NYT: Doubts Cast on Vietnam Incident, but Secret Study Stays Classified

[Pirate Smile]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian that during the Tonkin Gulf episode that helped precipitate the Vietnam War, N.S.A. officers deliberately distorted critical intelligence to cover up their mistakes, according to two people familiar with the historian's work.

The historian's conclusion is the first serious accusation that communications intercepted by the N.S.A., the secretive eavesdropping and code-breaking agency, were falsified so that they made it look as if North Vietnam had attacked American destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, two days after a previous clash. President Lyndon B. Johnson cited the supposed attack to persuade Congress to authorize broad military action in Vietnam, but most historians have concluded in recent years that there was no second attack.

The N.S.A. historian, Robert J. Hanyok, found a pattern of translation mistakes that went uncorrected, altered intercept times and selective citation of intelligence that persuaded him that midlevel agency officers had deliberately skewed the evidence.
Mr. Hanyok concluded that they had done it not out of any political motive but to cover up earlier errors, and that top N.S.A. and defense officials and Johnson neither knew about nor condoned the deception.

-snip-
"This material is relevant to debates we as Americans are having about the war in Iraq and intelligence reform," said Mr. Aid, who is writing a history of the N.S.A. "To keep it classified simply because it might embarrass the agency is wrong."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politics/31war.html?hp&ex=1130734800&en=8ac1b9d2786960da&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. See, everyone lies their way into war!

Ta-da!

:sarcasm:

Pretty shoddy as a response, I must say. As if everyone hasn't been aware that the Tonkin Gulf incident was a big fucking lie since at least 1965 (at least Wayne Morris knew it in 1964). This is new, new, new!!!

What a joke.

[Garbo 2004]

3. Yeah, isn't McNamara's book further proof about the VN war lies?

Not that we needed that, but he was a central player.

[Nostradammit]

6. Did you mean Wayne Morse?

Just checking - for those who may want to read about his good deeds.


http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M001014


http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Wayne_Morse_Sets_Filibuster_Record.htm

:toast:

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Indeed: the one senator to vote against the asinine TGR

And a Republican, at that...

[EVDebs]

24. AK Sen Gruening voted against also BTW, Adm Stockdale's book

mentioned in commondreams site

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0805-09.htm

tells of the deception

"But, says James Stockdale, a Navy aviator who responded to the "attacks" on the Maddox and Turner Joy, it all was hogwash. Stockdale later was shot down and spent eight years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. In 1992, he was presidential candidate Ross Perot's running mate.

"I had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets - there were no PT boats there. There was nothing but black water and American firepower," Stockdale wrote in his 1984 book, "In Love and War."

Since 1984 the NSA has known the incident was bullshit. Now that Prof. Frankfurt has written about institutional deception and how lies repeated within bureaucracies can perpetuate ... maybe we can add an addendum to On Bullshit to include the Iraq war pretexts of phantom WMDs.

On Bullshit, indeed ! And the report was delayed so as not to embarrass the Bush administration, not the NSA. Let's get that straight up right away.

[NVMojo]

2. truth always rises to the top ...rank this up!

my father was wounded in that lying ass war...

[Garbo 2004]

4. Uh they're now saying that the info about the Gulf of Tonkin wasn't a

deliberate lie by the Johnson Administration but just a translation mistake by folks down the food chain and they covered it up. Ya know, "bad intel."

That Johnson didn't believe the indicident was as portrayed but still used it to get his war authorization is more telling.

[cantstandbush]

17. Well, we know for sure that folks down the food chain did not invade

Iraq. It was lies from the top.

[Wilms]

5. Kicked and Recommended.

For your dad.

[Nostradammit]

7. My father was broken by that lying ass war...

and so was my family.

I hear ya.

[Lochloosa]

8. Kick for you and your father

[tanyev]

9. Deja vu all over again.

[MarsThe Cat]

10. i sure hope it doesn't take this long for the truth behind Iraq-

to "come out"...as in the Mainstream National Press...

who am i kidding..?

[Warren Stupidity]

11. This incident was known to be bullshit within a few years.

North Vietnam had absolutely no motive to draw the US into the war, and every motive to keep them out. On the other hand the US was losing control of the Diem regime in the south, and it was only a matter of time before the puppet regime collapsed.

"According to the Pentagon Papers and various researchers, the attacks were virtually fabricated by President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration. The US-supported South Vietnamese regime had been attacking oil processing facilities in North Vietnam, with planning and support from the CIA, to provide a pretext for the direct engagement of US forces in the conflict."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution

And yes - LBJ should have been impeached for that bullshit.

[alittlelark]

12. I thought this was 'common knowledge'.

Bizarre - I thought this was soooo accepted that all would know it.

[rodeodance]

13. John McCain is downplaying the purposeful mistranslation--on IMUS

[rodeodance]

14. kick

[rodeodance]

15. says lots of mistakes made with Iraq--but we must win.

[rodeodance]

16. McCain says he disagrees with kerry's plan to withdraw troops.

[rodeodance]

18. McCain says we must PREVAIL in Irag.

[saigon68]

20. He is "Brain Dead"

[EVDebs]

25. Institutionalized....meaning he's a member of Republican Congress

You'd think he of all people would have learned the lessons of Vietnam

Heads in the sand
http://spectrumz.com/z/fair_use/2004/09_04.html

"When asked this week on CNN how long the U.S. military is likely to remain in Iraq, Senator John McCain replied "probably" 10 or 20 years. "That's not so bad," he said, adding, "We've been in Korea for 50 years. We've been in West Germany for 50 years."

NOT SO BAD ? GET THE BUTTERFLY NETS !

[M155Y_A1CH]

19. Remember the Maine!

This has been SOP for too long now. When will we learn?


We should need more than a mysterious attack as proof

to prosecute a war against another nation.

[EVDebs]

28. The law apparently already does. War Powers Act of 1973

requires truthful 'situations' and 'circumstances' be presented to Congress

War Powers Act of 1973
www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/warpow.html

In addition, the Congress' resolution granting the war in Iraq

Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, Oct. 2002
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

at Sec. 3 (c)

refers to the War Powers Act of 1973 requirements. Obviously the submission to Congress of fabricated WMD information would be a violation of the Act.

Furthermore, Elizabeth de la Vega has recently shown other federal code violations that should be made public, or investigated by Fitzgerald the special prosecutor in the Plame Case.

The White House Criminal Conspiracy
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/delavega

along with truthout.org's reprint of Baltimore Sun's
Prosecutor Should Dig Deeper
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/103005B.shtml

shows even further laws being violated in the pretext for war scenario.

[M155Y_A1CH]

33. When is the trial?

When you have a leadership that doesn't care about the law
coupled with a populace that turns a blind eye to political crimes...

Evidence is so slow to come out and courts are so slow to act,
the opportunists get what they came for and get out with the goods.
Pardons are awaiting if they get caught before they get out.

It's already too late to stop them with the law. They already have the public war chest in their or their friends pockets.

Laws have never been a barrier to these folks and we know that they have had their brushes.

We must change to a higher standard the public's expectations of their representatives, and nothing less.

p.s. Sorry EVDebs didn't mean to take it out on you but I get so frustrated wondering why anyone would have ever voted for some of those PIGs.

[EVDebs]

34. It's a shaming process. Fitzgerald already has the power to investigate

and bring charges but even if he does the Republican controlled Congress won't act. Expect more adventures in violation of the War Powers Act and more pretexts. The military themselves eventually figures out how poorly they've been treated.

BTW, ever hear the Bible verse about 'forgive them for they know not what they do' ? That's our very own neocon crowd. They think they're doing the right thing and look at the mess they've made.
Reminds me of the other one 'by their fruits ye shall know them', meaning don't go by what they say, go by what they do, or put even better Actions speak louder than Words.

What have they done to the nation ?

[EVDebs]

22. NSA's Tonkin Gulf reports cooked? Delayed to not embarrass Bush

6 hrs ago

Tonkin Gulf reports cooked?
Historian's research finds intelligence errors covered up
Scott Shane, New York Times

Monday, October 31, 2005

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/31/MNG99FGN521.DTL

"...The research by Robert Hanyok, the NSA historian, was detailed four years ago in an in-house article that remains classified, in part because agency officials feared its release might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with the flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq, according to an intelligence official familiar with some internal discussions of the matter"

D'Oh, and hey we wouldn't want to embarrass an administration hellbent on going to war under false pretenses AGAIN, now, would we ?

Attn moderator, I didn't see PirateSmile's post at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1888819&mesg_id=1888819

Please merge, I will Kick it

[EVDebs]

23. KICK ... report delayed so as not to embarrass BUSH, not the NSA nt

[Javaman]

26. It would be interesting to interview any of the sailors that were

stationed aboard those said destroyers.
I think they would have a few stories to tell.

[EVDebs]

27. This weblink may help

USS Turner Joy (DD-951)
Veteran Links

http://www.nichecom.com/~vfw/tj2.html and
http://www.nichecom.com/~vfw/reunion.html

Under ship history for both ships similar 'incident' history reads as follows

"Midway through the third deployment in 1964 Turner Joy joined the Ticonderoga (CVA-14) carrier task group, part of Fast Carrier Striking Force, Seventh Fleet (TF-77) operating in the South China Sea approaches to the Gulf of Tonkin. She and US Maddox (DD-731) found themselves on "watchdog" patrols in international waters southwest of the Communist Chinese island of Hainan and along the coast of South and North Vietnam. Such reconnaissance patrols were common practice in troubled times, conducted for the purposes of observing naval activity, assisting South Vietnam naval patrol intercepts of enemy infiltration attempts, and in gathering necessary intelligence on North Vietnamese forces. On August 2, 1964, Maddox was attacked in international waters by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Maddox sank or damaged two of the Russian-built PT boats; a third and fourth suffered similar fates at the hands of jet fighter aircraft from Ticonderoga. Turner Joy joined Maddox after that sea engagement concluded, and the two ship unit remained on patrol in the Gulf. On the evening of August 4, 1964, after earlier indications of impending attack, the two-ship patrol unit was again engaged by as many as six North Vietnamese PT boats in a prolonged sea battle lasting more than two hours. The enemy reportedly fired torpedoes and their rapid-fire guns in a series of attacks against both ships. Once again jet fighter and attack aircraft of the carrier task group joined the fight and coordinated their efforts with those defensive measures of the two ships. In the end, two PT boats were believed sunk and two badly damaged. Maddox and Turner Joy gave a good account of themselves."

Needless to say, the new NSA information along with Adm Stockdale's account of the incident do not match up.

and also see

Gulf of Tonkin Yacht Club
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/1397/tgyc.html

USS Maddox DD-731
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/1397/tgyc.html

[Zhade]

29. K/R

Kick

[sofa king]

30. This is how the Grey Lady atones?

By exposing a false casus belli from a previous intractable war we were destined to lose?

That's just great. Keep up the good work, New York Times. Maybe we can look forward to you publishing the real story on this war... in 2043.

[Barrett808]

31. The definitive study: Truth is the first casualty;: The Gulf of Tonkin aff

Truth is the first casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin affair, illusion and reality
by Joseph C Goulden
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006C04GW/002-7166373-9557618?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

[Disturbed]

32. Most Americans don't want Wars.

Govts. have to lie to their citizens to get them to sign off on going to War. Killing and dying for the Corporations just isn't all that popular.

[peacetalksforall]

35. MSM causing annual flu frenzy? Take a look at this 1997 market

brief coming out of Europe:

"In Paris, I'm Lynne Terry for Marketplace."


The Swiss drugmaker Hoffman-LaRoche and a California company, Gilead Sciences, started conducting clinical trials in Britain today -- human tests on a new drug that could benefit virtually all of us. Marketplace's Kimberly Frasier-Booth reports.


Frasier-Booth: "It's not a cure for the common cold, but it could be the next best thing, a drug that can fight off the flu. The anti-flu pill is already shortening the illness in animal tests, and keeping the virus from spreading, and in fact shows promise in preventing the flu altogether. Camilla Olson is founder of Pharsight Corporation, a company that helps make pharmaceutical trials more efficient. She says anti-flu drugs take longer than most to develop because clinical trials can only take place during the flu season. Still, Olson says the market is already anticipating this breakthrough."


Olson: "If you look at the stock of Gilead when they announced this product a few months ago, their stock jumped through the roof, I think because of the anticipation of the market size. You know, flu hits every person, could hit every person in the population."


Frazier-Booth: "Commenting on today's announcement, the Centers for Disease Control says the research is promising, especially in light of the fact that 120 million people in the U.S., Europe and Japan get the flu each year. But with flu strains varying from year to year, it's not going to be easy to come up with one drug that can cure them all -- so for the time being, we're stuck with getting our annual flu shots.


From the Boston Bureau at WGBH, I'm Kimberly Frazier-Booth for Marketplace."


Rumsfeld is Gilead. I think just plain old flu wasn't making enough profit for Donny and the Bilderbergers, so they had to sex it up this year - Avian. Donny and friends will prosper, but first they have to say that they are low on supplies. But, others will say This is Real so who am I to say? On the other hand, how do you make a drug for a flu if you don't have the flue strain to make the flu drug? Who owns the flu, anyway?