August 2: 50 Years Later “Why The Gulf Of Tonkin Matters?”

Vietnam: Gulf of Tonkin Reports Part 1 & 2.
The Real News
Jessica Desvarieux TRNN Producer
Baltimore, August 1, 2014

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and historian Gareth Porter discuss how the Gulf of Tonkin incident was used to further entangle the US in Vietnam and how shoddy intelligence reports continue to lead America into war      — August 1, 2014

Part 1 August 2 marks the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Back in 1964, the USS Maddox engaged with North Vietnamese torpedo vessels, resulting in four deaths and six wounded on the North Vietnamese side and no American casualties. A couple of days later, on August 4, the United States claimed another engagement with North Vietnamese vessels in sea battle. But later intelligence reports would stipulate a lack of North Vietnamese present at all in the encounter. Read the transcripts

 

Part 2 The conversation with Daniel Ellsberg and Gareth Porter about the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Read the transcripts.

Daniel Ellsberg is a former US military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.

Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist specializing in US foreign and military policy. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. He is the author of five books, of which the latest is Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.