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Tonkin Incident Research Paper

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Was the Gulf of Tonkin incident really an incident or were the 2 attacks on the USS Maddox within reason? Thus the correct historical analogy may not be Nixon's secret air campaign and incursions into Cambodia, but the Tonkin Gulf incident-the alleged pair of attacks by North Vietnamese naval forces against American destroyers that President Lyndon B. Johnson used to win public support and congressional approval for escalating the confrontation with North Vietnam. The government has ways to make information and secret operations disappear as if it never happened by making them nonexistent on paper. Is a secret operation or reconnaissance mission what the ship was doing? What was OPLAN-34A? Why did the PT (Torpedo) boats attack? Was the USS …show more content…

We responded immediately. And we took out one of their boats and put the other two running. And we're puttin' our boats right there, and we're not running on in." is what President LBJ tells secretary McNamara to say to Senate Majority Leader Mansfield. Later President Johnson consequently approved a move under which the destroyer Maddox was reinforced by the C. Turner Joy, and both ships entered the Gulf together. With the American warships in a state of hyperalert, on the night of August 3/4 the warships recorded a series of sound (sonar) and electronic (radar) readings interpreted to be attacking torpedo boats. Although the commander on the scene, Captain John D. Herrick, quickly amplified the initial, excited reports with one stating he doubted the reality of the attacks, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp nevertheless proceeded as if the attacks were genuine. This is a clear reference to the OPLAN-34A raids, confusion about which had been a factor in the initial Tonkin Gulf engagement on August 2. Here LBJ suggests a measure that would actually increase Hanoi's incentives to fight. A little over an hour later, at 10:53 AM., McNamara has a second conversation with the president in which Johnson's concern centers on the details of the supposed combat in the Gulf. McNamara tells LBJ that the U.S. aircraft carrier Ticonderoga sent out …show more content…

Codenamed Operations Plan (OPLAN) 34A, the activities were conceived and overseen by the Department of Defense, with the support of the Central Intelligence Agency, and carried out by the South Vietnamese Navy. Initial successes, however, were limited; numerous South Vietnamese raiders were captured, and OPLAN 34A units suffered heavy casualties. In July 1964, Lieutenant General William C. Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, shifted the operation's tactics from commando attacks on land to shore bombardments using mortars, rockets, and recoilless rifles fired from South Vietnamese patrol boats. It is also notable that McNamara in this conversation clearly favors explaining to Congress the link between the incident and the OPLAN-34A activities. The naval battle between the destroyer USS Maddox and several North Vietnamese torpedo boats occurred in the immediate aftermath of a series of 34-A maritime raids on North Vietnamese coastal targets. After observing North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats pursuing the vessels that had attacked Hon Me, the Maddox withdrew from the area. Nevertheless, when later queried by NSA headquarters, the destroyer indicated she had been unaware of the OPLAN raid on the island. That ignorance set the stage for a showdown between North Vietnamese forces

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