Talk:Gulf of Tonkin incident

Scope

This article (in particular its lead section) presents two events as equal halves of the larger "Gulf of Tonkin incident". Worse, it barely describes the "second" incident other than it most likely being false while going into detail about the events of the "first" incident. This seems to contradict the sources which primarily refer to only the August 4 event as the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" and to the August 2 event as a mere prelude. Googling "Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident" gives almost no results. It appears to have been coined by this article. Particularly strange is the military conflict infobox for the August 2 event. I would argue that the scope needs to be redefined to fit the sources, with the August 4 incident becoming the sole primary topic and the August 2 incident being included as a smaller prelude. Prinsgezinde (talk) 14:44, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I would agree that the summary (lead) and the info box should be revised to fit the main article. I think most sources (and, at this point, the main body of the article) say that both the August 2 battle and the August 4 (erroneously) perceived battle were part of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Over the next several days I could propose a revision of the lead if no one else does. Sean Barnett (talk) 04:39, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs revision but I do not agree with User:Prinsgezinde that the supposed August 4 attack was the main incident and August 2 a mere prelude. An actual attack took place on August 2, no attack took place on August 4. Both the real and purported attack comprise the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Mztourist (talk) 10:53, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

They are most certainly related and notable in their own right and I would never suggest filtering out the August 2 incident or minimizing it. However, the August 2 incident features far less prominently in the sources but more prominently in this article. This would be contrary to the policy of due weight. I think the current weight balance between these two is exactly the opposite of what it should be (in the lead at least). Furthermore, I don't think Wikipedia should coin terms like "Second Gulf of Tonkin incident". Sources only describe one incident, even if it comprises two (both real and imaginary) engagements. Prinsgezinde (talk) 13:04, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree with your assertion that "the August 2 incident features far less prominently in the sources but more prominently in this article." I think the article provides a good balance of detail regarding both attacks and then the later section goes into detail on the fact that no attack took place on August 4. I'm not sure where you get the "Second Gulf of Tonkin incident" from. Mztourist (talk) 13:37, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

This is what I would propose as a revised summary (Sean Barnett (talk) 00:11, 19 February 2022 (UTC)):

The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ), also known as the USS Maddox incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved both a proven confrontation on August 2, 1964, carried out by North Vietnamese forces in response to covert operations in the coastal region of the gulf, and a second claimed confrontation on August 4, 1964, between ships of North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Original American claims blamed North Vietnam for both attacks. Later investigation revealed that the second attack never happened; the American claim that it had was based mostly on erroneously interpreted communications intercepts.

On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox, while performing a signals intelligence patrol as part of DESOTO operations, was approached by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron. The Maddox fired warning shots and the North Vietnamese boats attacked with torpedoes and machine gun fire. One U.S. aircraft was damaged, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were killed, with six more wounded. There were no U.S. casualties. Maddox was "unscathed except for a single bullet hole from a Vietnamese machine gun round".

On August 4, 1964, destroyer USS Turner Joy joined Maddox on another DESOTO mission. That evening, the ships opened fire on confusing radar and sonar returns that had been preceded by communications intercepts suggesting that an attack was imminent. The commander of the Maddox task force, Captain John Herrick, reported that the ships were being attacked by North Vietnamese boats. In fact, there were no North Vietnamese boats present. While Herrick soon reported doubts regarding the task force’s initial perceptions of the attack, the Johnson administration relied on erroneously interpreted National Security Agency communications intercepts to conclude that the attack was real.

While doubts regarding the perceived second attack have been expressed since 1964, it was not until years later that it was shown conclusively never to have happened. In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, the former United States Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted that an attack on the USS Maddox happened on August 2, but the August 4 Gulf of Tonkin attack, for which Washington authorized retaliation, never happened. In 1995, McNamara met with former Vietnam People's Army General Võ Nguyên Giáp to ask what happened on August 4, 1964, in the second Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "Absolutely nothing", Giáp replied. Giáp claimed that the attack had been imaginary. In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it showed that Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that the perceived incident of August 4 was based on erroneous initial Navy perceptions and flawed interpretations of intercepts of North Vietnamese communications.

The outcome of these two incidents was the passage by U.S. Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression". The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.

I've made some changes to the lede, I don't think anything more is required. Mztourist (talk) 08:33, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it looks fine at this point too. Sean Barnett (talk) 03:51, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

References

False Flag

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a false flag operation, so it's a little unusual to see that the term "false flag" does not appear anywhere in the article. Compare this to the Gleiwitz incident and the Shelling of Mainila which are explicitly referred to as false flags in their respective leads.

For consistency's sake and to preserve the article's NPOV, I suggest changing the opening sentence to the following:

The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ) was a false flag operation manufactured by the United States to provide them with a justification to engage more directly in the Vietnam War. 78.16.187.226 (talk) 18:11, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

We'd need some reliable sources that use the "false flag" phraseology specifically. JArthur1984 (talk) 18:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I assume this BBC News article should be sufficient? It's the same source used on the Shelling of Mainila page to support the claim that the attack was a fabrication carried out by the NKVD. 78.16.187.226 (talk) 19:30, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

The link here is broken but the one you added to the article works. This is fine from my perspective. JArthur1984 (talk) 20:22, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

One source isn't adequate. There was a North Vietnamese attack on 2 August which the BBC story acknowledges. The lede and later in the page discusses the purported 4 August attack, however it is not accurate to describe the entire incident as a false flag. Mztourist (talk) 03:07, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I suspect there will be further web articles like this one. Someone who wants to focus on this issue might want to check Wikipedia library or other academic sources too. JArthur1984 (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

As I said, and the BBC acknowledges, there was a North Vietnamese attack on 2 August. While the 4 August event was a "fog of war" situation which was not properly investigated. The page presents both events with the correct nuance which the BBC story does not. A "false flag" attack is completely different being, as the WP page says, "an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party". So unless the US acquired North Vietnamese style torpedo boats and attacked the Maddox with them, this wasn't a false flag attack. Mztourist (talk) 07:57, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the Daily Beast article is wrong about what constitutes a false flag operation. During the Tonkin Gulf incident on August 4, the U.S. erroneously represented what happened but did not attack its own ships (indeed, its ships were not attacked that day). Sean Barnett (talk) 23:46, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Conservative writer and political commentator William Buckley published in 1990 a novel Tucker's Last Stand in which the August 4 incident was presented as a false flag operation, with the CIA operating high-tech equipment to spoof the sensors aboard the US destroyers and make them think they were under attack.

Captain John Herrick, who had commanded the Desoto patrol and had been the highest ranking US officer present at the incidents of August 2 and August 4, saw the novel and began to wonder whether it had been based on something real. He told me that Buckley was very well connected and might have heard about an actual secret operation. He asked me to look into the possibility that the August 4 incident had been a false flag operation.

I told him I was sure that Buckley's fiction had been pure fiction. Ed Moise (talk) 21:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Which of course it was, insofar as it came from the Bawlmers not the amateurs by the Potomac. Cambial — foliar❧ 22:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Prohibited Self-Reference?

We are not permitted to refer to our own works on Wikipedia. I have not been violating that rule. I was not responsible, directly or indirectly, for the references to my book Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War in this article.

But the 2019 revised edition of my book is much better than the original 1996 edition. Would it be permissible for me revise references (put in by others) to Moise 1996 so they refer to Moise 2019? In most cases this would involve changing the page numbers. Ed Moise (talk) 22:25, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I haven’t seen this question come up before.

I think it’s a good idea that should be welcomed.

No one will be more capable of updating these references efficiently than you. JArthur1984 (talk) 23:38, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Status quo lead

It’s entirely reasonable to state what the NSA’s own historian in its in-house journal, Cryptologic Quarterly, writes about the NSA itself. Cambial — foliar❧ 08:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikivoice seems fine here to me also. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:32, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

No dates on images

The images used in this article are not dated, making it harder to research people in this article. CharlemagneKOT (talk) 06:41, 16 August 2024 (UTC)