The Attack That Started the Vietnam War Never Happened 1

The naval attack that launched America into the Vietnam War almost certainly never happened.

On August 4th, 1964, US destroyers reported a sudden torpedo assault by North Vietnamese boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Within days, Congress handed the president the power to wage war.

There was just one problem. There were no enemy boats. Nervous sonar operators in a dark, stormy sea had misread their own echoes and the weather. The captain on the scene even warned that the report was doubtful and urged a full review before anyone acted.

Washington escalated anyway. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed nearly unanimously, and it became the legal blank check for a decade of war. In 2005, a declassified NSA study confirmed it: the August 4th attack did not occur.

More than 58,000 Americans would die in a war launched by a battle that was never fought.

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