a lie that launched a war

[hammer4all]

Happy 40th anniversary.

[Forty] years ago, it all seemed very clear.

"American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression", announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964.

That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and 'certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam' after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin."

But there was no "second attack" by North Vietnam -- no "renewed attacks against American destroyers." By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War.

A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass media...leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties.

The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 -- and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later.

The truth was very different.

Rather than being on a routine patrol Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers -- in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force.

"The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam...had taken place," writes scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were "part of a campaign of increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had been pursuing since early 1964."

On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf -- a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam.

But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened.

Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness" and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat."

One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power."

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."

But Johnson's deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, "went to the American people last night with the somber facts." The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to "face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities."

An exhaustive new book, The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media "described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat' -- when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North."

Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media's "almost exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information" -- as well as "reluctance to question official pronouncements on 'national security issues.'"

Daniel Hallin's classic book The "Uncensored War" observes that journalists had "a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn't used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese gunboats."

What's more, "It was generally known...that `covert' operations against North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and direction, had been going on for some time."

In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam -- sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only "no" votes.) The resolution authorized the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."

The rest is tragic history.

Nearly three decades later, during the Gulf War, columnist Sydney Schanberg warned journalists not to forget "our unquestioning chorus of agreeability when Lyndon Johnson bamboozled us with his fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident."

Schanberg blamed not only the press but also "the apparent amnesia of the wider American public."

And he added: "We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth."

[40]-Year Anniversary: Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War

[losthellhound]

Thats an interesting article. I'd be interested to read more on the reports. SInce I dont know the writer, I don't know the whole bias..

Thanks for the find though

[matthew330]

Apparently the original poster doesn't know what to make of it either.

[Bill O'Rights]

Indeed. Is this a "This Day in History" post? Is a comparison being drawn/implied between Vietnam and Iraq? I just don't know. I will, however, give it 1 hour to see what comes of this thread. If, after that time I see that we're still "wandering in the wilderness", then I'll cut its' umbilical cord.

[Rekna]

it would be nice if media could have multiple sources for thier information. Back then it was an imposibility but today it is not. However at the same time it would be nice if we could take everything our government says as 100% truth and not have to worry about them lieing, unfortunatly that is an impossibility. Anyway most media these days seems to be some political groups lacky so even if they had multiple sources it probably wouldn't matter.

[MSD]

This is almost definitely just a "This Day in Political History" post. I don't see any parallels to Iraq being drawn, I think it's just a reminder of what happened way back then.

[silent_jay]

Well the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam aren't that hard to draw.

I mean both wars were started by lies and misinformation (Tonkin Gulf and WMD), both started out as a conventional war and turned into a guerilla war, and on and on and on but I'm not going to waste time putting them all down in a thread that is going to be locked in a while anyways.

Originally posted by Bill O'Rights
[color=yellow] ......I will, however, give it 1 hour to see what comes of this thread....... color]

An hour? What if people who were interested in this thread weren't around in this "hour" that you give? then you get another thread that is started that is basically the same thing. I think a day is enough for a thread to find it's feet but an hour give me a break.

[Bill O'Rights]

Originally posted by silent_jay
An hour? What if people who were interested in this thread weren't around in this "hour" that you give? then you get another thread that is started that is basically the same thing. I think a day is enough for a thread to find it's feet but an hour give me a break.

The thread shouldn't have to find its' feet. The poster who starts the thread gives it feet by posting commentary, or dialogue, along with the text, and a link to, the article. That is the way that it's always been...that's the way that it will always be. An hour is plenty of time, and I can see by my watch that I've given it almost two. So....

[Mr. Mojo]

Originally posted by Bill O'Rights
Indeed. Is this a "This Day in History" post? Is a comparison being drawn/implied between Vietnam and Iraq? I just don't know. I will, however, give it 1 hour to see what comes of this thread. If, after that time I see that we're still "wandering in the wilderness", then I'll cut its' umbilical cord.

I stopped doing "This Day in History" post because nobody ever seemed to comment on them. I usually posted them in General Discussion. Maybe I'll get back on that horse.