Recent declassification of all SIGINT materials of the Tonkin Gulf incident

Below is the announcement from the National Security Archive of George

Washington University re: the recent declassification of all (still

available) SIGINT materials of the Tonkin Gulf incident.

Perhaps, to give the event a proper context, one should also refer to the

testimony of Thomas L. Hughes, Director of INR from 1963-1969, also posted

at the NSA/GW ("A Retrospective Preface Thirty-five Years Later"):

“The connection between the covert US-sponsored South Vietnamese attacks

on the North Vietnamese coast and the latter's attacks on the US destroyer

Maddox on August 2 was noted by INR immediately. Those of us who first

briefed President Johnson at the White House early that Sunday morning

discussed it, and the President made the connection in his own mind. The

big deletions listed above would lead the reader of the study in its

present shape to be unaware that the issue of who had provoked whom had

been presented to the policy-makers from the outset.”

(http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB121/hughes.htm )

National Security Archive Update, December 1, 2005

Tonkin Gulf Intelligence "Skewed"

According to Official History and Intercepts

Newly Declassified National Security Agency Documents Show Analysts Made

"SIGINT fit the claim" of North Vietnamese Attack

For more information contact:

John Prados - 202/994-7000

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington D.C., December 1, 2005 - The largest U.S. intelligence agency,

the National Security Agency today declassified over 140 formerly top

secret documents -- histories, chronologies, signals intelligence [SIGINT]

reports, and oral history interviews -- on the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin

incident. Included in the release is a controversial article by Agency

historian Robert J. Hanyok on SIGINT and the Tonkin Gulf which confirms

what historians have long argued: that there was no second attack on U.S.

ships in Tonkin on August 4, 1964.

According to National Security Archive research fellow John Prados, "the

American people have long deserved to know the full truth about the Gulf

of Tonkin incident. The National Security Agency is to be commended for

releasing this piece of the puzzle. The parallels between the faulty

intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the manipulated intelligence used to

justify the Iraq War makes it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the

events of August 1964 in light of new evidence." Last year, Prados edited

a National Security Archive briefing book which published for the first

time some of the key intercepts from the Gulf of Tonkin crisis.

The National Security Agency has long resisted the declassification of

material on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, despite efforts by Senate Foreign

Relations Committee staffer Carl Marcy (who had prepared a staff study on

the August 4 incident); former Deputy Director Louis Tordella, and John

Prados to push for declassification of key documents. Today's release is

largely due to the perseverance of FOIA requester Matthew M. Aid who

requested the Hanyok study in April 2004 and brought the issue to the

attention of the New York Times when he learned that senior National

Security Agency officials were trying to block release of the documents.

New York Times reporter Scott Shane wrote that higher-level officials at

the NSA were "fearful that [declassification] might prompt uncomfortable

comparisons with the flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq."

The glaring light of publicity encouraged the Agency's leaders finally to

approve declassification of the documents.

Hanyok's article, "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The

Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964," originally published in the

National Security Agency's classified journal Cryptologic Quarterly in

early 2001, provides a comprehensive SIGINT-based account "of what

happened in the Gulf of Tonkin." Using this evidence, Hanyok argues that

the SIGINT confirms that North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a U.S.

destroyer, the USS Maddox on August 2, 1964, although under questionable

circumstances.

The SIGINT also shows, according to Hanyok, that a second attack, on

August 4, 1964, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on U.S. ships did not

occur despite claims to the contrary by the Johnson administration.

President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara treated Agency SIGINT

reports as vital evidence of a second attack and used this claim to

support retaliatory air strikes and to buttress its request for a

Congressional resolution that would give the White House freedom of action

in Vietnam.

Hanyok further argues that Agency officials had "mishandled" SIGINT

concerning the events of August 4 and provided top level officials with

"skewed" intelligence supporting claims of an August 4 attack. "The

overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no

attack occurred." Key pieces of evidence are missing from the Agency's

archives, such as the original decrypted Vietnamese text of a document

that played an important role in the White House's case. Hanyok has not

found a "smoking gun" to demonstrate a cover-up but believes that the

evidence suggests "an active effort to make SIGINT fit the claim of what

happened during the evening of 4 August in the Gulf of Tonkin." Senior

officials at the Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House were none the

wiser about the gaps in the intelligence.

Hanyok's conclusions have sparked controversy among old Agency hands but

his research confirms the insight of journalist I.F. Stone who questioned

the second attack only weeks after the events. Hanyok's article is part

of a larger study on the National Security Agency and the Vietnam War,

"Spartans in Darkness," which is the subject of a pending FOIA request by

the National Security Archive.

Please follow the link below for more information:

http://www.nsarchive.org http://www.nsarchive.org

________________________________________________________

THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental esearch

institute and library located at The George Washington University in

Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents

acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt

public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its

budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from

foundations and individuals.