EN BG

Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964)

The event that escalated the Vietnam War probably never happened.

On August 4, 1964, the US government claimed that North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox for a second time in the Gulf of Tonkin. President Johnson used this alleged attack to push the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress, giving him authority to escalate military operations in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. Within months, American troops were pouring into Southeast Asia.

The problem: the second attack almost certainly didn't occur. Crew members expressed doubt at the time. Internal NSA reports, declassified in 2005, confirmed that signals intelligence was misrepresented and that key evidence was manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion. The first attack on August 2 did happen, but it was a minor skirmish — hardly grounds for full-scale war. The second attack, the one that mattered politically, was likely a combination of jumpy radar operators, bad weather, and officials who wanted a reason to escalate.

Over 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese died in the war that followed. The justification for that war rested on an event that the government's own documents later showed was, at best, a mistake — and at worst, a deliberate fabrication.

Sometimes the biggest lies aren't complicated. They just need to arrive at the right moment.

References