Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War,
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A01=Edwin Moise
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Author_Edwin Moise
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBW
Category=HBWS2
Category=NHWR9
Cold War naval incidents
COP=United States
covert operations
Delivery_Pre-order
DESOTO patrols
destroyer operations Vietnam
destroyer radar systems
electronic surveillance missions
electronic warfare signals
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eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
escalation
escalation Vietnam War
false attack reports
fog of war
fog of war naval
Gulf of Tonkin incident
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Language_English
Lyndon Johnson
Lyndon Johnson Vietnam policy
military decision making crisis
naval after action reports
naval combat misidentification
naval command confusion
naval communications intercepts
naval eyewitness accounts
naval historical controversy
naval intelligence failures
naval intelligence Vietnam
naval reconnaissance patrols
naval rules of engagement
North Vietnam
North Vietnamese torpedo boats
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radar
radar contact analysis
Robert McNamara
SIGINT
signals intelligence
signals intelligence operations
softlaunch
SOG
sonar
Tonkin Gulf incident analysis
torpedo boat engagements
US Navy destroyers Vietnam
US Navy Seventh Fleet
USS Maddox destroyer
USS Turner Joy destroyer
Vietnam War
Vietnam War naval operations
Vietnam War origins
Product details
- ISBN 9781612516776
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 28 Mar 2024
- Publisher: Naval Institute Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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On July 31, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731) began a reconnaissance cruise off the coast of North Vietnam. On August 2, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the ship. On the night of August 4, the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy (DD-951), expecting to be attacked, saw what they interpreted as hostile torpedo boats on their radars and reported themselves under attack. The following day, the United States bombed North Vietnam in retaliation. Congress promptly passed, almost unanimously and with little debate, a resolution granting President Lyndon Johnson authority to take “all necessary measures” to deal with aggression in Vietnam. The incident of August 4, 1964, is at the heart of this book. The author interviewed numerous Americans who were present. Most believed in the moment that an attack was occurring. By the time they were interviewed, there were more doubters than believers, but the ones who still believed were more confident in their opinions. Factoring in degree of assurance, one could say that the witnesses were split right down the middle on this fundamental question. A careful and rigorous examination of the other forms of evidence, including intercepted North Vietnamese naval communications, interrogations of North Vietnamese torpedo boat personnel captured later in the war, and the destroyers' detailed records of the location and duration of radar contacts, lead the author to conclude that no attack occurred that night.
Edwin E. Moise is a professor of history at Clemson University. He began as a political and economic historian of China and Vietnam, but eventually became a military historian specializing in the Vietnam War. He published The Myths of Tet: The Most Misunderstood Event of the Vietnam War in 2017.
