Episode 49: An Honest Mistake: The Truth About the Gulf of Tonkin, 1964

On the night of August 4th, 1964, the crews of two American destroyers reported a gunfight at sea off the coast of North Vietnam. The report, two days after an initial exchange of fire between an American ship and North Vietnamese patrol boats, set the United States on a tragic course from which it could not divert: a commitment to a conventional war in Vietnam.     The Gulf of Tonkin incident is among the most consequential events in post-World War II American history. However, it remains mired in controversy, hung up in confusing sonar hits and blurred memories. On Episode 49 of the 18th Airborne Corps podcast, host Joe Buccino tells the full, final story of the Gulf of Tonkin, of what really happened that night. He also describes how the events of August 4th, 1964 led so quickly to a war resolution.   We spent 19 months researching this podcast; it is the final word on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. This episode features three of the Nation’s top historians: Erik Villard, Edwin Moise, and John Prados, as well as Chad James, a US Navy Radarman 3rd Class at sea that night.   Dr. Erik Villard is the Digital Military Historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Fort McNair, DC. He’s also an Army historian of the Vietnam War and one of the world's leading experts on the 1968 Tet Offensive.   Dr. Edwin E. Moise is a professor of history at Clemson University. Like Dr. Villard, he specializes in the Vietnam War. He is the author of the definitive account of the Tonkin Gulf Crisis: “Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War,” originally published in 1996, with a revised edition in 2019.   Dr. John Prados heads the National Archive’s Intelligence Documentation Project and its Vietnam Project. He is among our Nation’s highest profile historians of the Vietnam War and American intelligence. Dr. Prados has authored many books on the CIA, national security, and the Vietnam War, most notably “Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War,” published in 2009.   At an hour and a half, this is a longer episode, but it’s worth the time. It’s a fascinating story, one that is critical to our understanding of the Vietnam War.   But this is not simply an effort in uncovering history: the Gulf of Tonkin has so much wisdom to offer us today. We reveal that wisdom in the final section in which we describe the lessons from August 1964 and how they apply to the current national security structure.   This is a story of strategic miscalculation, of political pressure leading to catastrophic military decisions, of misunderstood intentions. It’s also, at heart, the story of the fog of war and its cost.      We timed this release for the 57th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It's never been more relevant.   The 18th Airborne Corps podcast is the official podcast of the US Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps. Recorded on Fort Bragg, North Carolina with a new episode released every Tuesday, the podcast tells one complete story about an important national security subject every week.