The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - Explained & Deconstructed

Video Description

In August 1964, a confusing series of events brought the United States and North Vietnam into more direct conflict than they had been before. These events are poorly understood and have been greatly distorted in the popular consciousness since the Vietnam era. In this video, we’ll look at what happened, what did not happen, why it happened and what it means, with emphasis on the political context of the events. You may be surprised what you didn’t know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident! Sources for this video included: Edwin Moïse, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996/2019); Robert S. McNamara, James G. Blight & Robert Brigham, Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 1999); David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: The Modern Library, 1969); The Anti-U.S. Resistance War for National Salvation 1954-1975: Military Events, United States Joint Publications Research Service, Trans., June 3, 1982 (https://archive.org/details/jprs-report_jprs-80968); Ang Cheng Chuan, The Vietnam War from the Other Side: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002); David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971); Paul Hendrickson, The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War (New York: Vintage Books, 2015); Richard Arnold Cherwitz, The Rhetoric of the Gulf of Tonkin: A Study of the Crisis Speaking of President Lyndon B. Johnson (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Iowa, 1978). Members Section: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJPiFZP2Exfienos5SfskjA/join My videos on the JFK Assassination, “Oswald Acted Alone”: Part 1: https://youtu.be/DC8tO16xdrY Part 2: https://youtu.be/Ptt1ti63IiE The interstitial music in this video is (in order of appearance): “Sao Meo” by Doug Maxwell & Zac Singer; “Cambodian Odyssey” by Kevin MacLeod (used under Creative Commons 3.0 License). Special thanks to: John Marcucci, Austin Pierce, David Albers, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. My new book, “The Gangster Crown”: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPJF8HZX My website: https://www.seanmunger.com My Ko-fi: https://Ko-fi.com/seanmunger My blog: https://gardenofmemory.net/ Chapters: 00:00-10:34: Two August Nights 10:34-24:47: The U.S. & Vietnam 24:47-33:31: Operation Plan 34A 33:31-45:15: Campaign ’64 45:15-53:19: July 53:19-1:00:45: The First Attack 1:00:45-1:10:20: The Second (Alleged) Attack 1:10:20-1:20:29: The Resolution 1:20:29-1:37:45: The Conspiracy Narrative 1:37:45-1:48:42: The Aftermath 1:48:42-1:56:33: Conclusion