Alluring Information On Maddox Secretary Mahogany

24 December 2010

This made me chuckle, but I wish I had been able to preview the inside before buying – I won’t be able to hang this up in the office!

Gulf of Tonkin: North Vietnamese goading the U.S. into war, or a U.S. set-up for an excuse to go to war?
The original releases from the White House went something to the tune of: on August 2 and 4, 1964, the U.S.S. Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats during routine patrols. Following the attack on the 2nd, President Johnson urged that patrols would continue, but no aggressive action against the Vietcong would ensue as a result. After the second attack on August 4th, however, Johnson felt a tougher response was needed against North Vietnam. By August 6th, President Johnson submitted the “Joint Resolution to Promote the Maintenance of International Peace and Security in Southeast Asia,” or more commonly known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing the President to take all necessary steps, “including the use of armed force” to lend aid to the defense of freedom for any member of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty. This resolution passed the House 416-0 and the Senate 88-2. This also effectively gave Johnson a blank check for action in Vietnam, which he used in January of 1965 to send 100,000 American troops into Vietnam.Senator William Fulbright, Maddox Secretary mahogany the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, was put in charge of the investigation of the battles in the Gulf. In May of 1966, Fulbright learned that Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy said that he had written a draft similar to the Tonkin Resolution in May or June of 1964, three months before the actual “attack”. Fulbright deduced that the Johnson administration had planned on escalating the war long before the incident. Fulbright then authorized a commission to begin an inquiry into the Tonkin incidents in September of 1967.Fulbright’s commission found that the U.S.S. Maddox had not been undergoing “routine patrols” as previously claimed, but rather involved in something called “34-A Operations,” as evidenced by a series of cables to and from the Maddox. The Pentagon eventually admitted that these included South Vietnamese raids on islands in the vicinity of the Maddox. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had previously stated that the Maddox was “not associated with, was not aware of,” any actions of the South Vietnamese.Fulbright’s investigation also revealed that it was the Maddox, not the North Vietnamese, who fired the first shots in the Gulf on August 2nd, sinking one Vietnamese patrol boat. After August 2nd, the U.S.S. Turner Joy joined the Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin and on August 4th, joined battle with the Maddox, firing a combined 400 rounds and dropping depth charges. Fulbright’s commission learned that not one sailor from either vessel remembers seeing or hearing any evidence of a single North Vietnamese ship. Pilots, launched from the nearby Constellation, also reported no sightings of enemy ships. The Maddox’s sonar system was reported to have a total of 26 enemy torpedoes, however the sonar of the Turner Joy failed to report a single torpedo. Captain John Herrick of the Maddox then conducted an experiment, putting the Maddox through a series of sharp turns, listening with the sonar the whole time. Captain Herrick reported hearing a sonar hit each time the Maddox turned, which was reported as torpedoes each time. Herrick concluded that the “torpedo” hits were echoes of the sonar bouncing off the ship’s rudders as it turned.So, do you think the Gulf of Tonkin incident was an attack by the Vietcong against the American patrol ships in the Gulf or a set-up used as an excuse for America to go to war in Vietnam?
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