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
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.