THE 'PHANTOM BATTLE' THAT LED TO WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600090003-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 24, 2006
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 23, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN

Approved For Release 2006/07/24: CIA-RDP91-06R000
ARTICLE APP~F.IRED
KAORI?CU Page 3
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT
23 July 1984
Hours of Mystery, Years of War
www
On Aug. 4, 1964, daylight was fading over the Gulf of
Tonkin when an urgent message reached the U.S. destroy-
ers Maddox and Turner Joy on patrol in hostile waters off
Communist-ruled North Vietnam.
It was a warning: The National Security Agency's moni-
tors had intercepted enemy messages to two North Viet-
namese gunboats and one PT boat, giving them the loca-
tion of the two American warships and ordering
preparations for combat.
Only two days earlier, PT boats had ambushed the Mad-
dox, inflicting trivial damage while losing one of their craft
to heavy gunfire from the destroyer and carrier aircraft.
What. happened on the night of August 4, however, was
something far different.
Within 95 minutes, the fire and thunder of naval gunnery
shattered the gulfs evening calm. Its waters roiled with the
frantic zigzagging of America's destroyers as they sought to
escape unseen enemy vessels and torpedoes-26 in all-as
reported by radar and sonar crews. In pitch-black darkness,
naval gunfire and missiles launched by U.S. carrier aircraft
pierced the murky skies with fiery trails on their way to
designated enemy targets.
Within 2 hours, it was all over. No casualties or damage
were reported by the Maddox and Turner Joy. Yet that
brief and mysterious encounter has generated bitter argu-
ments among historians, and raised sensitive questions: Did
enemy vessels actually attack the two destroyers-or did
commanders fall prey to overheated imagination in a
frightening and confusing situation? If there was an enemy
attack, was it unprovoked? Were key facts being withheld
from the U.S. public-and did President Lyndon Johnson
seize on a questionable incident to expand his powers and
speed America toward all-out war in Vietnam?
What the President, like his slain predecessor, John F.
Kennedy, had been confronting for months was an unyield-
ing question: Was it time for the U.S. either to abandon its
ally, South Vietnam-or to plunge U.S. troops into full-scale
war against North Vietnam?
That dilemma had only worsened in the nine months of
growing instability in South Vietnam after the overthrow
and murder of its autocratic leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, and
Johnson's advisers were drafting a congressional resolution
giving him the freedom to go to war if he so decided.
Though doubt quickly surfaced about the realities of the
Tonkin Gulf naval incident, Johnson called congressional
leaders to the White House to ask for a resolution that
would make him surrogate for the warmaking authority
reserved for Congress by the Constitution.
In three days, both houses passed the resolution with
near unanimity. It was a historic yielding of their preroga-
tive to the White House.
What emerges from new evidence is a chronicle of confu-
sion and bad judgments-and duplicity in high places-that
guided the nation into a cruel and unpopular war that
would cost 58,000 U.S. lives and immerse Americans in
years of disillusionment as seldom, if ever, before. And
there came, too, hard lessons on the wrenching difficulties
of sharing warmaking power between the President and
Congress in nuclear war--difficulties that have been only
too apparent in recent controversies over American mili-
tary involvement in Lebanon, Central America and the
Persian Gulf.
The Escalation Gambit
November, 1963: In Saigon and Washington, in the after-
math of presidential assassinations, a fresh chapter opened
under new leadership in the long and frustrating involve-
ment of America in South Vietnam.
In Saigon, a military junta that succeeded the slain Ngo
Dinh Diem found itself mired in intrigue that would pro-
duce another regime in the next three months-even as
Communist guerrillas overran growing chunks of country.
side with help from North Vietnam's Marxist rulers.
In Washington, the benumbing murder of John F. Ken..
nedy brought into the Presidency and global policymaking;
JFK's Vice President, Lyndon Johnson.
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continued
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ON P. GE; 27 October 10,83
McNamara Role Dominant Gen.-Maxwell W. Taylor, the Chair-
the tapes man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well
LIBRARY RELEASES In the view of Mr. Moss
,
show that the dominant actor in - the as Mr. McNamara, favored a surprise S TAT
J 4 (1 n CRISIS TAPES first day of meetings was e attack hboth the missile sites and
Its (U{ IK! McNamara, Secretary of Defense. the airplanes.
McNamara took a leading role in the The transcipts show Kennedy closely,
disuussions and tried to get people to questioning officials of the! Central In-
focus on the issues," Mr. Moss com. telligence Agency on how they know
merited. the small objects in the photographs,
Kennedy Archive Calls Timing It was Mr. McNamara, the trap- taken by a U-2 plane, were really Rus-
script shows, who first defined three sign medium-range missiles. Their an-
,,of Its Disclosure of Secret . possible reponses. The first was politi. swers speak of a comparison with
cal or diplomatic to ; consult with photographs of Soviet missiles dis-
Material a Coincidence America's allies and give both the played onparade inMoscow.
Cuban leader l ideI Castro and the At one point in the first meeting,
Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev after he learned about the missiles,
am le w
S .- . By FOX BUTTERFIELB p anitng that Washington would Kennedy mused on why the Russians
.-if - SpodW soTbeNewYmcTimK not accept the missiles in Cuba, decided to put the weapons in Cuba
.aura . V+ IG4-6 w- i.u Juvze4 u uun _-!_ .,,~,,.. w.
meeting laughed, the transcript shows. the Russians t o set this up," he said.
was installing missiles in Cuba, Presi- The second course, Mr. McNamara "Must be that they're not satisfied with
dent Kennedy and his advisers seii- suggested, was a naval blockade to their ICBM's:"
ously discussed air strikes against keep. all further Russian offensive
Cuba, according to secret White House weapons Quotes McCeme
tapes released today. Pons from Cuba. It might pzean
"we search every ship," Mr, Dean Rusk, the Secetazy of State,
? =d don't think we got much time on McNamara said. his
was the option { then sued 'fit a few few weeks before
these missiles," Kennedy said at a ultimately selected. John McCone, the Director of Central
meeting Oct. 16, 1962, shortly after The third choice, which both the intelligence, warned that Khrushchev
being shown aerial reconnaisance President and most of his officials might put missiles in Cuba because "he
photographs of the newly discovered seemed to favor on the first day, was a knows that we have a substantial nu-
Soviet missiles sites. ' military attack to remove the missiles. clear superiority."
''We're certainly going to do No. 1," KedvEnumeratedT3em Minutes before the first meeting, the
the'President told his top aides. "We're transcript reveals, Kennedy chatted
going to take out these missiles." Kennedy himself refined the military cheerfully over ,the phone with his
The tapes, along with transcipts of response into three options, "One daughter Caroline. The conversation
the-White House talks, were made pub, would be just taking out these mis. between father and daughter has been
lie :by the John F. Kennedy Library siles," he said in the meeting, in the deleted, in accordance with the condi.
here after review by national security Cabinet Room. "No. 2 would be to take tions of the Kennedy family's gift of the
officials in Washington. William W. out all the airplanes," meaning a large President's papers to the library.
Moss, chief archivist of the library, numberof'Russian fighters that had re- But it ended in laughter, that much
said 20 percent of the material had -centiy also been shipped. to Cuba. "No. was not censored:
been deleted byfhe officials for se- 3 is invade," he said. Mr. Moss said that future release of
curity reasons. material or the Cuban missile crisis
Tapes Cover Two Meetings
-The 87 pages of transcript and 33
minutes of tapes released today cov-
ered only two meetings on the Cuban
missiles, both on Oct. 16, 1962, the first
day of the 13-day crisis.
In June the Kennedy Library made
public a- first selection of materials
from tapes secretly recorded by Ken.
nedy. They involved the integration of
the University of Mississippi in 1962
ard. discussions of Administration policy. The tapes' existence was firsti
Mr. Moss said the timing of this re-
Iease, on the day after the United
States invasion of Grenada, was coinci.
dental. It happened because the library'
only recently got the material back
#= Washington, he said.
-Mr. Moss said the material on the
Cuban missile crisis contained "no sur.
prises." He said, "It doesn't. change
anything. There is nothing new of sub.'
But he added that "it gives us the
voices" of the participants in the cru-
ciai. meetings and may provide histo-
rians with a more accurate sense of the.
personalities involved.
would be very slow. He noted that all
the tapes had first to be transcribed,
which took 100 to 150 hours of work for
each hour of recording. Them the trap.
sczipts had to be sent to Washington for
clearance.
With these difficulties, and the Ken-
nedy Library's shortage of money, he I
estimated that only three! hours of
recording could be prepared for review
each year. .
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 Approved For Release 2006/07/24: CIA-RDP91-00901 000600090003-3
f"riTICL
OI ? k _ _ _ _ _ _
Scowwcroft Comrriission s Life
Is E tender. for Two Years
By .Lou Cannon
wasntr Poi ..Starr W rite: -
President Reagan has --decided to extend 'the"
he of the bipartisan Scowcroft commission for
two vears. administration officials said yesterday, .
in what-one called "a guarantee of genuine follow-
up on both arms -control negotiations and the
WASHINGTON POST
4 JUNE 1983
The Scawc roft .panel; th 1 y'the -:President`s
'
.
Cornmisslon On- Strategic = Forces, has been-the
driving force behinahe motion's "gnus-far :-:
Successful -effortso obtain- ongresional.appro
of the Na intercontinental4ai1 Ac missile rafter
two earlier defeats.
The commission :is hedulea o o out of ex
istence on-dune 16, but officr said Reagan--will
extend -s.life to Jan. 1. 1985,' to the expecta-
? :.ion that it would .become "ins titutionalized'.and
continue in some form either in his second term
or in another presidency
Continuation of the commission is like}y to be
hailed with approval by moderate congressional
Democrat who voted for the -MX ter Reagan
told -them he is as committed .-.;genuine arms
control negotiations -wit^_ the Soviets as he is to
deploying 100 of the 1 -missiles. in existing
Minuteman silos. .,..r..: .
Some moderates called for--appointment. Of a
continuing. advisory unit ion arms. control as a
=- ondition .of support for .Mk......._:
Administration -sources said -that, Lt_ .Gen.
.Brent Scowcrofz.. a -retired Air -Force ,officer w? o
served as.national security affairs adviser ?to Pres?
ident Ford. had agreed to stay on as chairman,
and that Thomas C.. Reed...secretarr of the Air
Force in the-: ord administration, would continue
as -vice chairman.
The retention of Reed, -who has come under
scrutiny by a federal grand jury :and a congres
sional committee for a -1981 stock slea>, could be
controversial
Rees -resigned as White House ?consultinpi d
deptrty national security .affairs-.adviser '-:,fie
president ;after - he--Scowcroft-~commissiori sub-1
m}tted iLy.report on Apri1.6.` .. However. both the president -and national-?se-
curnty affairs adviser William P. Clark weressai.d
to be solidi in support- of keeping 'Reed, the ad.'
ministration's MX expert,-on the advisory panel,
which . would be headquartered -in the Pentagon.
Reed played a major .role in Reagan's --California
gubernatorial campaigns, and served as..frrst. apt
pointments secretary to Reagan. -as governor nn
196.
- While Reagan won or, last MOnL11, Me
White house recognizes that his support on
issue is .potentially shaky and. could disappear if
the administration fails to adopt recommenda-
tions -of the Scowcroft unit when the Strategic
Arms Reauction'Talks (START] resume with the.
Soviet onion in Geneva -Wednesday:
The co= iss-on called for "vigorous pursuit of
arms controL%and -recommended that-the admin-'
istration -change pits arms -reduction proposal .W
-count. warhea.Qsinstead of weapons
Reagan bas :promised-to do-this -and to prop
some version-,of.:. "-build=down" ;proposal advc
rated by,Sens. am 3vtmn (Ga.) :and. William S
lien .?{ tlMaine) n_-svhicb : both.ieid-es -would re=
move more-:t. ha is e-ne older nuclear weapon for
each new .onedbev-add to their. arsenals.
But-exactiy`how-to revise the START proposal
has been ?a ;subiec'. for debate in %the administre-
~tion.
y+'hite -oust spokesman Larrty Speaker said
the president ss considering options this weekend
at Camp David in preparation for a probable de-
cision when the. National. Security Counci) meets
-Tuesday. . .
The Scowcroft : commission also - recommended
development -of a small, ' single-warhead missile
ultimately designed to replace the MX and re-
-search and development -on "hardeningr of the
Minuteman silos ro -give -them better protection
against a Soviet strike.
Administration officials said continuation of the
commission would -ensure follow-through on these
objectives; and -on -research for .an anti-ballistic
missile defense- .
Scewcroft agreed .to continue as chairman after
being assured that the workload would be distrib-
uted under-a new committee system, officials said.
They said the full commission probably would
meetonly two or three times annually.
The 11-man -commission includes prominent
national security and science officials in -four ad-
ministrations, including Reagan's former secretary
of state;_Alexander hi. Haig Jr., former.CIA direc-
torRichard M. Helms and President Carter's
Pentagon chief of research and development, WD.,
liam J. 'Penn.
Among the counselors to the commission are
Henry A. Kissinger and Carter's secretary of de-
-fence. Harold Brown; who is said to have played
-major.role in the commission's deliberations.
Former secretaries of defense Melvin R Laird.,
Donald H. Rurnsfeld and James R_ Schlesinger
Jr., Carter 'White House counselor Lloyd N. Cut..
ler and former CIA director John McCone are the
other counselors.. -
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