Robert McNamara deceived LBJ on Gulf of Tonkin, documents show

By Gareth Porter

The Raw Story website has just published my story on how Robert S. McNamara deliberately misled Lyndon Johnson on Augusts 4, 1964 by withholding what he knew about the alleged attack on U.S. ships in the Tonkin Gulf -- which was that the whole premise of such an attack had been thrown in doubt by the commander on the scene. Based on documents from the Lyndon Johnson Library, this story reveals the lengths to which McNamara went in seeking to maneuver Johnson into bombing North Vietnam -- thus greasing the skids for the U.S. War in Vietnam.

The story is followed by pdfs of the key documents with the smoking gun evidence that McNamara hid from Johnson the fact that he had gone ahead with the strike order -- obviously without telling LBJ -- despite the advice of Admiral Grant Sharp, the Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces, to wait until confirming evidence had been obtained.

There is also a MP3 file with the audiotape of Lyndon Johnson telling McNamara a few weeks later on September 18 (when McNamara was trying to sell him on the idea that yet another attack on U.S. ships had taken place in the Tonkin Gulf) that he had misinformed him about the alleged attack on August 4.
For the full text, go here.