TONKIN BAY: WAS THERE A CONSPIRACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600110006-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 92
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 2005
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: January 29, 1970
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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This is a more legible copy
Approved FtlIUMERIsTE0100511TINI: WAVCial-00901M00600100696*11
29 January 1970
" . .
.Toralmin Bay: VITas*. Tiliere aConspi
0 Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf lurking behind the blackness of h
sarily?firing at an unseen enemy
1. of Tonkin Affair?Illusion and Reality ?
?.
? by Joseph C. Goulden.
?; A James B. Adler Inc. Book, ? ?
published in association with"
Rand McNally, 281 pp:, $6.95
t?
?
Peter Dale Scott. ..
misinformation. it a
Not all will, accept the analogy', be:
? tween Washington . and a confused ,fth
young i'eaman, but this hardly. lessens I."!
' the importance of Gouldeo's patient 'at
? ? ?. researches. The author of a book on sli
' ?
Seaman Patrick N. Park, on the night' AT&T and a former reporter for the
of August 4, 1964, was directing the; Philadelphia Inquirer, Goulden has
gun-control radar of the USS Maddox., made good use of his years of experi-
, For three hours he had heard torpedo' ence in Washington. He has not really-
reports from the ship's sonarman, and?
. written a "thesis" book; his method is
; he had seen, two or three times, the"' to stick closely to official documents
, flash of guns from a nearby destroyer, (above all the neglected Fulbright?
the Turner Joy, in the rainy darkness. Committee Hearing of 1968)' and
i But his radar could find no targets,? first-hand interview; with witnesses the?
! "only the occasional roll Of a wave as; Committee failed to call, including
; it breaks into a whitecap." At last; just ! Seaman Park. At times he. Can be
;
before midnight, a target: "a damned faulted for believing so much what was
big one, right on us ... about 1,500 told him in the Pentagon. Even so, the
t ,
:???
t. yards off the side, a nice fat blip." He :result is devastating. It ? is now even 7.
? was ordered to open fire; luckily, t more clear that the Tonkin Gulf ' ?
I however, nett all seamen blindly follow' Resolution (in his words) "contains the
're
thi
?at
?
orders. .
fatal taint of deception." The Adminis- 1
j Just before I pushed .the trigger I
I suddenly realized, That's the
Turner Joy: ... There was a lot
of yelling of "Goddamn" back and
forth, with the bridge telling me
to "fire before we lose contact,"
and me Yelling right back at
them .... I finally told them;
"I'm not opening fire until I know
, where the Turner Joy is.". The
bridge got on the phone and said,
1 "Turn on your lights, Turner
Joy." Sure enough, there she was,
right in the cross hairs ...1,500
yards away. If I had fired, 't.
i,tration.. had withheld much vita!
? formation In formulating the; simple-1
; story of "unrii-Ovoked attack" by
? ' which that resolution was pushed'i
through Congress. 7,1 : ? ;
?
?- ' ? ?
'The-
Maddox, according to' McNa-
mara in 1964, was on a'"routine patrol
1 ,1n international waters." In fact it was t
Ion an electronies intelligence (ELINT) ?
! far spy_mission for the National Securi- I
ty Agency and CIA. One of its many
' intelligence requirements orders was
would sl
hoat fo
have blown nI ee
i clean nop h
ut oef
the .water. In fact, I could have
be
trigger. Then people started asking,
"What 'are we shooting at
We all began calming down. The I
whole thing seemed to end then.
Goulden's _fascinating book. which
'has gathered much new information
'about the Tonkin Gulf incidents, seer
;the experience of Patrick Park, as, with
Ione exception, a microcosm of the
entire Tonkin affair-- .
.?
' illustrating ,the confusion between
illusion and reality and the inclina-?
tion of man to act Upon facts as-.
t,.' qf he anticipates they should be;
rather than what rational examina-
tion shows them to be. The ex-
ception is that Park refused to
I squeeze the firing 1410,0fibiltarcsist
ington acted on the basis of
1:."to stimulate Chicom-North Vietnam-.?
; ese electronic reaction," i.e., to pro- I
yoke the. North Vietnamese into,
turning' on :their defensive radars so
, ?
r that the frequencies could be
miasured. To this end, between August ?
.1 and 4, the Maddox repeatedly simu- .
I tiled .attacks by moving toward the
t shore With its gun control radar ,
mechanism turned on, as if it, were.1
preparing to shoot at" targets. In so
doings.:. it violated the twelve-mil; limit"
!I which Pentagon offieials thought North 71
Vietnam claimed. for her territorial
waters.2 Far from being "routine," this I
! was only the third such patrol in the I
I. Tonkin Gulf in thirty-two months; and ?I
the North Vietnamese had to assess it -It
., in the context ,of a recent US -bnild-up'.
?'S and South Vietnamese threats to carry'
,
'w
;te
,tt
7
'
1 ? - . ,
heard North Vietnamese orders to?
?
position a defensive ring of PT boats
around Hon Me after the first South-
Vietnamese attack on the North Viet-
namese Islands, as well as speculations.
'about the possible link between .the
?Maddox and the raids.
Near Hon Me on the morning of.
- August 2 the NSA.. technicians'
.t.
intercepted' orders for PT boats to
? , attack the Maddox. Captain Herrick.
aboard the Maddox cabled to his
superiors in Honolulu that "continu-
ance of patrol presents an unacceptable:
? Tisk," but: was' order:el to resume his'-
: itinerary. The Maddox- returned to. a
point 'eleven miles from Hon Me island,,
and then. heard a North Vietnamese ?
order for its attack. This ;vas the...
.prelude for the first incident of August
2?it is clear both -that a North
Vietnamese attack " was ordered and ?
STAT
previously'.
According to The New York Times
(Aug. 11, 1964, p.15) the Ticonder-
oga's Task. Force Commander Rear
Admiral Robert B. Moore "indicated
that the destroyer might have been
two or three miles inside the 12-mile
limit set by 'Hanoi for international
waters."
.. ? S. . .
McNamara told the Committee that-
the Maddox could simulate an attack
on the coast by turning'son special
transmitters, but the Pentagon later
id the ship carried passive equipment
waLtioub
eNte ..balkiikpoangp,g9
the South Vietnamese had for jhe.fillt.j
assumption, not fact-hastily, .
rinitousIv outmost even unneees?
R000600111.00p6-77
I - Oein+A
Walklellt
Approved For Release 2VVralACIA-RDP91-00901R00060011
BY STEWART &SOP
WASHINGTON?Ccrard C. Smith, the
chief American negotiator at the SALT
talks in Helsinki, is in a rather feeble -:
Isarpining position, for reasons that
are hardly understood at all in this '
country. fie is in the position of saying
to his Russian interlocutors: "If you
fellows will please stop what you're
doing already, we'll promise not to do
what we're not going to do anyway."
The history of negotiating with the
:
Russians hardly suggests that they will ,
warmly welcome this Sort of deal. But ' .!
, it is really the only sort of deal Smith
is in a position to offer. .
On the offensive side, there are three
.' major categories of strategic weapons.
: The most important of course is the
, ICBM. This country turned out its last
, Minuteman ICBM back in 1967. The
. Soviets are still churning out their ' : ?
various versions of the ICBM like situ:
, sages, at a rate of more than 300 a
..---T, year. They now have some 1,350 up- .':.
. ..
erational ICBM's, about 300 more than .. ,
.? we have. Their biggest ICBM is the .
SS-9, which has a warhead about twen-
I' 'ty times as powerful as Minuteman's.
\TARGET: MINUTEMAN
V
The Minuteman warhead, split into ? ..:
' 1
i three independently targeted vehicles
? (MIRV's) could be used to wreck
, three cities. But the Minuteman
MIRV's would not be powerful enough
. to dig an SS-9 or other Soviet ICBM
out of its underground silo. The SS-9
, warhead, similarly MIRVed, would '
have the kind of power (about 5 meg-
atons) needed to knock a Minuteman
. out of its silo, given the accuracy at-
tributed to the SS-9 by the intelligence .
. ; specialists. The specialists have con- ..
chided that knocking out the Minute-
? man complex must be the purpose of Y"
the SS-9s, Since the smaller Soviet ,
SS-11s have all the power needed to .,
wreck any American city, what else '
can the SS-9s be for? '
The Soviets have about 280 SS-9s
operational now, and they are now be-
lieved to be building the weapons at
a rate of more than 50 a year. John
, Foster, chief Pentagon scientist, has ,
: said that it would require about 420 ? .
? MIRVed SS-9s to destroy '95 per cent. ?:
of the U.S. Minuteman force.
The story is similar in the other
chief categories of offensive strategic .
weapons?submarine-based missiles, and
bombers. The United States produced '
its last nuclear sub in 1966, while the
Soviets are turAipprontedePbrIgiltrase
111111111111111111V
WOLF, WOLF
subs at the rate of about one a month.
We have produced no strategic bomb-
ers in seven years, and the 11-52s are
getting very elderly. The Russians are
testing a new; swing-wing bomber. It
has a shorter range than the B-52, but ,
with air refueling it could reach targets
In this country.
On the defensive ?side, there .is evi-
dence,-including huge. new radar in-
stallations the size of several football
fields?that the Soviets are greatly im-
proving their existing, 67-missile anti- '
missile system. Our ABM system; .
which passed the Senate by a single
? vote, is of course strictly on paper?it
??
,will not be operational before 1974. -
POSITION: FEEBLE
? So what is Mr. Smith to say to the
,Russians? "Please stop making SS-9s,
and nuclear subs, and bombers, and
we won't make any either, which we
have no plans for doing anyway"? Or:
"Please tear down your existing ABM
system, and we'll tear up ,our paper
plans for our system"?
Gerard Smith's bargaining position
is certainly not hopeless?we are still
unquestionably technically superior in
some areas, notably the submarine-
launched missiles. But it is much fee-
bler than most people realize. One
reason its feebleness is so little under-
stood is what might be called the,
"wolf-wolf syndrome."
The famous "missile gap" of the 1950s
turned out not to be a gap at all, but
an inflated fntelligence estimate of So-
viet missile production. The politicians
?Sen. Stuart Symington, for example?
who had taken the estimates at face
value and made impassioned speeches
warning of the danger to American
security, were left looking a bit foolish,
like the people who responded to the
? boy's cries of "Wolf, wo111" in the fable.
'So now, in response to such facts as
: those given above, there has not been
-a peep out of Senator Symington, and
hardly a peep out of anybody else.
The trouble is that this wolf is real.
? The intelligence is based, not on esti-
? mates, but on very detailed spy-sat-
? ellite pictures. "When they build a
new missile complex," said one expert
at lunch at a restaurant, "we see it
Just as clearly as you and I can see
that couple over there."
In fact, the intelligence people are
beginning to worry, that they may not
be seeing everything quite that clearly.
vikjiimQ _wit gridiron and White House correspondents dinners, dinners, ;but'
'? they seldom do. - ? . . ? ? . ? . .
i.,'' -"I want," says Nixon, government drawn from the..
broadest possible base?Lan. administration. made. up of
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i "I don't want a government of yes-men, says the COP
nominee. Of course not. No President does. There was
'1 the tide, for instance, when L131 called his advisers'
together and is supposed to have said, "I don't .ivant any
l'yes-Men around here. Whenever you disagree with mc,
Ihope you'll feel free to speak up. After all, you canl always'
get another job." It's a story that gould. just as well be told
about almost any President. ??? " ?
t ?
'i.', Republicans, Democrats, and ?Independents.'! Only Demo- .:
0 7cratic Presidents have ever gone in for . this kind of 2.
' bipartisanship, and the results have not been sensational. .';
.. After President Kennedy completed his cabinet some,;
! wondered whicili party had won the election. He ap-;?`.
' pointed Republican Robert McNamara head of Defense,..
..: and Republican Douglas Dillon head of Treasury. He'..1 i
retained Republican Allen Dulles as director of CIA until',
!, he was replaced by Republican John MeCone. He named !,
'''? Republican William .Foster to bead the disarmament '
agency and Republican McGeorge Bundy to be his chief 1
: White House foreign affairs adviser. - l
' The fact that most of these top appointees enthusi- -;
'astically urged. both Kennedy and Johnson to plunge ever ;
' deeper into Vietnam has prompted sonic critics to think
that Kennedy and Johnson might have done just as well ;
'with a Democratic cabinet, and bang bipartisanship.
Nixon says he is going to surround himself with "a '
; cabinet made up of the ablest men in America." Warren ..'
' Harding, who also felt a little inadequate, made the same
zpromise, and when he came to he found himself in the .
? ?
ondst of the Tea Pot Dome debacle. A super cabinet also
'was going to make up for Gen. Eisenhower's lack of
political experience. But John Foster Dulles "unleashed"! .
'