Editing Gulf of Tonkin incident (section)

==NSA report==
In October 2005, ''[[The New York Times]]'' reported that [[Robert J. Hanyok]], a historian for the NSA, concluded that the NSA distorted intelligence reports passed to policy makers regarding the 4 August incident. The NSA historian said agency staff [[Stovepiping|deliberately skewed]] the evidence to make it appear that an attack had occurred.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|author=Shane, Scott|title=Vietnam War Intelligence 'Deliberately Skewed,' Secret Study Says|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=December 2, 2005|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/vietnam-war-intelligence-deliberately-skewed-secret-study-says.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170627010213/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/vietnam-war-intelligence-deliberately-skewed-secret-study-says.html|archive-date=June 27, 2017|access-date=July 4, 2023}}</ref>  Hanyok's conclusions were initially published in the Winter 2000/Spring 2001 Edition of ''Cryptologic Quarterly''<ref name="CQ">[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/Skunks.pdf "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2–4 August 1964"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131011150926/http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/Skunks.pdf |date=October 11, 2013 }}; ''Cryptologic Quarterly'', Vols. 19/20, Nos. 4–1</ref> about five years before the ''Times'' article. According to intelligence officials, the view of government historians that Hanyok's report should become public was rebuffed by policy makers concerned that comparisons might be made to intelligence used to justify the [[Iraq War]] (Operation Iraqi Freedom) which commenced in 2003.<ref>[http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/17620.html Robert J. Hanyok: His United States National Security Council study on Tonkin Gulf Deception]. (October 31, 2005). ''[[The New York Times]]''. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130824095905/http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/17620.html |date=August 24, 2013 }}</ref>

Reviewing the NSA's archives, Hanyok concluded that the 4 August incident began at [[Phu Bai Combat Base]], where intelligence analysts mistakenly believed the destroyers would soon be attacked. This would have been communicated back to the NSA along with evidence supporting such a conclusion, but in fact the evidence did not do that. Hanyok attributed this to the deference that the NSA would have likely given to the analysts who were closer to the event. As the evening progressed, further [[signals intelligence]] (SIGINT) did not support any such ambush, but the NSA personnel were apparently so convinced of an attack that they ignored the 90% of SIGINT that did not support that conclusion, and that was also excluded from any reports they produced for the consumption by the president.<ref name="CQ"/>{{rp|48–49}}

On 30 November 2005, the NSA released a first installment of previously classified information regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident, including a moderately sanitized version of Hanyok's article.<ref name=Ha01/> The Hanyok article states that intelligence information was presented to the Johnson administration "in such a manner as to preclude responsible decision makers in the Johnson administration from having the complete and objective narrative of events." Instead, "only information that supported the claim that the communists had attacked the two destroyers was given to Johnson administration officials."<ref name="autogenerated2">[https://fas.org/irp/nsa/spartans/chapter5.pdf Hanyok article p. 177]</ref>

With regard to why this happened, Hanyok writes:
{{blockquote|As much as anything else, it was an awareness that Johnson would brook no uncertainty that could undermine his position. Faced with this attitude, [[Ray Cline]] was quoted as saying "...&nbsp;we knew it was bum dope that we were getting from [[United States Seventh Fleet|Seventh Fleet]], but we were told only to give facts with no elaboration on the nature of the evidence. Everyone knew how volatile LBJ was. He did not like to deal with uncertainties."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/gulf_of_tonkin/articles/rel1_skunks_bogies.pdf|title=NSA.gov|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160131235457/http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/gulf_of_tonkin/articles/rel1_skunks_bogies.pdf|archive-date=2016-01-31}}</ref>}}

Hanyok included his study of Tonkin Gulf as one chapter in an overall history of NSA involvement and American SIGINT, in the [[Indochina Wars]]. A moderately [[Sanitization (classified information)|sanitized]] version of the overall history<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://irp.fas.org/nsa/spartans/index.html|title=Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975|website=irp.fas.org}}</ref> was released in January 2008 by the National Security Agency and published by the [[Federation of American Scientists]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j-5IKhFZ-bFe_Nc957JypHhNTMxQ|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516200214/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j-5IKhFZ-bFe_Nc957JypHhNTMxQ|url-status=dead|title=Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks.|archivedate=May 16, 2008}}</ref>