The Gulf of Tonkin Incident: The Second Attack Never Happened — So Why Did America Go to War Over It

On the night of August 4, 1964, Navy pilot James Stockdale flew low over the Gulf of Tonkin while two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy, fired into the darkness at torpedo boats they could see only on their radar screens. Stockdale saw the ships, their wakes and their guns. He did not see a single enemy boat. "Nothing there but black water and American firepower," he later wrote. Within hours, the commodore on the scene, Captain John Herrick, cabled Washington that the attack looked doubtful and asked for a complete evaluation before any further action. Instead, President Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnam and asked Congress for a resolution that passed 416 to 0 in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate. It became the legal foundation for the Vietnam War. This is the story of why, told through the people who lived it: Patrick Park, the gunner on the Maddox who refused to fire at what he believed was the Turner Joy; Daniel Ellsberg, on his very first day at the Pentagon; Everett Alvarez of Salinas, California, who spent eight and a half years as a prisoner, and his sister Delia, who campaigned against the war at home; Senators Wayne Morse, Ernest Gruening and Gaylord Nelson; a resolution drafted months before the incident; and Robert Hanyok, the NSA historian who found out what the intercepts really said. Chapters 0:00 The night nobody saw an enemy 2:14 1954: Dien Bien Phu and the dominoes 3:26 Johnson inherits Vietnam 4:43 The secret war: 34A raids and DESOTO patrols 5:58 2 August: the attack that was real 6:49 4 August: a battle with radar ghosts 8:14 Herrick's cable: "appear doubtful" 10:13 "We still seek no wider war" 10:46 Pierce Arrow and Everett Alvarez 11:36 The blank check 12:41 Fulbright, Morse, Gruening and Nelson 14:38 So why go to war? 15:01 Reason 1: The decision came first 15:54 Reason 2: The election 17:13 Reason 3: The intelligence 18:17 Reason 4: The lesson of Cuba 19:06 Was war coming anyway? 19:28 Escalation and regret 20:57 Alvarez, Stockdale and the truth 22:17 Who came out ahead? 23:28 The places today Which reason do you think mattered most: the decision made in advance, the election, the intelligence that said what Washington wanted to hear, or the lesson of Cuba? Tell me in the comments. Subscribe to Causes of the Past for the hidden decisions behind history's turning points. Sources and further reading Edwin E. Moïse, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (1996) Robert J. Hanyok, "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2–4 August 1964", Cryptologic Quarterly (2001; declassified 2005) Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (1999) Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2002) James and Sybil Stockdale, In Love and War (1984) Everett Alvarez Jr. and Anthony S. Pitch, Chained Eagle (1989) Michael Beschloss (ed.), Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (1997) National Security Archive, The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later (nsarchive.gwu.edu) Archival footage (public domain): US Air Force film 111-LC-48220, press conferences on the Gulf of Tonkin incident (5 August 1964); The American Navy in Vietnam (US Navy); Why Vietnam? (US Department of Defense, 1965); Universal Newsreels "Showdown in Vietnam" (1965), "McNamara on Vietnam" (1965), "Marines in Action" (1965), "Johnson on Vietnam" (1965) and "Peace March" (1967); One Week in October (Office of Civil Defense). Via the Internet Archive and the US National Archives. Maps: NASA Blue Marble and Natural Earth (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons (public domain unless noted), including US Navy, White House, LBJ Library, US Air Force and National Archives photographs. CC photographs: Richard Mortel (CC BY 2.0); Ken Lund (CC BY-SA 2.0); Chris Light (CC BY-SA 4.0); David J. Jackson (CC BY-SA 4.0); Goldwater 1964 campaign buttons (CC BY-SA 4.0); Nikita Khrushchev 1962 (CC BY-SA 3.0 nl). #GulfOfTonkin #VietnamWar #LBJ #History #CausesOfThePast PINNED COMMENT