Talk:Gulf of Tonkin incident


Two incidents?

I made a revision saying the Gulf of Tonkin incident was actually two incidents, on 2 and 4 August 1964. Cambial Yellowing undid my revision, explaining that what happened on 4 August was imaginary, not an incident.

What happened on 4 August was not an attack; there were no attackers. It would be possible to argue that it was not a battle, that it takes two sides to make a battle, and only Americans were present that night. But it does not take two sides to make an incident.

If I got drunk and imagined that there were trespassers in my back yard, and blasted away with a shotgun at the imaginary trespassers, that would be an incident. The police who came to investigate the gunfire would not say that since I had not actually been shooting at anyone, my firing a gun in a residential neighborhood was not an incident. It does not even take gunfire to make an incident. When someone telephones a false report to a school, saying that a man with a gun has entered the building, that is an incident. The lack of an actual gunman does not make it not an incident.

When two US Navy destroyers opened fire with five-inch guns, and kept firing for about two hours, and reported themselves under attack, that was an incident. Ed Moise (talk) 22:55, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there were two incidents, one real and one imagined, I have restored your language with a slight tweak. Mztourist (talk) 05:10, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On September 22, you accepted my proposal that we start by saying the incident was actually two incidents. But now that has disappeared. In the Talk I do not see a clear decision to reject my proposal; it just got lost during arguments over other issues.
We are now back to saying the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a confrontation, singular. That implies the first incident, since only the first was a confrontation.
I would like once again to ask for consideration of my proposal. I have not seen any argument against it, other than Cambial Yellowing's claim that to say there were two incidents implied there were two similar incidents.
I don't like any language that implies either the first or the second incident was "the" Tonkin Gulf incident. We can't leave out the first because it was the one that was a genuine battle, not an imaginary one. We can't leave out the second because it was the one that had by far the most important consequences. We should say, as clearly as possible, that there were two incidents. Ed Moise (talk) 14:40, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the opening paragraph covers it adequately making it clear that there were two attacks, one real and one imaginary. Mztourist (talk) 04:12, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase there were two incidents implies that these were somehow similar in nature. Whereas one was a battle and one was a ship firing at nothing because the NSA had deliberately created a false impression. They're utterly different kinds of event, so it's not appropriate to describe them in similar terms to each other. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:52, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The word "incident" does not imply that there are similarities between anything. It simply indicates something happened, as has been explained already. Intothatdarkness 13:23, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't oppose such a wording provided that the variant categories are made clear in the sentence. For example, with only a little irony:[1]

Despite this, the Tonkin Gulf incidents — the real one of August 2 for which the United States did not retaliate and the imaginary one of August 4...

Cambial — foliar❧ 13:49, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The irony is that you seem to be refusing to comprehend what "incident" means. You don't need any clarification in the sentence, because an incident is an incident. The clarification comes later in the article when each incident is discussed. If you're so determined to do this, why not just quote and properly attribute the sentence you just quoted here? Even though you will note the quote uses "incidents" plural, indicating there was more than one incident. Intothatdarkness 14:23, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The irony is that you seem to be refusing to comprehend what "incident" means. What? Nothing I've written has suggested anything of the sort. I write above I don't oppose such a wording if the context - two different things: one real; one imaginary - is made clear in the sentence. So it's obvious I've already noted the quote uses the plural. The irony is that I'm quoting Ed in response to his post. Cambial — foliar❧ 14:46, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the statement about two incidents should be accompanied, in the same paragraph, by a statement that one of them was imaginary. But there is no need to have these two things in the same sentence. Good writing often involved having separate statements, even closely related statements, in separate sentences.
When you jam these things together in a single sentence, you cut your statement about the imaginary nature of the second incident so short as to be unclear. In your latest version you say that the second incident was "imaginary," but readers have to wait another three sentences to find out what that meant, find out in what way it was imaginary.
Going into enough detail to explain in what way the second incident was imaginary is easier in a sentence that is just about the second incident, without the distraction of a reference to the genuine first incident. "Later investigation revealed that the second attack--the one on 4 August--had been imaginary; no hostile vessels had been present." Ed Moise (talk) 19:35, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When ships fired at nothing on 4 August, this did not happen "because the NSA had deliberately created a false impression." The misunderstanding of a North Vietnamese message that helped to trigger the incident of 4 August was an honest mistake by SIGINT analysts at Phu Bai. The deliberate deception happened a day or two later, when an analyst at NSA Headquarters was trying to cover up the fact that the US ships had been firing at nothing. Ed Moise (talk) 19:54, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:Cambial Yellowing there is a clear consensus against your changes, so stop trying to push them. Mztourist (talk) 02:53, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ed Moise: The wording of the NSA sentence was left the same in your version from a couple days ago. I changed it in response to your comment above to make clear it was after the fact, and remove the implication that the firing was occasioned by the NSA shenanigans. Cambial — foliar❧ 11:04, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Moïse, Edwin E. (2019). "Preface". Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (revised ed.). Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-68247-424-2.

Tonkin

Moved from my User page. User:Cambial Yellowing you have been on WP long enough to know that comments relating to a page belong on the Talk page, not the User page of person you disagree with. You keep adding unnecessary wording to the report of the second "attack", when the following sentence makes it clear that no attack took place. What is your reason for doing this? Mztourist (talk) 02:51, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My post was about your edit warring, as your made four reverts in 7 hours. It’s not about page content. Please don’t inappropriately move my posts to a talk page to which they are not relevant. This page is not for discussion of your behaviour. The content is being discussed in the preceding section above. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:27, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you have been on WP long enough to know that a user can do whatever they want on their user page. Mztourist (talk) 10:45, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is about this page. As I write above. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:55, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chronological order

Could the sequence of events be reorganized for clarity? Placing the description of the July 30-31st covert operations before the August 2nd and 4th incidents would establish a clearer timeline and help readers understand the context of the confrontation. Pao6 (talk) 10:57, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Date formattimg

I've seen both MM/DD and DD/MM in use here, which one's to be used? Laughable Engine (talk) 00:28, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident