When the firing from U.S. Navy vessels stopped, of course no damage or casualties had occurred, but President Johnson feigned indignation and demanded “retaliation.” He called together Congressional leaders and asked for the power to respond militarily. Johnson told them, “Some of our boys are floating around in the water.” Congress was thus tricked into passing the Gulf of Tonkin resolution on August 7, 1964, approving retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. Only two courageous Senators, Wayne Morse (D. Oregon) and Ernest Gruening (D. Alaska) voted no. Eight months later, LBJ told a group of visitors, with a grin, “For all I know our Navy was shooting at whales out there.” Though conspiracy theorists had obtained the information years earlier, it took until Monday, October 31, 2005 for a front page column to appear in The New York Times about the Great Lie. Scott Shane’s article was titled “Vietnam Study, Casting Doubts, Remains Secret”: “…communications intercepted by the N.S.A. [National Security Agency, U.S. secret code breaking agency] were falsified so that they made it look as if North Vietnam had attacked American destroyers on August 4, 1964...evidence for deliberate falsification is certain.” But as early as 1972, New York Times columnist James Reston had written that as a result of the Vietnam War “Americans lost their respect for the presidency; there was chaos in the streets; there has been a decline in respect for government authority; and for moral authority — the schools, the press, the church, and even the family.”
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:56:56 +0000
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