Nation: THE GUNS OF AUGUST 4

WHAT really happened in the Tonkin Gulf during the early days of August 1964 is a question that historians may ponder for decades. All the details will probably never be established. For present-day Americans, the knowable facts are of more than academic interest, since the events of those days set off a chain reaction, beginning with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in Congress, which has sent more than a million U.S. troops to battle in South Viet Nam. The following account is based on the Defense Department’s official report—much of which was secret until last week—and an exhaustive Associated Press reconstruction based on interviews with officers and enlisted men aboard the U.S.S. Maddox and Turner Joy.

Maddox, a 2,200-ton destroyer, left Yokosuka, Japan, July 23 on what seemed to be a routine mission to observe North Vietnamese naval activity in the Gulf of Tonkin. Stopping at Taiwan, she took aboard a “black box,” about the size of a moving van, crammed with electronic gear, and about a dozen new men to tend its innards. What was it for? Defense Secretary Robert McNamara insisted at first that the equipment “consisted in essence” of normal radio receivers that gave the ship “added capacity” to detect indications of possible attack. In testimony released at week’s end, however, he admitted that, far from being routine, the electronic gear was designed to somehow “trigger” North Vietnamese radar so that the U.S. would know the frequencies of Northern radar installations. Then, in an amazing turnabout, the Navy disputed its chief, insisting that the equipment was indeed only standard gear.

With the new equipment—whatever it was—Maddox took up patrol, with orders never to venture closer than eight miles to the North Vietnamese mainland, or closer than four miles to any Northern islands. How close she did go, in fact, has not been disclosed. McNamara maintains that Hanoi never officially announced its claim to a twelve-mile boundary until Sept. 1, 1964, so that, as far as the U.S. was concerned, Maddox was always within international waters.

Shortly before Maddox arrived on station, South Vietnamese patrol boats (the night of July 30-31) shelled the Northern islands of Hon Me and Hon Nieu, staging points for Northern infiltration to the South. Did Maddox help the Southerners by diverting Northern attention from the attack? McNamara says no, but he acknowledges that the U.S. was aware that the islands would be bombarded.

Grave Consequences

On the morning of Aug. 2, Maddox saw three North Vietnamese torpedo boats near Hon Me. Later that day, three PT boats closed on Maddox within clear sight of her lookouts, and kept closing, despite warning shots. The battle was on. By the time it was over, one boat was dead in the water and presumed sinking; two others were damaged by F-8 Crusader jets, called in from the U.S. aircraft carrier Ticonderoga. Maddox suffered minimal damage. The Pentagon has pictures of the action, and no one questions this part of the story. The destroyer Turner Joy, a 2,850-tonner, was sent to reinforce Maddox, and the patrol—now known grandiloquently as Task Group 72.1—went on as before.

On Aug. 4, at 7:40 p.m., Maddox radarmen spotted what they reckoned to be five torpedo boats 36 miles to northeast. Task Group 72.1 began preparing for action.

At about five miles, star shells were fired from Maddox. It was, in McNamara’s words, “a very dark, moonless, overcast night”—or, as Maddox Radarman James Stankevitz put it, “darker than the hubs of hell.”

When the blips were about three miles off, Turner Joy began firing, using her radar as guide, since nothing could be seen. Maddox followed suit—though her radar showed no target at all. Says Lieut. Raymond Connell, in charge of Maddox’s guns: “I recall we were hopping around up there, trying to figure out what they [Turner Joy] were shooting at. We fired a lot of rounds, but it was strictly a defensive tactic.” It could also have been a malfunction on the radar screen. Aircraft from the carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation were overhead by this time and saw nothing much either. However, four seamen aboard Turner Joy and one man aboard Maddox did report seeing silhouettes of a ship, and sailors said they saw a searchlight stab momentarily through the darkness. There were also sonar reports of as many as 22 torpedoes, though critics of the Pentagon pointed out that a sonarman may have mistaken the sound made by the engine of his vessel for torpedoes.

Many Doubts

In Washington, where it was now afternoon, President Johnson met with his top advisers and the National Security Council, and began considering the possibility of an air strike against the enemy boats and their bases. Meanwhile frantic messages were asking Task Force 72.1 whether an engagement had taken place at all. “Can you confirm absolutely that you were attacked?” asked Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet from Honolulu. “Can you confirm sinking of PT boats? Desire reply directly supporting evidence.”

The response to these questions represents the weakest point in the Administration’s case. “Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful,” wired Captain John Herrick, commander of the patrol. “Freak weather effects and overeager sonarman may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox, suggest complete evaluation before any further action.” With access to classified information, Herrick has since changed his mind. McNamara says that he has “unimpeachable” intelligence, probably intercepted North Vietnamese radio messages, to verify independently not only that Hanoi planned an attack on the U.S. destroyers but also that it was informed of the battle’s progress.

Questioning, nonetheless, was still going on even after President Johnson ordered a retaliatory attack against North Viet Nam and announced shortly after 11:30 p.m. (Washington time) on Aug. 4 that the U.S. was officially sending men into battle for the first time since the Korean War. A few minutes later, 64 jets from Ticonderoga and Constitution blasted five targets in North Viet Nam.

For all the obvious doubts, neither of the sharpest of the senatorial critics of the Johnson Administration’s handling of the incident—Wayne Morse and William Fulbright—questions that some sort of an engagement did take place on Aug. 4. Others are not so sure. Yet even if it is conceded that the attack did happen, many substantial questions remain unanswered. The Administration, argues Fulbright, “didn’t have a clear call to war” and acted precipitately and with inadequate evidence in sending American planes to bomb North Viet Nam. Last week’s testimony strongly suggests that the Administration did indeed overreact to the Tonkin incident as such. But it treated that incident as part of the larger scene, evidently using it as a welcome excuse for launching bombers over North Viet Nam. Whatever the strategic merits of attacking the North at the time—and many in the U.S. military thought them considerable—it might have been wiser to state the case frankly rather than rest it on a vulnerable pretext.