“I spent 33 years...being a
high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism... I
helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown
Brothers in 1909 - 1912. I helped make Mexico and especially
Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light
to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in
1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the
rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall
Street... Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al
Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his
racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three
continents.” General Smedly Butler,
2 time Medal of Honor recipient.
Gen. Smedly Butler Addresses The Bonus Army
THE GULF
OF TONKIN INCIDENT WAS
THE TRIGGER FOR THE "WAR"
IN VIET NAM
UPI ARCHIVES OCT. 13, 1984
Navy officer disputes second Tonkin Gulf Attack
By RICHARD M. HARNETT
SAN FRANCISCO -- The reported 'second' attack on U.S. ships
in the Tonkin Gulf, which President Lyndon Johnson used to escalate
American participation in the Vietnam War, did not take place,
according to a new account by one of the pilots who was there.
Adm. James B. Stockdale
Retired Adm. James B. Stockdale, who spent 7 years
in a North Vietnamese prison, contends that Navy pilots sent out to
attack the reported enemy PT boats the night of Aug. 4, 1964, found no
boats anywhere near the American vessels.
There was a real attack by enemy boats against the
destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy two days earlier, on Aug. 2, Stockdale
says, but the report of a second attack Aug. 4 was a false alarm.
After spending 90 minutes in the air trying to find
the attacking boats and later studying radio communications from the
ships and alleged intercepts of Vietnamese radio communications,
Stockdale concluded there were 'no boats' active against U.S. ships
that night.
Stockdale said that during and after the reported
Aug. 4 incident, Washington ignored communications that cast doubt on
it. He says the Pentagon confused the incidents of Aug. 2
and Aug. 4.
On Aug. 5, 1964, Johnson ordered the Navy to attack
mainland bases from which the North Vietnamese boats reportedly
attacked the Turner Joy and the Maddox. A few days later
Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution, which led to heavy American
involvement in the war.
'A generation of young Americans would get left
holding the bag,' Stockdale wrote in his memoirs 'In Love & War'
co-authored with his wife, Sybil, and recently published by Harper
& Row.
Stockdale became the most highly decorated officer
in the Navy, and his wife, who led efforts in the United States to win
better treatment for the prisoners in Vietnam, is the only wife of an
active-duty officer to receive the Navy's Distinguished Public Service
Award.
Stockdale said that after the Johnson administration
made its decision to attack Vietnam on the basis of a false report,
Washington later had 'second thoughts,' which resulted in 'the guilt,
the remorse, the tentativeness, the changes of heart, the backout' that
cast a dark shadow over the whole war.
On Aug. 2, 1964, there had been a real attack by
communist PT boats against the Maddox, and Navy fighters from the
Ticonderoga counterattacked -- destroying one boat and damaging two
others. Stockdale participated in that raid and now
believes this incident of Aug. 2 got confused in Washington with the
false alarm two days later.
On Aug. 5, the day after the 'second attack' that
didn't take place, Stockdale says he was awakened early aboard the
carrier to lead a 'reprisal' raid ordered by the president against the
Vietnamese coastal ports.
'I felt like I had been doused with ice water,'
Stockdale relates. 'How do I get in touch with the
president? He's going off half-cocked,' wrote Stockdale.
'The fact that a war was being conceived out here in
the humid muck of the Tonkin Gulf didn't bother me so much; it
seemed obvious that a tinderbox situation prevailed here and that there
would be war in due course anyway. But for the long pull it
seemed to me important that the grounds for entering war be
legitimate. I felt it was a bad portent that we seemed to
be under the control of a mindless Washington bureaucracy, vain enough
to pick their own legitimacies regardless of evidence.'
Stockdale cited 1967 congressional hearings to show
that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was confused about what
happened in the Tonkin Gulf.
'As the only person in the world who had a good
first-hand look at both the episode of the 2nd and the episode of the
4th, I cannot avoid the conclusion that McNamara wound up using August
2nd material when analyzing events of the 4th. I know this
sounds like a simple and tragic way to commit a nation to war, but
that's the way I read it.
'Recorded replays of action reports of the August
2nd fracas, or after-action summaries of that actual PT boat-destroyer
confrontation transmitted later, got into the August 4th file in the
Pentagon.'
Stockdale, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution
at Stanford University, was shot down over North Vietnam Sept. 9, 1965,
and held prisoner in the 'Hanoi Hilton' until Feb. 12,
1973. He suffered repeated torture but nevertheless
organized an underground among American prisoners to maintain
discipline and resist the enemy.
KENT St.
1970, NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS
KILL UNARMED STUDENTS PROTESTING
WAR IN VIET NAM
Ohio
Neil Young
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it Soldiers are cutting us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it Soldiers are cutting us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. Four dead in Ohio (Four dead) Four dead in Ohio (Four) Four dead in Ohio (How many?) Four dead in Ohio (How many more?) Four dead in Ohio (Why?) Four dead in Ohio (Oh!) Four dead in Ohio (Four) Four dead in Ohio (Why?) Four dead in Ohio (Why?)
THE LARGE GROUP OF PEOPLE
DIDN'T WANT WAR,
THE LINE OF PROSPECTIVE MURDERERS WERE DOING THE BIDDING
OF THOSE PROFITTING FROM WAR
Feel Like I'm Fixin To Die Rag
Country Joe & The Fish
Woodstock, 1969
Jackson-Kent
Blues
The Steve Miller Band
I was down in Nashville just payin'
my dues Headed for Ohio when I read the news 'Bout the people demonstrating
'gainst the President's views Four were shot down by the National
Guard troops Just like Uncle Sam I put on my
fighting shoes School shot down cause there's no
more to lose Now we're headed to D.C. two by twos Cause those low down, profound,
killin' four blues
Lookin' for my Congressman to make
it well known But the politicians already won't
answer his telephone Making in his office while they're
shooting kids down at home Worried about the voters but he
won't be worried long
Silent majority still glued to the
tube Say CIA ain't lookin', FBI come
unglued Shot some more in Jackson just to
show the world what they can do While we're marching to D.C. cause
there's too much to do
Give peace a chance Give peace a chance There's no turnin' back my friend There's no turnin' back
When the President said that the
tear gas is gone The army's pulled out leavin' blood
on the ground The streets are empty and the
crying's died down You can be President if no one's
around Just like Kow Kow, you've heard it
before Get back gangster, don't you open
that door Space Cowboy's back to tell you the
score Nothing any good is gonna come from
a war Got those low down, profound,
killin' four blues
Give peace a chance Give peace a chance Give peace a chance
THE MOTHER HOLDING THE BABY
IS THE LITTLE GIRL RUNNING NAKED AFTER BEING NAPALMED
BY THE US MILITARY IN VIET NAM
