Gulf of Tonkin Incident

 "Casus belli"
Gulf of Tonkin Incident link(false flag attack, mid-level deep event) Spartacus

File:Gulf of Tonkin Incident.jpg
Date	2 August 1964 - 4 August 1964
Deaths	4
Injured (non-fatal)	6
Description	Two faked attacks used by the USA as a casus belli to commit ground forces to the Vietnam War.
Perpetrators	US Navy
Blamed on	North Vietnam

The "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" was cited as the casus belli for the USA to commit ground forces to the war in Vietnam. It refers to 2 claimed incidents involving the naval destroyer USS Maddox on 2 and 4 August 1964 respectively, both of which are alleged to have involved unprovoked aggression against the US ship by the Vietnamese . According to an NSA investigation which was declassified in 2010, only one of the claimed incidents actually took place. The report also reveals that the seriousness of the incident which did take place is at best questionable, in terms of a genuine casus beli for full-scale war. For example, it was the USS Maddox which fired the first (warning) shots, there were no US casualties and there were 4 North Vietnamese sailors killed and 6 wounded, with no damage to the US ship and extensive damage to three Vienamese torpedo boats.

US Provocation

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Warographics - The Gulf of Tonkin Incident: The Incident that Never Actually Happened

On August 3, US Treasury Secretary, Robert Anderson secretly recorded a call he received from Lyndon B Johnson. This provides evidence of US provocation of the attacks: {{#subobject: |Has superobject=Gulf of Tonkin Incident |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Lyndon Johnson|+sep=, |Has text=“OK. Here’s what we did. We [were] within their 12-mile limit, and that’s a matter that hasn’t been settled. But there have been some covert operations in that area that we have been carrying on – blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads, and so forth. So I imagine they wanted to put a stop to it. So they come out there and fire and we respond immediately with five-inch guns from the destroyer and with planes overhead. And we cripple them up – knock one of them out and cripple the other two. And then we go right back where we were with that destroyer [the Maddox], and with another one [the Turner Joy], plus plenty of planes standing by. And that’s where we are now.” |Is about=Gulf of Tonkin Incident,|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=1964-08-03 |Sourced from=Nuclear Risk |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName=Nuclear Risk |Has sourceURL=http://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/fool-me-once-avoiding-needless-wars-part-1-the-first-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/

}}

“OK. Here’s what we did. We [were] within their 12-mile limit, and that’s a matter that hasn’t been settled. But there have been some covert operations in that area that we have been carrying on – blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads, and so forth. So I imagine they wanted to put a stop to it. So they come out there and fire and we respond immediately with five-inch guns from the destroyer and with planes overhead. And we cripple them up – knock one of them out and cripple the other two. And then we go right back where we were with that destroyer [the Maddox], and with another one [the Turner Joy], plus plenty of planes standing by. And that’s where we are now.”
Lyndon Johnson (1964-08-03) 

Declassified documents

The NSA declassified and released nearly 200 documents relating to this incident in 2005 and 2006.

References

References