by James Bond Stockdale, II
40 years ago I secretly sat on our kitchen steps in
California and listened to my Dad tell a story that would plague
our family and the national conscience for more than a
generation. He was home for 18 hours between his fighter
squadron in the Tonkin Gulf and his boyhood home in Illinois.
Before returning to the USS Ticonderoga, he would attend his
father's funeral.
I listened as his narrative unfolded for some invited navy
friends. Dad wanted to get 'on the record' personally
so others would know what had occurred in case 'something
happened' when he returned to combat in a few days.
On the night of August 4, 1964 he had been the only pilot in the
air over the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in the Gulf.
He turned himself and his fighter 'inside out' trying to
keep up with the shouts of a panic-stricken shipboard radio
operator. His jet's cannon blasts, the radio ranting,
and missiles fired into the darkness at supposed 'sightings'
of North Vietnamese P.T. boats went on for over an hour.
He eventually ran low on fuel, climbed into the ominous clouds,
and headed back to the aircraft carrier.
No boats. No attack. Hot, humid weather and
thunderheads had played tricks with the radar. An
atmosphere of apprehension and fear 'on deck' contributed to
conjuring ghosts in the mist. The whole thing had been a
fire drill. He and his squadron pilots laughed it off in
the carrier's ready-room. None of it mattered until Dad
was shaken awake six hours later to lead a 'reprisal raid'
for the preceding night's 'attack.'
Nothing had happened. But using the radio traffic
transcripts laced with threat, Robert McNamara decided he had
the angle he had been looking for to wage a full-fledged war.
His plan fit with Lyndon Johnson's Texas gunslinger words of
direction to his state department: "Tell the Vietnamese
that, unlike others, I am not afraid to use what I wear on my
hip." The pieces were in place for a blunder of epic
proportions.
Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in this
provocative atmosphere. The lie grew too big and too fast
for any moderation. Real moral leverage (so critical when
committing young men to prolonged battle) can only be built on
authentic events. Yet it was dismissed as passe' by the
bureaucrats and superfluous by political leaders. And an
entire generation of Americans would get left holding the bag.
One year later Dad was shot down and captured. As the
senior Naval officer in prison, he issued clandestine orders
designed to forestall the use of prisoners' statements for
propaganda. He and many others were tortured severely -
in large measure a result of those expectations. Some of
these same men are now participating in propaganda of a
different sort. They suggest that John Kerry's testimony
before Congress resulted in additional torture and prolonged
imprisonment. Simply not true.
In the classified debriefs of prisoners held in North Viet Nam
(over 500 volumes of transcription) there is not one mention of
John Kerry's name or any reference to his activity. Dad
ended his career as the only three-star Admiral in the history
of the U.S. Navy to wear both aviator wings and the Medal of
Honor. He (literally) wrote the book on prison history.
In all those years he has never written or spoken of John
Kerry's involvement. In fact, no former prisoner ever
remarked about John Kerry until it became politically expedient
6 months ago.
But much more is at stake here than conflicting memory. We
are replicating (with haunting attention to detail) the mistakes
of Viet Nam. The region and labels may be different.
But the faulty judgment and sad, gut-wrenching results will
prove the same.
Substitute the "slam dunk" assumption about weapons of
mass destruction for the "harassment on the high seas"
rationale in the Tonkin Gulf document. The sleight-of-hand
we are asked to believe from our disgust with terrorism into
misguided preoccupation with Iraq's dictatorship is every bit
the same thin, theoretical rationalization that the 'domino
theory' was in 1964.
Let's face it. Iraq is a mess. Sadder still, it is
the same mess. We have replicated the quagmire. Our
leaders should have studied their notes. But as Viet Nam
was winding down, our sitting president was splitting the seam
between evasion of responsibilities in the Air National Guard
and Ivy League frolic at Skull and Bones.
As a schoolmaster, I marvel that the President could miss a
complete course on life's lessons that others were forced to
learn through difficult experience. He defiantly refuses
to submit an excuse for his absence, so we are left to wonder
where he was. But we know he missed the entire term -
and now he's failing the test that really counts.
James Bond Stockdale II is a school administrator in Beaver,
Pennsylvania. His father, Adm. James B. Stockdale was the
ranking Naval prisoner of war in North Viet Nam for seven and a
half years including four in solitary confinement and two in leg
irons. Adm. Stockdale also served as Ross Perot's
Vice-Presidential running mate in 1992.
