Mcnamara Asks For Truth About Gulf Of Tonkin -- Giap: There Was No Attack

HANOI, Vietnam - Robert McNamara met today with retired Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, 20 years after their guns fell silent.

The defense secretary to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson leaned over to his former nemesis and, with urgency in his voice, asked what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin more than 30 years ago.

On Aug. 4, 1964, a dubious report of a North Vietnamese attack propelled the United States deeper into war.

Giap, 83, who was chief strategist for the Communist forces, said today there was no attack.

McNamara, 79, said Giap's word settled the Tonkin debate for him. "It's a pretty damned good source," he said.

Giap called the U.S. fear that drove the war - that all of Southeast Asia could fall to communism - an illusion. "However," he said, "some people, even the brightest ones, believe in such illusions."

McNamara arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday as part of a delegation from the Council on Foreign Relations, which hopes to organize a conference next year of top Vietnam War decision-makers. The council says the conference could be an opportunity to share archives, correct the historical record and draw lessons for avoiding future conflicts.

As secretary of defense from 1961-68, McNamara was an early and enthusiastic supporter of U.S. military backing for South Vietnam against the Communist North. His public boosterism caused many to nickname it "McNamara's War."

But by the mid-1960s, he says, he was already expressing private doubts. He left office an opponent of the war, a view he only revealed this year in his memoir.

After his hourlong, first-ever meeting with Giap, McNamara said he was impressed by "the lack of hostility and the willingness to meet and discuss what in a very real sense was a tragedy for both nations."

"My belief is we could have achieved our geopolitical objectives, they could have achieved their objectives . . . with far less loss of life by avoiding the war in the first place or stopping it," McNamara said.

Giap said: "I told him the fact that he came here . . . that means the situation between us now is very different. In the past when I received foreign guests in this place it was often interrupted by U.S. bombers. We often had to rush into the shelters."

McNamara said he could not resist a question about Tonkin.

The U.S. Navy said the North Vietnamese attacked its vessels twice. American historians have long believed that no second attack occurred, but President Johnson used the Navy report to obtain congressional support for widening the war.

"To this day, I don't know what happened on Aug. 2 and Aug. 4, 1964, in the Tonkin Gulf," McNamara said to Giap. "I think we may have made two serious misjudgments. . . . Did what we thought was an attack on Aug. 4, 1964, the so-called second attack - did it occur?"

Giap replied, "There was absolutely nothing."

The general said he wanted to save detailed discussions of the war for the conference, which might be held in either country. But, he added, "When it comes to military issues, I can talk the whole day."