we can look through the historians' work, the inside the interceptsk, of the north vietnamese conversations, and listen to president johnson's phone calls as he is talking with the ,ecretary of defense, mcnamara and begin to understand two huge realities that were not known to the public at the time. one, that the north vietnamese attacks on the sd

we can look through the historians' work, the inside the interceptsk, of the north vietnamese conversations, and listen to president johnson's phone calls as he is talking with the ,ecretary of defense, mcnamara and begin to understand two huge realities that were not known to the public at the time. one, that the north vietnamese attacks on the second of august, 1964, were provoked. they were not the unprovoked aggression that was presented to the american public and the basis for our bombing back. secret running the patrols, the so-called desoto patrols, to figure out how the north vietnamese radar work, to see how they would respond, and .o intercept communications as part of an ongoing pressure on the north vietnamese. boats onacks on our the second of august were presented as unprovoked aggression when actually, we have provoked them. this is one of the big ones. the president knew it. the defense secretary knew it. we have them on plan -- we have them on tape. it certainly has something to do with that attack. i think we should also at that time, mr. president, explained that op. land