Gulf of Tonkin Was a Sham

It has long been suspected that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which spurred our launch into the Vietnam conflict was based on shoddy intelligence.

The most provocative document is a 2001 article in which an agency historian argued that the agency’s intelligence officers "deliberately skewed" the evidence passed on to policymakers on the crucial question of whether North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964. Based on the mistaken belief that such an attack had occurred, President Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnam, and Congress passed a broad resolution authorizing military action.

Wow. Deliberately skewed intelligence and broad war powers. That sounds vaguely familiar.