Lyndon Johnson was very, very interested in protecting, and enhancing,
the USA's share of the world rice market.
Best regards, Steve
Steven D. Whitaker, CRM
Records Systems Manager; City of Reno
>>> [log in to unmask] 12/02/05 04:18AM >>>
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
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