Episode 37: The Johnson Treatment (Part 5) The Gulf of Tonkin

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Even though we were already involved, this was the event that really started us down the long road to a full scale land war in Asia. 

Strangely, to this day no one knows exactly for sure what happened in the middle of the night on the other side of the world. Most likely, nothing. But the supposed attack on the U.S.S. Maddox and U. S. S.  C. Turner Joy led to a retaliatory strike against North Vietnam and then the Johnson Administration seeking a resolution from Congress that would unshackle it and allow it to wage war in Vietnam. 

Not only are the events that happened in the night shrouded in mystery so are the events that led to Lyndon Johnson's announcements and his decision to retaliate. The entire thing begged a question that was  raised against the next President in another situation more famously, but it still applies to the Gulf of Tonkin and Lyndon Johnson too. 

What did the President know and when did he know it?

 Did Lyndon Johnson's Defense Secretary, a holdover from the Kennedy Administration, ever tell him that there was  evidence that the two ships may actually have never been fired upon at all and the entire thing could have been the results of " an over eager sonar man and freak weather effects"  

Here listen to accounts from the military men who were actually there that night as they retold it to the The Learning Channel in its documentary "The Johnson Tapes" and then listen to the actual phone calls to and from Lyndon Johnson and his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and then listen as Johnson's aids describe a man who torturously analyzed the situation trying to figure out any way he could avoid escalating  involvement in Vietnam into a full scale Land War in Asia. 

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