguish between the operating characteristics of the TJ's SPS-10 surface search radar and the much higher-resolution fire control radar employed in the ship's aft fire control system to acquire and lock on to targets. (I was Turner Joy's Electronics Materiel Officer at the time, and my GQ station that night in CIC was Radar Control Officer, tasked with evaluating the "friendly" or "bogey" status of contacts acquired by our SPS-29 air search radar.) The surface search radar might be "spooked" by atmospherics as well as by the heavy seas which existed that night in the gulf. That was much less likely with the fire control radar. When, shortly after the incident, I asked the aft (Director 52) director officer, LTJG Wayne Whitmore, whether he and his fire control technician might have acquired sea return, whales, bubbles, or other phenomena that might have created false "contacts," he said everything that was picked up and fired on was a solid contact. Curiously, while historian Moise devoted a lot of space to an analysis of the ballistics, warhead fusing, and trajectories involved in firing our 5"/54's at targets that were picked up astern or near astern of us, he did not include any account of what LTJG Whitmore and his FT saw that night.

Similarly, Moise dropped the ball on another key issue, namely whether or not any torpedoes were actually fired at either of the US destroyers that night. Moise did report what the forward director officer, LTJG John Barry, and his fire control technician (both of whom were "out of a job" with an inoperative forward 5"/54 gun mount and a forward twin 3"/50 mount that was silenced by the CO because it was creating too much racket and vibration just forward of the bridge) described as a high-speed torpedo wake some distance from Turner Joy's port side. But Moise downplayed that visual sighting with what he considered countervailing evidence from another officer who was not out on deck that night and the inability of Turner Joy's sonar to detect a torpedo at the time of the reported sighting. Moise did indicate that the ship's sonar had failed on occasion during exercises to detect torpedoes as well, but he failed to mention the after-action evaluation by a Seventh Fleet team who interviewed Barry, his FT, and others for details. When the interviews were concluded, the team leader, a Navy captain and submariner with extensive torpedo experience, stated that there was no doubt in his mind that what Barry and his FT saw was a torpedo wake. Moise similarly discounts the visual sightings by other above-deck personnel of surface machine-gun fire emanating from, or fire damage inflicted on, surface targets.

The reliance of Moise and other historians on the memoir of then-Commander James Stockdale is also problematic. Commander Stockdale had flown against the North Vietnamese vessels engaged with USS Maddox on 2 August and--as he said in his memoir--knew how to "hose" PT boats. Stockdale reported that when he flew to the scene of the reported action on the night of 4 August he saw no evidence--in inclement weather and heavy seas--of any vessels other than the two US destroyers. But that wasn't all he couldn't see, in part because--and he bragged about his "hosing" ability in his memoir as the reason--he refused to accept shipboard radar control to vector him to any target Turner Joy's radar had acquired. He even asked the TJ to turn on its truck or mast lights so he could spot us--and nearly launched a Sidewinder missile at the destroyer.

Finally, there really hasn't been a satisfactory exploration of the curious behavior of the task group commander and Officer in Tactical Command, Captain John Herrick, who was aboard USS Maddox that night. Herrick is reported to have expressed doubts shortly after the apparent engagement was over that any had actually occurred. Yet, he later: (1)submitted an after-action report detailing an engagement with enemy combatants on the night of 4 August; (2) recommended Turner Joy's CO, Commander Robert Barnhart, for a Silver Star for the action (Barnhart was awarded the Bronze Star); and (3) during an immediately post-Tonkin Gulf underway refueling by Turner Joy with a carrier on which Herrick was aboard and linked via ship-to-ship communication with Barnhart, Herrick was heard by a petty officer first class monitoring their conversation on the bridge to say, "Thanks, Bob, you saved my ass out there!" Hardly the reaction of someone who doubted what had happened.

Jimtranr (talk) 18:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC) Jimtranr (talk) 21:10, 1 December 2008 (UTC) Jimtranr (talk) 13:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC) Jimtranr (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)Jimtranr Jimtranr (talk) 17:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)Jimtranr

The term "false flag" not mentioned in the article

With this incident to my knowledge being mentioned ubiquitously, the world over, when false flag operations are discussed, it is in my opinion highly lamentable that the term has been weeded out of this article and also (I assume) removed from Category:False flag operations. I move that both these actions be undone. I'll await the outcome of any discussion here on this first, but I should hasten to point out that I will call a Request for Comments should my proposal be met with unyielding opposition. __meco (talk) 05:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I have done a little investigating into sources to support my assertion, and it does seem that there are almost no mainstream sources using the term false flag in connection with this incident. There are however several of the most prominent conspiracy theorists/researchers who make this connection. Based on that I wonder if maybe a discussion of the assertion in some quarters that this should be seen as a false flag operation would be appropriate with the counterargument such as presented by Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff in an interview with Paul Jay of the Real News Network[2]:
JAY: We know Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag operation to help instigate or draw Johnson into the war.
WILKERSON: I wouldn't characterize it that way. I would characterize it as an incident that happened, the reporting was bad (subsequent reporting, by the way, cleared it up), and as the bad reporting came in, there were people, including the president, who said, A-ha, I know how to use that.
__meco (talk) 17:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be any credible evidence that this was a "false flag operation" and the conspiracy sites certainty fail WP:RS. V7-sport (talk) 20:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Johnson's Speech

This section, a rather crucial one, needs re-writing. It does not make clear exactly what Johnson said. Did he say that the US was twice attacked? Did he mention "warning shots" or the possibility that the second "incident" never actually occurred? There is no issue of interpretion here: we just need to know what he actually said, which is presumably a historical record. Readers can then form their own judgement, in light of the evidence presented in the rest of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulhummerman (talk • contribs) 13:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

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The article contradicts itself as to North Vietnamese claimed territorial limits at sea.

First we read: "The Maddox when confronted, was approaching Hòn Mê Island, three to four miles inside the twelve-mile limit claimed by North Vietnam. This territorial limit was unrecognized by the United States at the time. After the skirmish, President Johnson ordered the Maddox and Turner Joy to stage daylight runs into North Vietnamese waters, testing the twelve-mile limit and North Vietnamese resolve. These runs into North Vietnamese territorial waters coincided with South Vietnamese coastal raids and were interpreted as coordinated operations by the North, which officially acknowledged the engagements of 2 August 1964.[15]"

Then a short ways down: "Sharp also noted that orders given to Maddox to stay eight miles (13 km) off the North Vietnamese coast put the ship in international waters, as North Vietnam claimed only a five-mile (8 km) nautical limit as its territory (or off of its off-shore islands). In addition, many nations had previously carried out similar missions all over the world, and the USS John R. Craig (DD-885) had earlier conducted an intelligence-gathering mission in similar circumstances without incident.[17]"

This is a serious discrepancy. What were the territorial limits declared by North Vietnam. Was Admiral Sharp correct or not? If not, was he lying or mistaken? It seems that in any case the destoyers were on a mission to lure or provoke a North Vietnamese attack in waters that were borderline but which the U.S. could later claim to be "international" whether they were or not. The article needs to clearify the difference as to territorial limits in fact and what the U.S. intended and knew. Surely the U.S. knew whether they were in waters claimed by Vietnam. I smell two rats here; one at the time of the events, and another one later (to this day) in the recounting. Anthony Gumbrell 04:55, 4 August 2011 (UTC) 

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.102.112.248 (talk) 04:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
I noticed this discrepancy as well. But we don't need to figure out what *actually* happened or if Admiral Maddox lied (or if he told the truth and the other account lied). That would be original research. We just need to note that the two sources give contradictory accounts of this part. But if an editor wants to change the article to note that, they should first confirm that both the sources actually do give conflicting accounts. But those citations do not have hyperlinks to their full text. So if someone wants to track down the actual sources then they could correct this but otherwise I wouldn't mess with it. Deepblue9000 (talk) 23:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Capitalization

Why is "incident" capitalized in the first sentence but not in the title? —Malcolm (talk) 05:45, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Clean-up Needed?

The entire introduction, as well as much of the article uses passive voice. Can someone please fix that? It's driving me insane! --Lacarids (talk) 05:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Clean-up Needed?

The entire introduction, as well as much of the article, uses passive voice. Can someone please fix that? It's driving me insane! --Lacarids (talk) 05:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems obvious to me, that you yourself can fix that. I understand and assume that it would be a tricky job; but we're all busy, you know...--Corriebertus (talk) 11:45, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality

This being a controversial article, I noticed many of the references link to non-neutral websites - where many of the links doesn't work anymore. Many of the quotes in the article seem cherry picked towards the view that it was an intentional false flag action. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.23.240.65 (talk) 08:09, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Referring to 'non-neutral' websites, is perfectly normal and acceptable practice in Wikipedia. If you have a view differing from the one presented in the article now, please add that view, underpinned by references. --Corriebertus (talk) 11:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

This article has problems

I agree that a second attack did not happened, but my understanding is that radarmen mistook atmospheric conditions for North Vietnamese torpedo boats. This would suggest there was no second attack, but there was no staging either. Johnson had planned for several months prior to the Gulf of Tonkin incident to ask Congress for powers equivalent to a declaration of war once there was a major incident again. There had been incidents such a Viet Cong bombing of a American officer's mess in South Vietnam earlier in 1964, and senior figures in the Johnson Administration had discussed asking for Gulf of Tonkin Resolution-type powers at that time, but had decided not to. The attitude of the Administration was summed up by Dean Rusk, who said these incidents were like a bus-one would happen and a little later, another one would happen.

The above comment has problems also. While it is true radarmen mistook blips caused by high seas for North Viet Namese (Viet Nam is 2 words, not one), the ship's commander ultimately recognized this and so notified CINCPAC in Honolulu which notified Johnson before the retaliatory attacks were ordered. Thus, when Johnson went before the public to claim a 2nd attack had occurred, he knew that was a not true; and subsequently admitted as much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.125.195.48 (talk) 16:08, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Nope - the quote is actually from McGeorge Bundy and refferred to the NLF attack on the airbase at Pleiku. "Pleikus are like streetcars". RM Gillespie 16:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Later on in 1964, there was a decision made that when the next major incident occured, Congress would be asked to provide those powers equivalent to a declaration of war. The Gulf of Tonkin incident proved to be the next apparent incident. True, the Johnson administration jumped at the chance to use the apparent attack to ask for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and later on tried to cover up the fact there was no second incident, but I do not belive that the Johnson faked the attack. At most, Johnson was over-eager at using the apparent attack to ask for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

I really think this article should be taken out of the category staged incidents. Anyhow, since when did the Gulf of Tonkin incident marked the beginning of the Vietnam War? This article says Johnston faked the attack to launch the war, which is curious as my understanding is there had been a war going on in South Vietnam from 1957 onwards. Indeed, many count the entire period 1945-75 as Thirty Year's War for Vietnam.

[3] .. also, there has been information circulating since the declassification that it was Israeli torpedo boats, and not the North Vietnamese. it may have been an attempt to excuse the United States' involvement in the war by claiming that the attack came from Egypt. until these claims are refuted or investigated further, i think this article should stay in "staged incidents." - 12.219.37.234 19:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Historically, the incident on Aug 2nd wasn't really of importance. It was totally in the hand of U.S. Government to either settle it peacefully through diplomacy, instead they decided to stage an affirmation that the incident wasn't just a mistake. So it is no longer of relevance, whether the first attack was genuine or staged as well. The end result qualifies as a false flag operation. P.jasons 11:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

P. Jasons: Your claim that "It was totally in the hand of U.S. Government to either settle it peacefully through diplomacy" is a bit bizzare. If two parties are involved it is up to both parties to pursue resolution. Firing on another nations craft is often considered an act of war. For some reason it only seems to be the US who must act differently than any other nation. Further, you quickly dismiss the first attack of Aug 2 describing it as historically irrelavant, but then go on to claim that Johnson needed to demonstrate just that point: That " they decided to stage an affirmation that the incident wasn't just a mistake" The question of whether the attack of Aug 2 was real or not is crucial to any discussion of August 4. Your conclusion that August 4 was a "false flag" meaning a deliberately fabricated event is a forced conclusion. August 4 is meaningless without reference to August 2 ~ Spiker_22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spiker 22 (talk • contribs) 07:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Errata

Calling this a "false flag" operation makes perfect sense.

Surely neither side in the "Incident" was misrepresenting its nationality, so it was not a "false flag" operation. In any case, only the US and North Vietnam had such forces in the area concerned at the time. How was the North expected to react to an incursion into closed waters, close to its shores (whether or not within its claimed territorial waters) by a carrier task force? What could be the reason for the presence of such a force, except to provoke a response?
Beardandsandals (talk) 13:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


The US never wanted Diem to hold elections. They also had his brother running newspapers there. This is just more silly thinking. Also the US were in direct violation of the Geneva Treaty way back in the mid-1950s. Read the reports from the Geneva envoys for more information in the matter. Your present wording makes it sound like the US only began flying in massive military support after Diem got into trouble which might not be your intention but which is also patently false.

It's also doubtful JFK was against Diem as his (JFK's) own father was responsible for cultivating Diem for several years at a hideaway in Massachusetts and neither JFK nor any other member of the clan would ever go against papa Joe.

And now having read the entire article I accuse you outright of trying to whitewash your beloved country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.5.12.95 (talk) 04:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The article says the "Maddox... was attacked by three North Vietnamese patrol boats inside of international waters". This is confusing -- the phrase "inside of" is not normally used in conjunction with "international waters." What is meant here? Perhaps it should be changed to read "in international waters" or "inside territorial waters."

How credible is the Ellsberg claim of the DeSoto patrol intruding into NV territorial waters? -- Dysmorodrepanis 20:17, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

does anyone know who the two senators were who voted against the resolution? Kingturtle 20:56 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Wayne Morse, Ernest Gruening - Hephaestos 20:59 18 May 2003 (UTC)

There seems to be a great deal of confusion about what part of the incident is actually disputed. The official claims made by the Johnson administration included two separate "incidents": one on August 2, the other on August 4. That US and North Vietnamese forces exchanged fire on August 2 is indisputable: even General Giap, commander-in-chief of North Vietnamese forces, admitted such in 1995. The August 4 incident is the one that is really disputed. General Giap claims that no North Vietnamese forces were present (that is, that American ships were firing at open water) and the bulk of evidence indicates he is correct. That the Johnson administration sensationalized the incidents and the overall threat to US forces in the region in order to get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress are valid criticisms.

I considered placing a non-NPOV warning instead of a factual warning, as several phrases are pushing the line in that regard, but feel that the confusion over the facts are more important at this time.

Removed warning after some editing on my part.

It seems the policy of allowing anyone to present themselves as an authority, and edit content as they see fit ensures Wikipedia will never generate a meaningful statement on a controversial issue like the Tonkin Gulf Incident. It would be much better to have some mechanism that would allow competing facts and theories to remain as a link, footnote, or sub paragraph. It would also be helpful, I think, to consider strategy. If you wish to investigate an entity, such as the military or the government, that has control of nearly all of the "facts," and can create and/or destroy facts at will, a strategy that seeks to establish facts before proceeding to analysis will never produce a meaningful result. That has been the flaw in every account of battle of August 4, 1964, in Tonkin Gulf. Prosecution of organized crime has no success when that approach was used. Success against organized crime came when, under new Racketeering laws, looked for pattern first. When two or more instances of the same pattern were identified they aggressively went after the facts. The pattern of blaming the incident of August 4th on "over excited, poorly trained sailors," is a case in point. The Navy has had a long standing tradition of protecting higher ranking officers by blaming the problem on the lowest ranking person possible. Circa 1960 the USS Kearsage collided with the SS Orion near Long Beach Harbor, California. The Admiralty Court could not assign blame because so many errors were made by both commands. The Navy courtmartialed the 3rd Class Quartermaster who had the helm. Remember the "Tail Hook Incident?" The Navy was set to blame in the women pilots, but the feminist movement came to the support of the women and proved that was a cover up. Several male pilots were found guilty and one or two admirals had to resign. How about the Battleship Iowa? . . . the Navy first blamed it on a gay sailor. The court later agreed with the parent of that sailor that the cause of the explosion was old ammunition that should have been used. So that business of over excited, poorly trained sailors is just the same old saw. In truth I was the Combat Information Center on the Maddox the night of August 4th (I can prove it, though much false information on that has been circulated by the Navy) and I can tell you the OI Division performed with amazing skill and courage in a very difficult situation. I can tell you the name of each one, what he did, and where he was positioned. And can tell you I was, and remain, proud of each one them. If you told me to my face that any one of those men were stupid or poorly trained, I would punch in the mouth. So perhaps men, we need the courage demonstrated by the women in the Tailhook Incident to get to the bottom of the Tonkin Gulf Incident. SanBenito (talk) 12:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

"In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, The former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted The Gulf of Tonkin Incident never happened." This is false. Mr. McNamara admitted the second attack never happened, not that the event was a pure fabrication. I am deleting this false statement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HODxnUrFX6k — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brorlob (talk • contribs) 23:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

"In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, The former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted that the Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened." Remains in the article. It is PATENTLY FALSE. The statement was specifically about the Aug 4 incident, not the totality of events in the Tonkin gulf. I shall delete it again. Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

Where is the proof that August 4 battle didn't occur?

This claim seems to be quite widespread, but the reasoning seems horribly inadequate. Basically, the claim seems to based on that the crews of two US Navy destroyers were so hopelessly incompetent and their radar equipment so woefully incapable, that they were unable to distinguish an attack from weather phenomena and equipment malfunctions. If this was really the case, there certainly should have been many more such "alledged attacks" during that period of naval standoff between US/NATO and Warsaw Pact navies.

I think the only plausible explanation for the second attack not actually taking place is massive forgery of official documents, like these:
http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/vietnam/tonkin-3.htm
including forcing naval service personnel to give false written statements or fabricating them in the name of the crew. This is an extraordinary conspiracy claim which needs a lot of proof.

Many of the sources claiming the second attack didn't occur mix terminology (heavy machine gun bullets for "dud shells") and are very confused about naval command structure (CINCPAC statements mistaken for CTG "cables") and many other details. For example:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2261
claims that Captain John J. Herrick, Commander Task Group 72.1, has repealed his official reports that there was indeed an attack on August 4, when they actually quote a CINCPAC statement in a predidential briefing document that the intensity of the attack may have been exaggerated (the number of torpedoes fired for example), but that the attack did infact, take place (image via Google search, because Wikipedia spam filter blocks the source site):
http://images.google.fi/images?q=gulfoftonkin2.jpg

Herrick's last official statement about the incident as far as I can find is this (7 August 1964):
"However, it is my opinion that certainly a PT boat action did take place. The number of boats involved and the number of torpedoes fired I cannot accurately determine."
http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/vietnam/tonkin-1.htm#personalstate

So in summary, the only proof so far linked in the article about there not having been an August 4th attack, is the statement 30 years after the fact by a Vietnamese general. No technically plausible alternative explanation is offered for the radar and sonar contacts and visual observation by the crews of two US ships or how they were fabricated by the Johnson administration.

Offering Stockdale, who flew overhead and didn't see any enemy ships (other pilots, CDR G. H. Edmondson and LT jg J. A. Barton, USN, did at least see their wakes and AA fire, according to the official story) and Daniel Ellsberg, (who remembers "cables from Herrick" dismissing the certainty that there was an attack, but has not been able to reproduce such cables or find other witnesses to collaborate) seem to be appeals to false authority. Even though Stockdale was able to rise through the ranks to be a MoH winning vice admiral (and a vice president candidate) later, the radar in his fighter (AN/APQ-94) was much less capable of detecting small torpedo and gun boats than the radar sets on the two destroyers. The fact that Stockdale didn't see any targets (and kept quiet about it until the 92 presidential race) is contrasted by two other pilots who did. Also, Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower is hardly an authority in military matters and clearly has an agenda against the Johnson administration. Even though he raised claims (in a 2004 Boston Globe editorial critizising the Iraq war and the WMD "staged casus belli") about Herrick retracting his official statements in some flash cable after the incident, where is that cable? It was not in the Pentagon Papers, so where is it? He has proven capable of digging classified papers before, so we should not just take his word for it but demand proof positive. 80.186.124.43 07:42, 31 Oct 2005

EDit Note: Heres A link descibing the incident and what Really occured.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2261 70.28.242.109 21:36, 20 August 2006
The belief that this second attack had ever happened is so discredited since the release of NSA and taped conversations of L.B.J. that it amazes me anyone actually still can think that it did happen. There isn't a single govt. official of which I'm aware that stands by the second attack nonsense. Even Johnson trying to play dumb a year after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed, said that for all he knew U.S. forces were shooting at whales!! Johnson wanted a solid U.S. presence in S. Vietnam and knew the only way this was going to happen was by creating a scenario where U.S. forces would be attacked. He got what he wanted and we got over 50,000 dead Americans. Jtpaladin 19:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
And FAIR is a neutral source on this, right? Equinox137 09:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Now that is hilarious! FAIR is Jeff Cohen's leftist outfit that promotes left-wing media bias by making false accusations of right-wing bias, while sugar-coating even Hugo Chavez's abuses. NCdave 16:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Anything that's not fabricated by US administration or military must be said to be "controversial". Johannjs (talk) 04:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Somewhere in storage, I have an issue of Nostalgia magazine(or some similar magazine) that covers the attacks, and that article clearly indicates that the sailors on the USS Maddox know that it happened. I wish I could remember the exact issue and volume, but the fact that they said they were attacked doesn't exactly indicate a "fabrication." ----DanTD (talk) 14:45, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
The sailors on the USS Maddox might have thought they were engaging the enemy, but that doesn't mean they were. People make mistakes all the time. AFAIK, the first engagement was real. The second engagement wasn't. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I acknowledge all the controversy here, but ... I must admit that with all the double negatives, I'm quite unclear of the intent of the comments of "80.186.124.43 07:42, 31 Oct 2005" as well as some other comments I scanned through.

I'm sorry, but comments such as "horribly inadequate", "certainly should have been many more such alledged [sic] attacks", "only plausible explanation...is massive forgery", "Many of the sources ...mix terminology", are just as unfounded as assumptions as I've ever seen and strictly opinion. If you weren't there, I am sorry, but you haven't a clue and stating things that way adds no credibility to your viewpoint.

Reading the FAIR article referenced above, I see it is substantially on target with facts, but I cannot say that every detail in it is exact.

I recommend to anyone, go to the NSA site and get the documents I reference. There may be more, I did this research some years ago. Read as many of these as you wish, refute what you wish, then I believe you can be more qualified to come to your own conclusion. Based on my knowledge, I don't see evidence of major withholding (in the declassified reports).

I have copies but not the URLs, I may have read others that I didn't keep. The NSA also declassified numerous cables between the ships, planes, San Miguel and the NSA to pour though if you dare. I did. Also, learn what Desoto was. International relations was/is a stinky business on all sides - this is not new(s). [I may have added to the filenames for my own directory, but I believe most of the filenames contain the original text. While I believe most are from the NSA, not all necessarily are. Google is pretty good at finding stuff.. I see one that of these is an atricle reference]

rel1_gulf_tonkin_incident.pdf
rel2_gulf_tonkin_incident_desoto.pdf
spartans_in_darkness_8152884.pdf
rel1_skunks_bogies.pdf
NIP Encore Pages+from+Spring1993[1].pdf
Book Review Tuthill ReviewTG[1].pdf
Book Review McDonald-1 NIP Spring1998.pdf
Book Review McDonald-2_NIP Summer1998.pdf
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1913028_1913030_1913022,00.html

While I do note, and I do find quite interesting, that one somewhat important, original message was lost that was translated differently by San Miguel and the NSA, I don't think it is critical in arriving at a conclusion due to the other carefully analyzed information. All I'll say is that I served in the Navy between 1963 and 1969 and was in the Naval Security Group stationed at San Miguel. I had a good view of the atmosphere around that time.

My personal opinion is that though there was doubt from the beginning, many ran with it and that Johnson would have used any excuse to get into war, flat and simple. If it wasn't this, it would have been something else. Also, in light of the first attack, why fake a second...? Yes, it was clearly a white-wash, many were lied to/deceived and Johnson was a **** and just itchen' for a fight. I haven't taken the time yet, to read McNamara's book, but understand that he admitted they were all paranoid for no good reason.

I also admit that I did not scrub this entire article, nor the Talk. I came for one reason and saw something else I thought I could add to. I suggest the words in the lead: "may have involved" could be changed to something like: ", later NSA analysis came to the conclusion that, among a number of factors, it involved ". Otherwise, if you like conspiracies believe and spout whatever you like. Regards,

Forgot to mention. I note that the "...history...tonkin-3" report linked above was dated Aug 25 shortly after the incidents, which I believe, casts doubt on the impartiality, honesty and thoroughness of it especially in light of everything else. -- Steve -- (talk) 00:43, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

USS South Carolina

I have removed the following sentence from the lead paragraph:

  • The gulf of Tonkin incident seems to be similar to a previous incident outside of North Korea, back in 1952. The USS South Carolina was falsely hit, and was used to raise tensions.

This is because the link USS South Carolina points to 6 ships, none of which were in the Korean War. Also, Googling "USS South Carolina Korea falsely hit" produces nothing except this article.

Whoever put in this sentence, please justify it here with some external-to-Wikipedia references and an internal-to-Wikipedia ship that existed during the Korean War and was deployed to Korea in 1952. Erxnmedia (talk) 12:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Sharp's claim and the Vietnamese stance

The claim that North Vietnam claimed a 5 nm limit for its territorial waters always looked suspicious to me, so I searched for some source that could corroborate it. I found none, instead I found two sources, the only two sources I could find on the subject, that say that the only claim made by both Vietnams was in the years 1964-1965 when North Vietnam claimed a 12 nm territorial limit (in adherence to SU and China) and South Vietnam claimed a 3 nm limit (in adherence to the American stance on the subject). Prior to that, both Vietnams adhered to the 20 km limit claimed by the French in 1936 (20 km ~= 10,8 nm). There is no source citing other claims, in particular no source can attest a 5 miles limit. In addiction to that there's the fact that Socialist nations at the time were supporting a 12 miles limit, and North Vietnam in 1958 supported China when it expanded its territorial waters to 12 nm. It is true that the Kingdom of Cambodia had a 5 miles claim, but that was in 1957 and it has nothing to do with communist Vietnam, so I even find unlikely that Sharp could have confused Cambodia with Vietnam: he simply lied or was ill informed. Note that according to the page United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, that cites a document by the American Army, in 1960 there was just one nation claiming a 5 miles limit and that was Cambodia. --BRG~itwiki (talk) 14:38, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Some more footnotes, please.

I was reading the article with interest until I got to the part that told us what President Kennedy was thinking. How does the author know what President Kennedy was thinking?

Then I looked in vain for a cited source for JFK's thoughts. (Although the entry author could be psychic, or in communication beyond the grave with JFK, to my mind that would be classified as forbidden original research.)

There are other assertions that could use footnotes, but that was the most glaring.50.0.36.109 (talk) 07:02, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Journalist IF Stone's scoop

Perhaps how IF Stone broke the story could be added to the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.177.184 (talk) 20:16, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Gulf of Tonkin Never Happened

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is the name given to two separate incidents involving the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964 two American destroyers engaged three North Vietnamese torpedo boats, resulting in the sinking of one of the torpedo boats. This was also the single most important reason for the escalation of the Vietnam War. After Kennedy was assassinated, the Gulf of Tonkin gave the country the sweeping support for aggressive military action against the North Vietnamese. The outcome of the incident was the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by “communist aggression”. In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that USS Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese on August 2, but that there may not have been any North Vietnamese vessels present during the engagement of August 4. The report stated “It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night…” In truth, Hanoi’s navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2. In 1965, President Johnson commented privately: “For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there.” In 1981, Captain Herrick and journalist Robert Scheer re-examined Herrick’s ship’s log and determined that the first torpedo report from August 4, which Herrick had maintained had occurred—the “apparent ambush”—was in fact unfounded. In 1995, retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, meeting with former Secretary of Defense McNamara, categorically denied that Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers on August 4, while admitting to the attack on August 2. In the Fall of 1999, retired senior CIA engineering executive S. Eugene Poteat wrote that he was asked in early August 1964 to determine if the radar operator’s report showed a real torpedo boat attack or an imagined one. In October, 2005 the New York Times reported that Robert J. Hanyok, a historian for the U.S. National Security Agency, had concluded that the NSA deliberately distorted the intelligence reports that it had passed on to policy-makers regarding the August 4, 1964 incident. He concluded that the motive was not political but was probably to cover up honest intelligence errors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.11.157.129 (talk) 20:08, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, anyone can go to You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HODxnUrFX6k and both see and listen to Robert McNamara say in reference to the Aug 4th attack "...It didn't happen." Discussion about "staging" is an equivocation over a loaded word. Most likely what occurred is that after the weak local response to the August 2nd sortie, our higher command expected the North Vietnamese to be ready and respond with a stronger attack which would, they hoped result in damage to the U.S. destroyers. So the destroyers were sent back on the 4th. The captains of the destroyers were looking for enemy contact and had their crews keyed up for it, and used the least pretext to fire on enemy ships that weren't there, and to report enemy contact and torpedoes that weren't there, the higher naval command 'sexed up' the reports from the destroyer captains to give Johnson and McNamara what they wanted, and which they released to the press and congress. Anthony Gumbrell Anthony Gumbrell 19:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonygumbrell (talk • contribs)

  • "The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is the name given to two separate incidents involving the Democratic Republic of Vietnam" --- well there's your problem right there. A non-acknowledgement of the NVA --- communist North Vietnamese responsibility in the Vietnam War's start, along with over-emphasis on NYT for reference, where NYT was decidedly anti-US during the entire Vietnam War. So naturally, based on those two shortcomings, your natural conclusion would be, this incident was staged. 10stone5 (talk) 21:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

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Broken reference

There seems to be a malfunctioning reference on this page. Could somebody please fix it — and I'll watch how it's done. Thanks! David Cannon (talk) 12:46, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

missing important review article

Please note that there is a quite good recent article addressing/reviewing these issues, from the U.S. Naval Institute, here:

http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2008-02/truth-about-tonkin

This should be included in the references.Wikibearwithme (talk) 09:23, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

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75 & 130 mm shells?!?!

Where did "Maddox expended over 280 3-inch (75 mm) and 5-inch (130 mm) shells in a sea battle." come from? The USS Maddox page lists them as having 20, 40 and 127 mm guns.71.190.158.207 (talk) 11:54, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Second Gulf of Tonkin incident

In my opinion, there is no "Second Gulf of Tonkin incident". Opinions on who was to blame for the "first" incident may differ, but all reliable sources agree there wasn't a "second" incident. Yet it was used as a pretext to invade Viet Nam. --85.148.244.121 (talk) 12:32, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

That's absurd. There was an "incident". Just not an attack. A pack of lies told to the American people the incident was. Lies told by people who were prepared to provoke, fabricate, and lie about an attack. 98.164.71.229 (talk) 06:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Broken refs

Somehow the refs are broken. No refs after #31 are listed in the reference section. All the refs are viewable in edit mode but clicking them doesn't redirect them in view mode. This diff seems to have caused the issue. Any help? Thanks. GreaterPonce665 (TALK) 20:01, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

pinging @The Rambling Man: Please take a look. Thanks. GreaterPonce665 (TALK) 20:04, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Script fail, although why those accessdates are commented out, I know not why. Should be resolved, thanks for the ping. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 20:13, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

"political question" jurisdiction

There is an error in that the US judiciary, under the Constitution and current acts of Congress, CAN hear political questions, and, at times do just that. The doctrine is one of self limitation (meaning they can use it as they choose) not jurisdiction, which makes it outside the reach of their powers. I'd change this, but I feel it is better left to someone else. yay

"political stagecraft"

Beautiful phrasing -- my compliments to whoever wrote that! I wish more wiki authors had such great command of English prose! = ) Jeeves 02:00, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well that's just what it was. I dislike the blatant pov in recent edits - moved big chunk to bottom - still needs lots o work. ==SV 01:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Clarification needed

From "Interpretation;"

"North Vietnam's Navy Anniversary Day is August 5, the date of the second attack, Vietnamese time, where "one of our torpedo squadrons chased the U.S.S. Maddox from our coastal waters, our first victory over the U.S. Navy". [3]"

If this remains true, then "North Vietnam" needs to be changed to "Vietnam," together with links.

Flagrantly Obvious (unless you can deny what stares you in the face)

I put it to everyone concerned with this topic that: Considerable U.S. naval forces were sent north into the vicinity of North Vietnamese waters in conjunction with and supporting overt attacks by South Vietnamese forces on North Vietnamese ground installations and facilities. Why? Not to provoke North Vietnamese retaliation even if purely defensive which would, when puffed here in the U.S. press constitute an incident which would be used as a causus belli? I remember the headlines full well and hearing the scuttlebut in the barbershop the same day: "U.S. Ships Attacked on the High Seas" in type only a few points smaller than delarations of war, followed by, in the barbershop; "Why, they can't do that to us. The president should send in the Marines, or send in some of them paratroopers. We can bomb 'em back to the stone age." and so forth. Going back and reading an account of the operation it is very obvious that: it was planned in advance; and, that, if it were planned in advance, it was ordered in advance; and, that, if it were ordered in advance then it was ordered in advance from a high level. Even then, the desired outcome wasn't quite what was wished for, because the North Vietnamese, undoubtably recognizing opperation's significance excercised considerable restraint; so, the U.S. forces in the confusion of darkness reacting to an attack that hadn't acctually occured fired on an enemy that wasn't there, thus providing President Johnson with his Causus Belli and the next best thing to a declaration of war: the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the document that got me drafted and sent to Viet Nam to serve as a squad leader in a rifle company close to the DMZ in Viet Nam, and, further BTW got over a million people killed before it was over. For those who think this is all politcal, remember what von Clauswitz said about war's being a continuation of politics by other means. Anthony Gumbrell

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident"

Needs Clarification: USS Maddox Violation of North Vietnam's Sovereign Territorial Waters

One of the most important points to be made about the August 2, 1964 incident is not totally clear in this article. The map of the Maddox's route does not include a scale, nor does it indicate the boundaries of N. Vietnam's sovereign territorial waters. The article lists coordinates for the attack that are several dozen nautical miles away from the N. Vietnamese coast. The first mention of the Maddox's proximity to N. Vietnamese waters is this sentence: "The North Vietnamese boats then attacked[5] and Maddox radioed she was under attack from the three boats, closing to within 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi), while located 28 nautical miles (52 km; 32 mi) away from the North Vietnamese coast in international waters." This may or may not be true, but the article goes on to say that "Maddox, when confronted, was approaching Hòn Mê Island, three to four nautical miles (nmi) (6 to 7 km) inside the 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) limit claimed by North Vietnam. This territorial limit was unrecognized by the United States. After the skirmish, Johnson ordered Maddox and Turner Joy to stage daylight runs into North Vietnamese waters, testing the 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) limit and North Vietnamese resolve." This second explanation matches the data from the declassified NSA SIGINT Command Center's chronology of events, available here:

https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/gulf-of-tonkin/chronologies/release-2/rel2_sigint.pdf, specifically regarding point Delta (19-47N, 106-08E), which is also represented on the map.

The incident, based on my reading of the sources, began when the Maddox was confronted by the North Vietnamese Navy while clearly invading the sovereign territory of the North. Regardless of the fact that the US did not recognize these claims, the extant international law (United Nations Convention on the High Seas, 1958) is very clear on this point. I believe that the coordinates listed for the article are inaccurate, and reflect a distorted narrative that obscures a very important fact. The article itself seems to self-contradict by describing the incident as taking place both in Northern sovereign territory and also on the high seas ("international waters" not being a technical term).

I believe Point Delta is a much more accurate and clear indication of where and why the confrontation took place. Otherwise, the article helps perpetuate the apparent falsehood that "an American ship was attacked in international waters." It is also worthy of note that the messages from Maddox about the closer coordinates were highly classified, the later message with the "high seas" attack coordinates was sent unclassified. Highly suggestive of deliberate manipulation by the US Navy to cover for their territorial incursions. - Ben Scott — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.97.44.249 (talk) 06:28, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident/Archive_1&oldid=1073878403"