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Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War Hardcover – December 9, 1996

by Edwin E. Moïse (Author)

9 customer reviews

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Retracing the confused pattern of planning for escalation of the Vietnam War, Moise reconstructs the events of the night of August 4, 1964, when the U.S. Navy destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy reported that they were under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Using declassified records and interviews with the participants, Moise demonstrates that there was no North Vietnamese attack; the original report was a genuine mistake.

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Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

An illuminating, almost minute-by-minute reconstruction of the events that took place in the Tonkin Gulf in August 1964, and an analysis of decisions in Washington that led to the massive American escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965. Moise (History/Clemson Univ.) offers a massively detailed study of the Aug. 2 and Aug. 4, 1964, incidents in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam, after which Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution giving the Johnson administration authority to wage war against Communism in North and South Vietnam. Moise is careful to point out that the incidents ``did not really `cause' the outbreak of large-scale war in Vietnam.'' As he shows, in August 1964 the war in South Vietnam was heating up rapidly, and the White House and Pentagon were already making plans for large- scale intervention. Still, the events surrounding the Tonkin Gulf incident--including covert American-supported actions against North Vietnam that had begun in February 1964--as well as the actual incidents themselves deserve close study. That is exactly what Moise provides in his book, in which he augments a thorough examination of primary sources with interviews with many key players, including former North Vietnamese naval officers. Moise's readable, if sometimes overly detailed, reconstruction of the events in the water leaves little doubt that the small battle on Aug. 2 was not an unprovoked North Vietnamese attack on ``an innocent [American] reconnaissance vessel,'' as the Johnson administration contended. Rather, North Vietnam attacked the destroyer Maddox, which was loaded with electronic eavesdropping equipment, in retaliation for months of American-supported attacks along the coast. Moise also convincingly shows that no North Vietnamese attacks on American ships took place on Aug. 4, although he concludes that American action was based on a misunderstanding, not on a provocation ``knowingly faked'' by the American government. The most inclusive look by far at the portentous Tonkin Gulf incident. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

[A] refreshingly welcome addition to the Vietnam War literature, and certainly one for the shelves of serious students."Intelligence and National Security"

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Product details

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press; 1st edition (December 9, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0807823007
ISBN-13: 978-0807823002
Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 9 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,187,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1315 in Books > History > Asia > Southeast Asia
- #2040 in Books > History > Military > United States > Vietnam War
- #2476 in Books > History > Asia > China

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History revised

ByMr. Flinton June 29, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

There's a lot of material in this 1996 book and the author pretty much follows the Left's revisionist "conspiracy" version of there never having been a naval confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964. My personal conclusion is that there was indeed a confrontation exactly as described in the U.S. Navy's written history of the momentous event which escalated the decades-long Vietnam conflict. Applying the venerable problem-solving principle of Occam's Razor to this much-debated historical question gets an interesting result: it's more unlikely to be an erroneous event than a real one. Therefore, I disagree with Moise. I believe the U.S. Government had every justification in attacking North Vietnam. 100-year-old Admiral Lloyd Vasey, Ret., set the record straight on a 2012 Hawaiian TV show, titled "Asian Review", hosted by David Day. It's on YouTube and worth viewing.

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Useful analysis and collection of information

ByDoug Toppinon December 5, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I finished the Kindle version of this a few weeks ago and definitely enjoyed it. I found it both informative and thought provoking. There are many details that I was not familiar with. There were several points with a lot of location and navigation information presented where I felt like I needed a map beside me with plotted points to make it clearer. There are a few maps and plots in the book but flipping back and forth to them was not helpful nor is it easy to show movement over time very easily with a static map. A link to a website with animated graphics might help make this more understandable. Overlaying some of the text from the book on the map during the animation might work very well in this case.

I think some of the real value of this book is in showing how emotions and expected events may lead to a confirmation bias. It is possible that there were some attacking vessels during the second event but it is also possible that there were not. Visual sightings during moments of great stress can be just as unreliable as eyewitness recollections recounting the events of a crime. The USS Vincennes event where personnel in the CIC later reported exactly the opposite of what the recorded data contained is an example of that.

I can also understand where requests to on scene personnel from remote military commanders (caused by the same from political authorities) to confirm something may be difficult to return exactly the opposite of what was desired. It is entirely possible that Johnson and McNamara expected it and therefore wanted confirmation which influenced those reporting it. The value of recorded data used both at the time for quick playback and in subsequent analysis cannot be undervalued. Unfortunately the technology at the time could not reliably support that so we will likely never be certain of exactly what transpired.

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Profound Historical Analysis

ByG. Glickon June 6, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

An absolutely brilliant piece of analysis of a decisive moment in the Vietnam War . Prof Moise goes out of his way to be evenhanded which makes the apparent deceptions of our policy-makers all the more heartbreaking. I eagerly await Prof. Moise's forthcoming treatment of the Tet offensive!

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Five Stars

ByAmazon Customeron November 25, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Love it

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Where's the Outrage?

ByRalph Whiteon April 26, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

In August of 1984, in order to showcase his anti-communist credentials during the presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson started a war in Vietnam. He was abetted by his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, and his Secretary of State, Dean Rusk who both lied, not once or twice, but habitually, to the Senate and to the American public. President Johnson and Secretaries Rusk and McNamara knew the facts and they willfully misrepresented them. This wasn't a case of a good faith error in interpretation. It was blatant dishonesty. When the truth became inescapable, they conspired in a cover-up. Author Edwin Moïse reports in damning detail everything that happened that fateful night out on the water and he draws the inescapable conclusion that there were no enemy boats anywhere near the two American destroyers. They were shooting at phantom images on radar, and they were mistaking their own propeller noise for torpedoes. Fighter planes sent in for support, and surveillance planes sent to gather evidence came back empty handed. Yet this "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" was used as the justification for the "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution," which became the document which enabled President Johnson to prosecute a war which ultimately claimed fifty-seven thousand American lives. This is perhaps the most painful chapter in the 234 years of American history, and the most embarrassing. Yet not until Edwin Moïse's book was published in 1997, was the full truth made available to the American public. It has not resulted in the outrage it should.

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Not the whole story

Byjimtranron November 8, 2010

Format: Hardcover

As impressive as the wealth of detail seems to be, the book is incomplete in its account and defective in its analysis of what occurred in the Tonkin Gulf on 4 August 1964. I was at General Quarters in USS Turner Joy's Combat Information Center that night, and what approached and fired at least one torpedo and aimed a searchlight at us was no phantom. So the incident was real. The book's problem appears to be the choices and decisions the author made in the selection, evaluation, and utilization of both documentary and interview sources. Countervailing evidence is either dismissed, given short shrift, or not cited. The technical discussion of radar and sonar operation--particularly the latter in a high-speed evasive-maneuvering combat situation--is incomplete and unfortunately misleading as it applies to the events of that night. Where the book has value is in its recounting of the events and processes of decision-making at the policymaker level in the wake of the incident. But as an account of the incident itself it leaves much to be desired.

For a more detailed critique of Edwin Moise's book, see What's_Wrong_with_Tonkin_Gulf_Incident_History.pdf. Since that file's not stored within the amazon.com system, I can't post a direct link. But you can reach it by googling that title.