356. Memorandum for the Record by the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
SUBJECT
- The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, September 18
Our first information on this episode came at about 9:15 Friday morning, Washington time.2 Subsequent messages during the morning made it clear that the episode was not comparable to those of August, in that the reporting was more cautious and the evidence of actual hostile attack thin to non-existent.
At noon on Friday we reviewed in Bob McNamara’s office the possibilities for additional reply. The initial proposal of the Joint Chiefs was that we should attack the major POL installations in the Hanoi/Haiphong area, that in order to conduct these attacks we must first attack and neutralize the MIGs in the same area. Dean Rusk opposed so large an action right from the beginning, urging instead that if the episode proved to be confirmed attack on our forces, we should execute a strike but at a lower level of force. Bob McNamara elicited from General LeMay the information that strikes in the southern part of North Vietnam would not require neutralizing attacks on the MIGs. McNamara then instructed the Joint Staff to work on three alternative orders: (1) to attack the air and oil installation in the north in and around Hanoi; (2) to attack selected targets in the south; and (3) to continue patrolling, perhaps closer to the 12-mile line or even inside it.
At about 2:30 we met with the President in the Mansion-Secretary McNamara, General Wheeler, Mr. McNaughton, Tommy Thompson and myself. (Dean Rusk had a luncheon meeting which he could not break.) The President proved very skeptical about the evidence to date, and he was deeply annoyed that leaks apparently from the Pentagon were producing pressure for a public statement before we knew what we wanted to say. He pressed his own skeptical views and [Page 779] made it clear that he was not interested in rapid escalation on so frail evidence and with a very fragile government in South Vietnam. He authorized a brief interim statement as drafted by McNamara3 during the meeting, and he authorized preparatory orders for the strike against southern targets not defended by MIGs.
Through the afternoon, further reports made it more and more clear that there was no proof of a premeditated torpedo boat attack. The opinion hardened against any further immediate military reply. The President continued skeptical. He resisted any suggestion of a further statement. The preparatory orders were cancelled. By Friday evening, at the top of the Government, it was believed that the matter should be ended, and that we should take overnight to see what else could be learned-especially from air and sea search by daylight.
By Saturday morning it was clear that the search had proven negative. Summary reports from CINCPAC and others somewhat hardened the evidence that vessels had been in the area, but the general conclusion was that these vessels had not attempted an aggressive attack. In these circumstances, the President reviewed and authorized a statement by Secretary McNamara (attached at Tab A),4 and himself agreed to conduct a backgrounder with the White House press (attached at Tab B).5
In this meeting in the Cabinet Room between 11 and 1, the following were present: The President, Rusk, Ball, McNamara, Thompson, McNaughton, Vance, Wheeler, Rowan, Carter, Reedy, B. Smith, McG. Bundy. In this meeting the President continued to make clear his very grave doubt that there had been any hostile vessels, let alone an intent to attack. McNamara summarized the evidence, adducing not only the continuous radar contacts, both search and fire control, but two seamen’s eyewitness reports, a pilot’s report of sighting wakes from covering aircraft, and an intercept which appeared to indicate DRV report that DRV ships were under attack. The President found only the intercept persuasive (and it is significant that even this evidence was countered by a later analytical report).
The President pressed his doubts with General Carter, who asserted his own belief that it was possible that there were vessels. Secretary Rusk put the probability at 99%. Secretary Rusk also pressed on the President the importance of not seeming to doubt our naval officers on the spot. These officers were convinced that they had been [Page 780] facing the enemy, and an expression of doubt from Washington would be damaging. The President replied somewhat sharply that he was not planning to make a radio broadcast on the matter but that he did think it important to find out exactly what happened. He also repeated his irritation at having his hand forced by an AP report obtained from some junior military officer.
Secretary McNamara raised with the President the question of renewing de Soto patrols at an early date. George Ball raised sharply the question whether an early resumption of these patrols was wise. He pointed out that before the August patrol there had been a lapse of six months in these patrols, and that their military value was limited. He believed that if we should now lose a destroyer in such patrols there would be a very grave questioning both here and abroad as to the justification for our having taken such risks for a limited return. The President again found consideration [considerable] force in this argument.
The President asked General Wheeler to explain the military value of de Soto patrols. General Wheeler said that the patrols were desirable but not essential. They obtained electronic evidence on the defensive dispositions of the North Vietnamese. Much of this information could be obtained by aerial patrols, but surface patrol was a useful supplement. More important to General Wheeler was the general proposition that we should not allow ourselves to be denied free movement on the high seas. Secretary Rusk supported this argument strongly by saying that the “bandits” in North Vietnam needed to know that we were in the area and had no intention of being driven out. The President said he found force in these arguments and was himself quite ready to continue the patrols, with all their dangers, provided there were solid and persuasive reasons for doing so. He pointed out that at some time in the future a brutal prosecutor like Tom Dewey might be asking how we got into these troubles, and he wanted to be sure that the answers would be good. He reminded the group of the Pearl Harbor hearings, and said that he did not wish to have his people playing tennis or riding horseback when they should be available for crucial decisions. The President then instructed Secretary McNamara and General Wheeler to prepare a general argument showing the justification for further de Soto patrols, and including both military arguments and political arguments like those of Secretary Rusk. He asked that Secretary Ball serve as critic of the argument thus developed so that he could make a judgment on the matter.
The President also directed that full contingency planning be developed so that if anything should happen to the de Soto patrol, the Government would be ready for immediate and appropriate reply. The [Page 781] President wanted to be quite sure that we had a full and proper response ready that would make the enemy “swallow his teeth,” if he tried to start anything.
The President further directed the preparation of a message to General Taylor asking for his weekly assessment of the military situation in South Vietnam. The President pointed out that nothing would be more useful in the next six weeks than a real success on the ground, for both domestic and international reasons. (This cable was later prepared and reviewed and approved by the President, and is attached at Tab C.)6
The President’s summary view of this episode, as reported to me in a telephone conversation Sunday noon, is that it is still very unclear that there were any hostile vessels there, that it was highly destructive to have leaks before we were ready to determine what we wished to do about the matter, that we must control our tongues and arrange for tighter discipline at every level. (I told the President that I myself had not been as alert as I should have been to the need for discreetness, and it turned out that he had heard me tell Jack Valenti at a time when he did not think I needed to. The President obviously has the problem of privacy in his own immediate decision-making very much on his mind. But his main concern in this episode is with looseness in military channels, and he indicated that he had been aiming his comment mainly at Secretary McNamara for action in DOD.)
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Aides File, McGeorge Bundy, Memos to the President. Top Secret. Also published in Declassified Documents, 1978, 129C.↩
- At 7:43 p.m. Saigon time on Friday, September 18, the destroyers Morton and Edwards on a DeSoto patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin reported surface radar contacts. During the next 2 hours, the ships fired on closing targets and by 9:37 p.m. had ceased fire. Although the targets were observed on radar, they were not sighted visually. (Amplifying report on DeSoto sitrep, 181327Z; Johnson Library, Vietnam Country File, DeSoto Patrol)↩
- For text of McNamara’s statement as released on September 19, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1964, pp. 999–1000.↩
- No tabs were attached to the source text. The text of the statement was transmitted to Saigon in telegram 701, September 19, 2:59 p.m. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S)↩
- For text of the President’s statement at his press conference on September 21, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson. 1963–64. Book II. pp. 1098–1099.↩
- Telegram 702 to Saigon, September 19, 5:20 p.m. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials↩