troops were sent into the catastrophic vietnam war following the gulf of tonkin incident in which u.s. navy vessels were fired upon by a villainous north vietnamese torpedo boats those violent fishmongers following that scurvy skirmish defense secretary mcnamara recommended president johnson retaliate and open war then began only one problem there was no gulf of tonkin incident unless you count u.s. naval ships literally firing their weapons at rainclouds they saw in their radars in the two thousand three documentary the fog of war the former secretary of defense robert mcnamara admitted that the august fourth gulf of tonkin attack never happened it never happened it didn't exist it was like leprechauns or dragons or simon cows talent all right a big myth of your imagination the lies of our government and our founding media led to the death of fifty eight thousand u.s. service members and as many as three point eight million vietnamese number two the iraq war. there we go. of course. of course is the most obvious lie about iraq in fact here's an image of all the weapons of mass destru

let me mention one -- the gulf of tonkin. then you sit there and say, i am going to turn every page of the notes, the papers on this. i will interview everyone who was still alive, who was in the white house, who was involved with this. you say, what we knew was just like what i thought i knew -- was just like the icing on the top of the cake. look at what was going on, that you only find out in later years. the answer is i think the reporting on donald trump's white house has been great. you know, i follow it with fascination, and it is simply great for me, as a writer, to think, one by one, the story is stories are all corroborated. you know? so the reporting is great. do i think, from my own experience, that we know the whole story? i would guess, not at all. host: if i correctly counted right, you have written about 5000 pages since 1957. [robert laughs] host: and this is a small book, 207 pages long. it is called "working: researching, interviewing, and writing" from our guest, robert caro. thank you for being with us. r

the gulf of tonkin is interesting.t starts when he is embarking on this great program of domestic legislation -- the war on poverty, the civil rights act that he is going to carry forward. he has to campaign against goldwater, and then in 1965, which is basically where i am up to now, he is passing an astonishing display of legislative genius to get this stuff through congress. the voting rights act, medicare, medicaid, headstart, the war on poverty, 70 separate education bills, and at the same time he is in secret, basically, trying to keep a secret, escalating the vietnam war. so that is about where i am now. host: he have often said in several interviews we have done that you're going to go to vietnam. are you still going to go to vietnam, and when? robert: right now i am doing -- i will go after i finish this section. you know, and you understand it, i have long digressions in my books to set the stage, if you will, for something that he is doing. so right now, he is about to pass medicare, which was first proposed

and then in 1968, congress repealed the gulf of tonkin resolution. know what i mean by expanding the discussion is the whole notion that we can be involved in the vietnam war and then even other boars, then without congress authorizing it and how they cast aside their constitutional responsibility perfect so john, what i'm asking is i'm thinking this must've been part of your protest. not just to protest for the sake of wearing an arm bent, but was that your consideration, how congress was you know not authorizing this military involvement when that is the primary responsibility for congress. can you give me your thoughts on that on how that part of the whole matter at hand here. i would like to hear. >> eric thank you from long island new york. john? >> that's a very important point to make. a very important question. first personally at the time, we were opposed to the war because of the suffering, the death and destruction. and also for the hope, we war armbands hoping that the christian truce that robert kennedy had proposed would be taken seriou

potential for danger always is always the highest it was there with w m d it was there with gulf of tonkin with the missile gap you know you name it go back in time . is long as they don't have to put their own names on the information they managed to get it out there every time we got a force in the go on the record we definitely do and i mean that's what the that's the thing that brings us up is i actually do have a lot of sympathy for the journalists who said well you know my government told me my sources intelligence told me and i think i'm doing the right thing and i think that just proves to us that our job is journalist any of this is the second quest this is second question a question that sources do you do become researchers don't be don't be is that correct or not they've asked then. you know. you're good going no. no you're going to say if i mean i think journalists need to be aware i mean all they have to do is read a history book and be be cognizant of the fact that there's an incredibly long and storied history of the government lying to reinforce it on unlike most normal sou

way over towards the philippines and see a little bit of what weather just up towards the gulf of tonkin bangkok stays dry temperatures here active around thirty four degrees celsius and we're still into the thirty's across a good part of australia lives shall is just around the eastern side of the country southeastern parts of queensland seeing some pretty big storms showers to just pushing their way down across the coastal fringes of new south wales becoming a lad this generates rye lots of sunshine here still a little bit of wet weather over towards the the top ten tools and northwest of australia twenty celsius in perth getting up to twenty seven twenty eight degrees there for adelaide and also for melbourne the shallowest as you can see they continue on sunday we go on into monday fewer and further between they are still there nevertheless broad skies still coming back in behind and a space for the top temperature of thirty five. counting the course this week he's on a mission to save the internet we'll talk to tim berners lee inventor of the world wide web we'll look at what chevy

plays a role in the initial justification for the entry into the war, the gulf of taunton incident -- tonkin incident. secrecy underneath and was famously a way for nixon to handle antiwar sentiment. , the real problem was johnson feeling pressure from his right. that he was looking too soft in the face of the north vietnamese aggression, and by extension soviet and chinese aggression. i look at the external interventions of the u.s., china and the soviet union. i want to focus on china and the soviet union. 100,000ese sent over military personnel into north vietnam. most of them were performing , placesreconstruction that the u.s. bond, railroads and things like that. they were rebuilding for supplies. airfields and other sites as well. they sent people to protect those personnel. crews,craft artillery who functionally shot down a bunch of american flight crews. they had a bunch of deadly encounters with the u.s. one of the interesting things is -- americanerican intelligence spent a lot of time taking about what the chinese were doing and what did it mean. here's an intelligence analysis f

off the gulf of tonkin off the coast of vietnam, a u.s. navy ship claimed it had been attacked. it turns out it hadn't been attacked, but it didn't stop the u.s. congress from voting almost unanimously to send thousands of troops to vietnam. that's really when it got started. it was already going on, but more in secret by lyndon johnson. but after august 4, all of this was going on at the same time and those mighty times that are so much like our times that you are living in today. students in mississippi didn't think that was right. they spoke up. they used their first amendment rights. they wore these buttons to school that said "one man, one vote, sncc, student nonviolent coordinating committee." and they were suspended from school for doing that. it was a black school, a segregated school, and they were suspended. a court case came about called burnside versus myers. we had no idea that case was going to influence all of our lives and all of the lives all of you students who are watching this have today. because this is the case that established the substantial disruption st

off the gulf of tonkin, off the coast of vietnam a u.s. navy ship claimed that it'd been attacked. it turned out it had not been attacked but it did not stop the u.s. congress from voting almost unanimously to send thousands of troops to vietnam. that is really when it got started. it was already going on more in secret by lyndon johnson. after august 4 and all of this was going on at the same time in those mighty times that are so much like our times that all of you are living in today. students in mississippi did not think that was right. they spoke up and they use their first amendment rights and they more the spot is to school that said one man one vote. student nonviolent coordinating committee. they were suspended from school for doing that. it was a black school, segregated school with black students and they were suspended and a court case started working its way through the courts. it was called burnside versus fire. we had no idea that that case was going to influence all of our lives and all of the lives of all of you students who are watching this today because this is

he didn't take very kindly to my sympathetic coverage of the thetors who opposed gulf of tonkin resolution, our pretense for getting into the vietnam war. he fired me,and and said, you are no longer on the staff. this was the beginning of a series of being fired. [laughter] you may not think so, but i have had a number of them. been fired by tina brown when she took over "the new yorker." [laughter] fired by "the new york review of books." among other things these people wanted to show they were different from their predecessors, and they certainly were. [laughter] but i am still standing. i am still typing. [applause] is my table behaving? tableant to make sure my is behaving. things are still not ideal for women in journalism, we have come a long way, we have come a very long way. but there is something new going on. yes, there are still problems with equal pay and opportunity and maternal leave, paternal they are recognized and being worked on. there is something else i don't think has being recognized. i sure have been seeing it. ,t is what i call atmospherics atmospheric discriminatio