Article · Geopolitics · Conspiracies
The NSA admitted it: the second Gulf of Tonkin attack never happened. The document behind America's entry into Vietnam
No. On 4 August 1964, no second North Vietnamese attack on US ships took place. The NSA said so itself in 2005, declassifying a study by its own historian, Robert J. Hanyok: the signals intelligence used to brief Congress had been misread or deliberately misrepresented. That "attack" is what Congress used to pass the resolution that opened the door to the Vietnam War.
On 2 August 1964, a real clash did happen in the Gulf of Tonkin: the destroyer USS Maddox exchanged fire with three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. No historian disputes that. The question was always about what happened two days later.