Gulf of Tonkin IV: A Matter of Conscience

This is the fourth installment of a continuing piece about my dad's experience. For the previous installments, click here to see part I, part II, and part III.

A Matter of Conscience

My intention in going public was to help end the war. It was a matter of conscience for me. While I was in Vietnam, I'd felt the U.S. was right to be there defending democracy against Communism. But after leaving naval service in June 1965, I began to have doubts as I learned things contrary to the military mindset and to what my fellow officers and I had been told by a Vietnamese general who briefed us in Danang, where my ship, the USS Pine Island (AV-12), had gone in response to the Tonkin events to set up a seaplane base immediately after the alleged attack. The Pine Island, which had been in Japan at the time, was the first ship to enter the war zone from outside, although several other U.S. naval ships were already there. I was the Pine Island's nuclear weapons officer.

The U.S. government's position is that there have never been American nuclear weapons in Vietnam. McNamara reiterated that in 1995 when promoting his book on Roger Aisles' CNBC-TV program. But that position is not true, strictly speaking. While my ship was anchored in Danang Harbor in August 1964, I had responsibility for 40-plus atomic depth bombs (technically known as Mark 101 Lulus) in the ship's nuclear weapons storage area. We were anchored there for about two weeks. Our mission was to provide naval operations support and, if ordered, to load those atomic depth bombs onto seaplanes whose targets would be enemy submarines.

In time I came to feel I'd been conned and America had no moral right to be in Vietnam. Moreover, the war itself looked more and more unwinnable by America. As the body count mounted in an action I regarded as militarily and morally wrong, I became active in the antiwar movement as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I didn’t march in the streets carrying a placard, but I did sign on to an ad by VVAW which was published in The New Republic over the names of several hundred Vietnam vets, including mine. (I left the VVAW about 1969, after two years membership, because my inclination toward that sort of political action waned. I recognized that the antiwar movement was not the same thing as the peace movement. The former was political, the latter was spiritual. The former was based on anger, the latter was based on “the peace which passeth all understanding.” Moreover, the peace movement ”the process of developing inner peace or enlightenment as the basis for outer peace or world unity” applied to all aspects of society and culture, not just the political. The peace movement, as slow, difficult and uncertain as it may be, is senior to the antiwar movement because it has a more fundamental aim.)

Although I felt that an ad wouldn’t be enough, I was unsure of what else I might do. Then in November 1967 I heard Senator Wayne Morse (D-Oregon) say on the evening news that President Johnson was replacing the Constitution with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Morse’s remark dissolved my perplexity and crystallized something deep within me. Because of his comment, I thought I could help the antiwar effort and my country by undercutting the basis on which the war was conducted, namely, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

I knew the resolution was based on false information. Johnson had a draft of it in his back pocket, so to speak, when he addressed Congress on August 5, 1964; his staff had written it six weeks earlier. He called for Congress to rally ‘round the flag and then stampeded it into authorizing a legal instrument which allowed him to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent any further aggression." So, after several weeks of anxious reflection on the situation ”Am I sure about this?” “Will I get fired from my job?” “Will I hear a knock on the door from the FBI?” I wrote my letter.

As the political scene heated up around the Senate investigation, an editorial entitled "Is John White's Sonarman Listening?" appeared in the Register. It said, "If this mysterious chief sonarman does indeed exist, surely he would have come forward or had been produced by now. We're certain that even if the Navy wanted to, it couldn't keep such a key witness concealed. We wonder whether White even wants to believe the destroyers were attacked when he remarks, 'I think that an admission by North Vietnam would be the most conclusive evidence [that an attack took place].'The title for 'most naive man' has another strong contender." The matter ”and my public shaming” rested there for two decades.

John White

to be continued...