US GOVERNMENT SKEWED INTELLIGENCE TO ENTER VIETNAM WAR
[EXTRACT]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051202/wl_asia_afp/usvietnamhistory_051202010844

"A top US spy agency declassified data showing agents skewed intelligence to 
back claims of a communist attack on a US destroyer in 1964, an incident which 
led to the escalation of the Vietnam War.The National Security Agency (NSA) 
admitted defeat in a long battle to keep the controversial article, printed in 
2001 in its in-house journal, secret.

. . . .Hanyok's article concludes that neither Johnson, nor his Secretary of 
Defense Robert McNamara were personally involved in manipulating intelligence 
on the incident, and believed it authentic.

The article concludes mid-level National Security Agency officials provided 
military and political leaders with "skewed" intelligence over the alleged 
attack.  'Two startling findings emerged from the new research. First, it is not 
simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no 
attack happened that night,' the article said.

'SIGINT intelligence was presented in such a manner as to preclude 
responsible decisionmakers in the Johnson administration from having the complete and 
objective narrative of events on August 4, 1964.'  Instead, only SIGINT that 
supported the claim that the communists had attacked the two destroyers was given 
to administration officials." [END EXTRACT]

"GULF OF TONKIN INTELLIGENCE CALLED 'DELIBERATELY SKEWED' 
SECRET PAPERS ON VIETNAM EPISODE FINALLY RELEASED"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/02/MNGHEG1PA01.DTL&
feed=rss.news

EXCERPT:  "The National Security Agency has released hundreds of pages of 
long-secret documents on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that played a critical 
role near the beginning of the Vietnam War. The material posted on the 
Internet at midnight Wednesday included one of the largest collections of secret, 
intercepted communications ever made available for study. The most provocative 
document is a 2001 article in which an agency historian argued that the agency's 
intelligence officers 'deliberately skewed' the evidence passed on to 
policymakers on the crucial question of whether North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. 
destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964. Based on the mistaken belief that such an attack 
had occurred, President Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnam, 
and Congress passed a broad resolution authorizing military action." 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/02/MNGHEG1PA01.DTL&
feed=rss.news

See also the National Security Archive at
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.htm
which links to NSA's website on the records release, at
http://www.nsa.gov/vietnam/index.cfm

Maarja

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance