gulf of tonkin conspiracy
Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. The conspiracy theory has been dying for several years, and this work will probably be a stake through its heart. 9. Conducted under the nationally approved Operations Plan, OPLAN-34A, the program required the intelligence community to provide detailed intelligence about the commando targets, the Norths coastal defenses and related surveillance systems. Subsequent research and declassified documents have essentially shown that the second attack did not happen. Speculation about administration motives surrounding the Tonkin Gulf incident itself and the subsequent withholding of key information will probably never cease, but the factual intelligence record that drove those decisions is now clear. Holding their vector despite the gunfire, the boats rushed in, pouring 20-mm and 40-mm fire and 57-mm recoilless rifle rounds into their target. 14. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . 1, p. 646. On the afternoon of Aug. 2, three Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats were dispatched to attack the destroyer. The first critic report from Phu Bai reached Washington at about 0740 hours, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). With that report, after nearly four decades, the NSA officially reversed its verdict on the events of August 4, 1964, that had led that night to President Lyndon Johnsons televised message to the nation: The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. While many facts and details have emerged in the past 44 years to persuade most observers that some of the reported events in the Gulf never actually happened, key portions of the critical intelligence information remained classified until recently. The contacts were to the northeast of the ship, putting them about 100 nautical miles from North Vietnam but very close to Chinas Hainan Island. . . I would not suggest that he learned from the Gulf of Tonkin incident so much as that he got from it exactly what he wanted, which was an enormous bump in approval ratings 30 percent overnight, says historian Chris Oppe. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. SOG took the mounting war of words very seriously and assumed the worstthat an investigation would expose its operations against the North. The SIGINT intercepts also detected that the North Vietnamese coastal radar stations were tracking Maddox and reporting its movements to the outbound torpedo boats. To subscribe to Vietnam Magazine, click here! "I think we are kidding the world if you try to give the impression that when the South Vietnamese naval boats bombarded two islands a short distance off the coast of North Vietnam we were not implicated," he scornfully told McNamara during the hearings.16 For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. Here's why he couldn't walk away. A subsequent review of the SIGINT reports revealed that this later interceptMcNamaras smoking gunwas in fact a follow-on, more in-depth report of the August 2 action. Hickman, Kennedy. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. In addition, the US Navy was instructed to conduct Desoto patrols off North Vietnam. The rounds set some of the buildings ablaze, keeping the defenders off balance. 2. Forty-five minutes after beginning their attack, the commandos withdrew. Any escalation in the bombing of the North risked provoking the Russians or, more likely, the Chinese. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. Both sides claimed successes in the exchange that they did not actually achieve. President Johnson ordered a halt to all 34A operations "to avoid sending confusing signals associated with recent events in the Gulf of Tonkin." The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. These types of patrols had previously been conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. Carl Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer with 10 years of experience as a surface line officer. Then North Vietnams naval authorities either became confused or were seized by indecision. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. Under the operational control of Captain John J. Herrick, it steamed through the Gulf of Tonkin collecting intelligence. Neither ships crew knew about the North Vietnamese salvage operation. On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. After 15 minutes of maneuvering, the F-8s arrived and strafed the North Vietnamese boats, damaging two and leaving the third dead in the water. With that false foundation in their minds, the on-scene naval analysts saw the evidence around them as confirmation of the attack they had been warned about. When Did the U.S. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. But, interestingly, on Sept. 18, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. Senator Morse was one of the dissenters. Congress supported the resolution with The Gulf of Tonkin incident: the false flag operation that started the Vietnam war. Something Isnt Working Refresh the page to try again. Something Isnt Working Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. By including the orders and operational guidance provided to the units involved, the study develops the previously missing context of the intelligence and afteraction reports from the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. WebLyndon Johnson signed the Tonkin Gulf resolution on August 10, 1964. The Health Conspiracy. 5. The tug departed Haiphong at approximately 0100 hours on August 4, while the undamaged torpedo boat, T-146, was ordered to stay with the crippled boats and maintain an alert for enemy forces. At about 0600, the two U.S. destroyers resumed the Desoto patrol. The errors made in the initial analysis were due to a combination of inexperience, limited knowledge of North Vietnams operations and an operational imperative to ensure that the U.S. Navy ships would not be caught by surprise. A distinction is made in these pages between the Aug. 2 "naval engagement" and the somewhat more ambiguous Aug. 4 "naval action," although Marolda and Fitzgerald make it clear they accept that the Aug. 4 action left one and possibly two North Vietnamese torpedo-firing boats sunk or dead in the water. William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. The U.S. ships were supposed to remain well outside North Vietnams claimed five nautical mile territorial limit. President, weve just had a report from the commander of that task force out there The report is that they have observed and we don't know by what means two unidentified vessels and three unidentified prop aircraft in the vicinity of the destroyers, McNamara told the president. This article by Capt. Oklahoma City Bombing. WebCongress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. (The recent NBC television movie In Love and War had Navy pilot James B. Stockdale flying over the scene at the time saying, "I see nothing"; now a retired vice admiral, Stockdale has reiterated the "phoney attack" charge in writings and public speaking.). The ships sonar operator reported a noise spikenot a torpedowhich the Combat Information Center (CIC) team mistook for report of an incoming torpedo. But Morse did not know enough about the program to ask pointed questions. Listen to McNamara's conversation with Johnson. He spoke out against banning girls education. Originally begun by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, 34A was a highly-classified program of covert operations against North Vietnam. This was reinforced by statements by retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap who admitted to the Aug. 2 attack but denied ordering another two days later. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? Hanoi at the time denied all, leading to a third interpretation that remains alive today as what might be called the Stockdale thesis. The secondary mission of the Gulf of Tonkin patrols was to assert American freedom of navigation in international waters. The North also protested the South Vietnamese commando raid on Hon Me Island and claimed that the Desoto Mission ships had been involved in that raid. As a result, the ships offshore were able to collect valuable information on North Vietnamese military capabilities. Even in the darkness, the commandos could see their targeta water tower surrounded by a few military buildings. 1. THIS SECOND volume of the U.S. Navy's multivolume history of the Vietnam War is bound in the same familiar rich blue buckram that has styled official Navy histories since the Civil War and hence resembles its predecessors. The North Vietnamese coastal radars also tracked and reported the positions of U.S. aircraft operating east of the ships, probably the combat air patrol the Seventh Fleet had ordered in support. The U.S. in-theater SIGINT assets were limited, as was the number of Vietnamese linguists. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident famously gave the Johnson Administration the justification they needed to escalate the Vietnam War. McNamara and the JCS believed that this intercept decisively provided the smoking gun of the second attack, and so the president reported to the American people and Congress. . Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. The accords, which were signed by other participants including the Viet Minh, mandated a temporary ceasefire line, which separated southern and northern Vietnam to be governed by the State of Vietnam an Sign up to get updates about new releases and event invitations. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam War. LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. As Communist communications activity was rising rapidly, American senior leaders were increasing support to the South Vietnamese government. U.S. soldiers recall Cam Ranh as a sprawling logistic center for materiel bolstering the war effort, but in the summer of 1964 it was only a junk force training base near a village of farmers and fishermen. That very night, the idea was put to the test. 17. One of the great ironies of the Gulf of Tonkin incident for President Johnson is that it was for him, politically, a great success, he continues. In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese. This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. More important, they did not know the North Vietnamese had begun to react more aggressively to the commando raids. WebUnderground Knowledge host James Morcan discloses what really happened in 1964's Gulf of Tonkin Incident which started the Vietnam War. It reveals what commanders actually knew, what SIGINT analysts believed and the challenges the SIGINT community and its personnel faced in trying to understand and anticipate the aggressive actions of an imaginative, deeply committed and elusive enemy. "The North Vietnamese are reacting defensively to our attacks on their offshore islands. It is difficult to imagine that the North Vietnamese could come to any other conclusion than that the 34A and Desoto missions were all part of the same operation. They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. After suggesting a "complete evaluation" of the affair before taking further action, he radioed requesting a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft." The history stops with the U.S. Navy moving into full combat duty -- the naval and air interdictions in South and North Vietnam -- the subject of future volumes. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese boats continued to close in at the rate of 400 yards per minute. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Both the Phu Bai station and Maddoxs DSU knew the boats had orders to attack an enemy ship., Not knowing about the South Vietnamese commando raid, all assumed that Maddox was the target. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. The North Vietnamese didnt buy the distinction; they attacked the USS Maddox. Those early mistakes led U.S. destroyers to open fire on spurious radar contacts, misinterpret their own propeller noises as incoming torpedoes, and ultimately report an attack that never occurred. Operation Fast and Furious 10 302-303. When the contacts appeared to turn away at 6,000 yards, Maddoxs crew interpreted the move as a maneuver to mark a torpedo launch. 426-436. 3. He readthe chiefs a cable from the captain of the Maddox. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. The Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, Admiral Harry D. Felt, agreed and suggested that a U.S. Navy ship could be used to vector 34A boats to their targets.6. As such, its personnel in Vietnam were the envy of their Army counterparts in the bush since, as it was commonly put, sailors sleep between clean sheets at night (the grunts were also envious of the Air Force, where you fight sitting down). What will be of interest to the general reader is the treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Herricks concerns grew as the SIGINT intercepts indicated that the North Vietnamese were concentrating torpedo boats off Hon Me Island, 25 nautical miles to his southwest. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a complex naval event in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam, that was presented to the U.S. Congress on August 5, 1964, as two unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy of the U.S. As is common with specialized histories -- what I call the "tunnels of Cu Chi" syndrome -- this book will tell most readers more about the U.S. Navy in Vietnam than they care to know. At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a brief confrontation between United States and North Vietnamese warships, off the coast of northern Vietnam in August 1964. During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. Taking evasive action, they fired on numerous radar targets. Typically, the missions were carried out by a destroyer specially outfitted with sensitive eavesdropping equipment. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated PTF-3, PTF-4, PTF-5, PTF-6 (PTFfast patrol boat). However, unlike the good old days when -- as the wizened cynical Frenchmen put it, history was a lie agreed-on -- no longer can governments after the battle simply set down how it went and that is that. The Maddox planned to sail to 16 points along the North Vietnam coast, ranging from the DMZ north to the Chinese border. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. The maximum closure distance was originally established at 20 nautical miles, but the commander of the U.S. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. As it turns out, Adm. Sharp failed to read to the Joint Chiefs the last line of the cable, whichread: Suggest a complete evaluation before any further actions.. "We believe that present OPLAN 34A activities are beginning to rattle Hanoi," wrote Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "and [the] Maddox incident is directly related to their effort to resist these activities. The lack of success in SOGs missions during the first few months of 1964 made this proposal quite attractive. The captain of Maddox, Commander Herbert L. Ogier Jr., ordered his ship to battle stations shortly after 1500 hours. There was no way to get a commando team ashore to plant demolition charges; they would have do what damage they could with the boats guns.3 Not all wars are made for navies, and the U.S. Navy had to insinuate itself into the Vietnam one and carve out a role. That night and morning, while cruising in heavy weather, the ships received radar, radio, and sonar reports that signaled another North Vietnamese attack. WebMany historians now agree that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which many believed North Vietnamese ships had attacked American naval forces, may not have occurred in the way it was described at the time. Despite this tremendous uncertainty, by midafternoon, the discussion among Johnson and his advisers was no longer about whether to respondbut how. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. The Vietnam War buff will find it fascinating for its wealth of detail carefully set down in understated prose (a welcome relief, I might add, from the hysterical tone that marks much Vietnam War writing). A U.S. Navy SEAL (Sea Air Land) team officer assigned to the SOG maritime operations training staff, Lieutenant James Hawes, led the covert boat fleet out of Da Nang and down the coast 300 miles to Cam Ranh Bay, where they waited out the crisis in isolation. In the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson needed a pretext to commit the American people to the already expanding covert war in South East Asia. In less than 25 minutes, the attack was over. 4. The string of intelligence mistakes, mistranslations, misinterpretations and faulty decision making that occurred in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964 reveals how easily analysts and officials can jump to the wrong conclusions and lead a nation into war. Scattered small-arms sent tracers toward the commandos, but no one was hurt. "4 https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). Westmoreland reported that although he was not absolutely certain why the Swatows were shifted south, the move "could be attributable to recent successful [34A] operations. It took only a little imagination to see why the North Vietnamese might connect the two. The Maddox was attacked at 1600. The intelligence community, including its SIGINT component, responded with a regional buildup to support the increase in U.S. operational forces. The North Vietnamese believed that, although they had lost one boat, they had deterred an attack on their coast. Over the next 12 hours, as the president's team scrambledto understand what hadhappened and to organize a response, the facts remained elusive. The commander also added the requirement of collecting photographic intelligence of ships and aircraft encountered, as well as weather and hydrographic information. Mr. Andrad is a Vietnam War historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, where he is writing a book on combat operations from 1969 through 1973. Hanoi was more than willing to tell the world about the attacks, and it took either a fool or an innocent to believe that the United States knew nothing about the raids. Moreover, the subsequent review of the evidence exposed the translation and analysis errors that resulted in the reporting of the salvage operation as preparations for a second attack. Captain Herrick had been ordered to be clear of the patrol area by nightfall, so he turned due east at approximately 1600. This volume deals only with the former. ThoughtCo. The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident | Naval History The Geneva Conference in 1954 was intended to settle outstanding issues following the end of hostilities between France and the Viet Minh at the end of the First Indochina War. McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.15. . The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. In the years covered here, the Navy was generally known throughout the U.S. Mission in Saigon for being in the housekeeping business, operating supply warehouses, and running the officer clubs, PXs and other amenities, an inevitable part of the American military's baggage. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. In the subsequent exchange of fire, neither American nor North Vietnamese ships inflicted significant damage. In November of 2001, the LBJ Presidential library and museum released tapes of phone conversations with the President and then Defense The Pentagon had already released details of the attack, and administration officials had already promised strong action. The reports conclusions about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident are particularly relevant as they offer useful insights into the problems that SIGINT faces today in "5, In reality there was little actual coordination between 34A and Desoto. Shortly thereafter, the Phu Bai station intercepted the signal indicating the North Vietnamese intended to conduct a torpedo attack against the enemy. Phu Bai issued a Critic Reportshort for critical message, meaning one that had priority over all other traffic in the communications system to ensure immediate deliveryto all commands, including Maddox. The fig leaf of plausible denial served McNamara in this case, but it was scant cover. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated. Then they boarded their boats and headed back to Da Nang.12 PTF-1 and PTF-5 raced toward shore. 8. U.S. and South Vietnamese warships intruded into the territorial waters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and simultaneously shelled: Hon Nieu Island, 4 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province [and] Hon Me Island, 12 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province." Gulf of Tonkin & the Vietnam War. It set a very terrible precedent, which is that he would go on to escalate further, not with any striking confidence that his objectives will be achieved, but only with the assurance that, unless he embarked on these massive military escalations, America would fail in Vietnam and he might well be labeled the only president in American history to lose a war.. Vaccines. Was the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 terrorism are a controlled demolition. At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. The crews quietly made last-minute plans, then split up. But on 7 January, the Seventh Fleet eased the restriction, allowing the destroyers to approach to within four milesstill one mile beyond North Vietnamese territorial waters as recognized by the United States. CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, 5. A lesser-known fact is that Jim Morrisons father, Captain George Stephen Morrison, commanded the Carrier Division during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Hereafter referred to as FRUS, Vietnam 1964; Congressional Research Service, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part II, 1961-1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), p. 287; Message CTG72.1 040140Z August 1964 (Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 425). After a suspected torpedo attack by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats led to plans for US retaliation,the captain of the Maddox sent a cable to the Joint Chiefs that advised "complete evaluation before any further action"due to grave doubts over whether an attackhad reallyoccurred. Thousands of passengers are stranded after Colombias Viva Air grounds flights, The last of Mexicos artisanal salt-makers preserve a 2,000-year-old tradition, I cannot give up: Cambodian rapper says he will sing about injustice despite threats from govt, Ukrainian rock star reflects on a year of war in his country, Ukrainian refugees in Poland will now be charged to stay in state-funded housing, This Colombian town is dimming its lights to attract more tourists to view the night sky, Kneel and apologize!: 76 years after island-wide massacre, Taiwan continues to commemorate and debate the tragedy. AIDS Brotherhood Symbology The Illuminati Flame . But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. Under cover of darkness, four boats (PTF-2, PTF-3, PTF-5, and PTF-6) left Da Nang, racing north up the coast toward the demilitarized zone (DMZ), then angling farther out to sea as they left the safety of South Vietnamese waters.2 About five hours later they neared their objective: the offshore islands of Hon Me and Hon Nieu. Badly damaged, the boat limped home. https://www.historynet.com/case-closed-the-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. Moments later, one of the crewmen spotted a North Vietnamese Swatow patrol boat bearing down on them. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. Formerly an analyst with the Washington-based Asian Studies Center, Mr. Conboy is vice president of Lippo Group, a large financial services institution in Jakarta, Indonesia. For 25 minutes the boats fired on the radar station, then headed back to Da Nang. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. Despite the on-scene commanders efforts to correct their errors in the initial after-action reports, administration officials focused instead on the first SIGINT reports to the exclusion of all other evidence. Perhaps that is the most enduring lesson from Americas use of SIGINT in the Vietnam War in general and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in particular. Media Manipulation. Defense Secretary McNamara called the president about the second Phu Bai critic report at approximately 0940 that morning. Launching on Aug. 5, Operation Pierce Arrow saw aircraft from USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation strike oil facilities at Vinh and attack approximately 30 North Vietnamese vessels. So, whether by accident or design, American actions in the Tonkin Gulf triggered a response from the North Vietnamese, not the other way around. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. What did and didnt happen in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 and 4 has long been in dispute, but the decisions that the Johnson Administration and Congress made based on an interpretation of those events were undeniably monumental. 13. The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American 15. Ships radar detected five patrol boats, which turned out to be P-4 torpedo boats and Swatows. The Johnson Administration initially limited its response to a terse diplomatic note to Hanoi, the first-ever U.S. diplomatic note to that government. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. Aircraft from the Ticonderoga (CVA-14) appeared on the scene, strafing three torpedo boats and sinking the one that had been damaged in the battle with the Maddox. Telegram from Embassy in Vietnam to Department of State, 7 August 1964, FRUS 1964, vol. The battle was over in 22 minutes. On July 31, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox commenced a Desoto patrol off North Vietnam. Both U.S. ships opened fire on the radar contacts, but reported problems maintaining a lock on the tracking and fire control solution. In turn, that means Both boats opened fire, scoring hits on the tower, then moved on to other buildings nearby. LBJ's War is a new, limited-edition podcast that unearths previously unheard audio that helps us better understand the course of the Vietnam War and how Lyndon Johnson found himself where he did. He is the author of Shadow War: The Secret War in Laos, as well as several short studies on special operations, including The War in Cambodia (Osprey Books, 1988), The War in Laos (Osprey Books, 1989), and Southeast Asian Special Forces (Osprey Books, 1990). Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making.