Gulf of Tonkin VIII: Coverup or conspiracy? part 2

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

Coverup or Conspiracy? part 2

In fact, North Vietnam strongly denied ever firing torpedoes at the destroyers. Giap reiterated that to McNamara in Hanoi and said in their official 1965 statement that the alleged attack was "deliberately staged by the United States to have a pretext for carrying out its criminal designs against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam." Furthermore, the now-declassified radio messages have been made public. Captain John Herrick, commodore of the two-ship patrol, radioed this message to the Commander in Chief of the Pacific at 12:30 a.m. on August 5, 1964: "Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful" He also has stated, "It was the echo of our outgoing sonar beam hitting the rudders, which were then full over, and reflected back into the receiver. Most of the Maddox's, if not all of the Maddox's, reports were probably false."

Twenty years after I'd come forward, with more than a bit of apprehension about being charged with treason for revealing secret information, I was pleased to have my story completed and to feel "cleared" of the "crime" of speaking out against what I saw as governmental deception. That deception was real and, as we now know, ultimately led to the tragic loss of more than 58,000 Americans, billions of dollars of materiel, and a clear sense of national unity and purpose. It was far worse for Vietnam and southeast Asia, of course, where the destruction was enormous and the death toll ran into the millions. (But note that many of those deaths were committed by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong against their own people.) McNamara now acknowledges that Vietnam was a mistake, but he only admits errors of judgment, not deception and coverup. Shame on him!

As for me, I never felt unpatriotic about what I did, although I was considered so by some people. I was antiwar but not antimilitary. I supported our troops but not our foreign policy. I separated the war from the warriors, some of whom were my friends and comrades-in-arms. I didn't want to see them come home in body bags because of an unconstitutional and just-plain-wrong conflict. I believe America's freedom must be defended from all enemies, foreign or domestic. I also believe there are more than a few of the latter kind in positions of social, commercial, industrial, financial and political power who use their influence and resources in what can be called conspiratorial fashion to extend their power and to increase their wealth through manufactured situations such as the Vietnam debacle. (Two of the current phrases for such phony ventures are "nation-building" and pacification.) Therefore I challenged a government policy because I felt it was contrary to the best interests of our nation, our armed forces and the world itself.

John White

to be continued...