The Gulf of Tonkin

The Gulf of Tonkin incident ranks as one of the great American foreign policy mysteries of all time. Questions about the incident still remain thirty-eight years after the fact. Did the United States provoke an attack by the Vietnamese? Was there a second attack? Did Robert McNamera and Lyndon Johnson lie to the American people about the whole matter? What is an important answer to these questions is a CIA program named 34 Alpha.

When Hanoi decided to send forces to the South, after the refusal to hold elections by the Diem government mandated by the peace accords of 1954, the United States joined the South Vietnamese with covert land-sea operations. These operatives were to gain intelligence, recruit support and to establish bases of support.

The successes were few and far between as the North Vietnamese caught many of the agents. In January of 1964, Robert McNamara had taken over the operation from the CIA. He sent navy De Sota patrols to support the Alpha-34 operations. The Maddox and the C. Turner Joy were two of the ships that stood offshore and received information from the patrols.

McNamera claimed that the Maddox crew had no knowledge of the raids and the Gulf resolution passed 416-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate, with only Senator Morse and Senator Ernest Grueling in objection. McNamera now claims that there were De Sota patrols but he did not know it at the time. Is he telling the truth? One man who worked in the Defense department does not think so; he is Daniel Ellsberg. According to Ellsberg:

"Yes, he did lie, and I knew it at the time. I was working for John McNaughton. I was his special assistant. He knew McNamera had lied...Congress was being lied to...I don't look back on that situation with pride."

George Ball, former Under Secretary of State, confirms Ellsberg's allegations. "Many people associated with the war...were looking for any excuse to innate bombing. The DeSota patrols were primarily for provocation. There was a feeling that if the destroyer got into trouble, that would provide the provocation needed."

The result was a disaster for the Vietnamese, for America and for the world. Senator Morse, one of the two people who voted against the resolution said to Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, "Had you given us that information, seven years earlier, in 1964, the Gulf of Tokin Resolution would never have gotten out of Committee."

It is in times like these that we need to understand that governments will lie to anyone, including their own people, if it serves their interests. This is a fact. All throughout the war in Vietnam, the American public was lied to. I knew a man named Joe Miller who was there on one of the support vessels and now teaches Political Science at the University of Illinois. According to Miller, "that was what they were there for, to collect information." History is important because if you don't know anything about history, they can tell you anything and you'll believe them. This is all true.

Sources: New Light on the Gulf of Tonkin, Captain Ronnie E. Ford, U.S. Army
The Pentagon Papers

NEVER FORGET!!

Times change...Memories remain!
Jane Fonda is being honored as one of the "100 Women of the Century." Hell! I can think of 1,000 Women of the Century, and Jane Fonda isn't on it.
Unfortunately many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country but specific men who served and sacrificed during Vietnam.

The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot.
The pilot's name is Jerry Driscoll, a River Rat. In 1978, the former commandant of the USAF Survival School was a POW in Ho Lo Prison-the "Hanoi Hilton."
Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJs, he was ordered to describe for a visiting American "Peace Activist" the "lenient and humane treatment" he'd received. He spat at Ms.Fonda, was clubbed, and dragged away.

During the subsequent beating, He fell forward upon the camp commandant's
feet, which sent that officer berserk. In '78, the AF Col. still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his flying days) from the Vietnamese Col.'s frenzied application of a wooden baton.
From 1983-85, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4Es). He spent 6
years in the "Hilton"- the first three of which he was "missing in action".
His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned/fed/clothed routine in preparation for a peace delegation" visit. They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his SSN on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: "Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?" and "Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?"

Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper. She took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge ... and handed him the little pile of papers.

Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Col. Carrigan was almost number
four but he survived, which is the only reason we know about her actions that day.

I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam, and was captured
by the North Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held for over 5 years. I spent 27 months in solitary confinement, one year in a cage in Cambodia, and one year in a black box" in Hanoi. My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Ban me Thuot, South Vietnam, whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border. At one time, I was weighing approximately 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs.)

We were Jane Fonda's "war criminals." When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was
asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with Jane Fonda. I said yes, for I would like to tell her about the real treatment we POWs were receiving, which was far different from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by Jane Fonda, as humane and lenient."

Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees with outstretched arms with a large amount of steel placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane till my arms dipped. I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda for a couple of hours after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She did not answer me.

This does not exemplify someone who should be honored as part of "100 Years
of Great Women." Lest we forget... "100 years of great women" should never include a traitor whose hands are covered with the blood of so many patriots. There are few things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane's participation in blatant treason, is one of them.

Please take the time to forward to as many people as you possibly can. It will eventually end up on her computer and she needs to know that we will never forget.

Charles (Skip) Klingman Asst. Professor of Music
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Weatherford, OK 73096 (580) 774-3219 FAX: (580) 774-3795

If having Jane Fonda named one of the woman of the century bothers you as
much as it does me, then email this page to everyone on your email list.