Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a proxy war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from December 1956 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Millions of people, mostly Vietnamese, lost their lives.
Official Narrative
The stated aims of the US government were the prevention of a communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of their wider strategy of Cold War doctrine of "containment", which aimed to stop the spread of communism. The fear was of the "domino thoery", expressed by Dwight D. Eisenhower during an April 7, 1954 news conference:
Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.[1]
Gulf Of Tonkin
As a prelude to the escalation of the conflict by the US, an "incident" was reported in the Gulf Of Tonkin, on the 2nd and then 4th of August, 1964. This was used as a justification for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which began the rapid escalation of the Vietnam war by authorising the use of "conventional" US military forces in South Ease Asia without the inconvenience of a formal declaration of war.
Long suspected of being a False Flag attack, light was shed on the Gulf Of Tonkin incident by the 2005 declassification of an internal National Security Agency historical study on the matter which concluded[2] that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:
At 1500G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first.[2]
Regarding August 4, the NSA report concluded that:
It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[3]
On November 30, 2005, the NSA released the first installment of previously classified information regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident, including a moderately sanitized version of Mr. Hanyok's article.[2] The Hanyok article stated that intelligence information was presented to the Johnson administration "in such a manner as to preclude responsible decision makers in the Johnson administration from having the complete and objective narrative of events." Instead, "only information that supported the claim that the communists had attacked the two destroyers was given to Johnson administration officials."[4]
References
- ↑ http://www.nps.gov/features/eise/jrranger/quotes2.htm
- ↑ a b c Robert J. Hanyok, "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964", Cryptologic Quarterly, Winter 2000/Spring 2001 Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 / Vol. 20, No. 1.
- ↑ Hanyok article (page 177)
- ↑ Hanyok article (page 177)
