Gulf of Tonkin Review
I was a close friend and POW cellmate of Vice Adm. Jim Stockdale, who died in July. If he were alive today, he would rebut your article "The Attack That Wasn't" [December 12]. He would say you still don't have the facts right. On the night of Aug. 4, 1964, Stockdale was launched to ferret out information on the so-called attacking North Vietnamese PT boats. He conducted a thorough search and reported by radio and later in a debriefing that there were absolutely no PT boats in the area and that no attack had taken place. The weather was such that false radar returns could easily have confused our destroyer personnel, who were still on edge from the previous engagement August 2. On August 11, after the airstrike of August 4 and the passing of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution by Congress on August 7, Alvin Friedman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and Jack Stempler, special assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, flew out to Stockdale's carrier for a personal briefing. Stockdale told them there were no PT boats that night and no attack had been made on the two destroyers. He was instructed not to discuss this matter with anyone, and he maintained his silence until he became a POW in Hanoi, where he discussed it exhaustively with me and his other cellmates. Historian Matthew Aid's conclusion--"Now, we know that mistakes and conspiracy were widespread but at a midlevel" --does not wash in view of Stockdale's testimonies. The Vietnam War was President Johnson's and Secretary of Defense McNamara's baby right from the start. To blame midlevel officials and skewed intelligence makes a travesty of historical accuracy.
CAPT. JAMES A. MULLIGAN
USN (RET.) Virginia Beach, Va.
The murkiness of the "second attack" against U.S. warships by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964, is much ado about nothing. Most sailors involved think the incident was simply the result of an overeager radar operator. President Johnson had his first attack two days earlier in international waters, as a provocation to increase U.S. participation in the war, plus numerous attacks in South Vietnam against U.S. advisers. He didn't need a second attack.
SCOTT ANDERSON
Green Valley, Ariz.
I was stationed in Danang, Vietnam, with the U.S. Air Force Security Service from October 1963 to October 1964. My understanding was that the United States provoked an attack by North Vietnamese PT boats in August 1964. Three destroyers, including Maddox and Turner Joy, were stationed vertically along the North Vietnamese coast. The middle destroyer would go west and go into North Vietnamese territorial waters to activate North Vietnamese radar. When we had a planned airstrike, planes would first destroy the radar sites so the North Vietnamese could not track our warplanes on the way to targets. News reports at the time stated that North Vietnamese PT boat attacks on our ships were unprovoked. We intentionally violated their territorial waters to justify subsequent attacks from both land and aircraft.
JOEL JOHNSON
Lincoln, Neb.
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