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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (260924)	6/4/2002 12:36:01 AM
From: RON BL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Sorry I was referring to myself.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (260924)	6/4/2002 1:25:17 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston	Respond to of 769670

Now that time has passed and some of the individuals involved have re-examined what happened, the shroud of controversy surrounding the events of August 4, 1964, has begun to lift. As mentioned earlier, the former secretary of defense endorses a joint effort with the Communist Vietnamese to discuss and clear up some of the contentious areas of the Vietnamese conflict. This effort may prove difficult and ultimately fruitless unless the Vietnamese decide to be more candid. Care must be taken with Communist Vietnamese versions of history. As a typical totalitarian regime, Hanoi is acutely aware of how it is perceived from abroad. The Communists monitor and often censor what is said or written about them by their own citizens. This sort of information-control policy helps to ensure that their "official" accounts of history are accepted by their populace and go unchallenged. They are quick to accept praise, warranted or not. And they are even quicker to deny fault, deserved or not. In one of their more current official histories, the Communist Vietnamese claim responsibility for the initial attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, but say that the second was an American fabrication to justify airstrikes on August 5. In an older history, they not only claim the second attack on August 4-5, 1964, but declare that date as their navy's anniversary or "tradition day," proclaiming it the day "when one of our torpedo squadrons chased the destroyer Maddox from our coastal waters, our first victory over the U.S. Navy." About this assertion, Douglas Pike, the foremost U.S. authority on the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), notes, "If the Gulf of Tonkin Incident is a myth created by the Pentagon, as some revisionist historians claim, the PAVN navy is now part of the conspiracy." In this same history, the Communist Vietnamese claim that their navy sank 353 American naval vessels. It is rational to believe that the number of U.S. Navy vessels lost to a fleet of Communist patrol boats, with a total arsenal of 60 torpedoes, was somewhat less. These and other indicators reveal that, to the Communist Vietnamese, truth is simply a weapon. Given Hanoi's fondness for duplicity, we begin to understand the task faced by intelligence professionals of the Vietnam era--and by modern researchers, historians and former government officials who, with as much as 30 years of hindsight, are trying even today to unravel the events of that conflict. * hartford-hwp.com