THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1961-1970:
1964
Domestic Operations Division of the CIA is formed
- The CIA creates the secret Domestic Operations Division, a group that operates in direct violation of the CIA charter to conduct all of its operations outside the US. The scope of DOD's activities was to "exercise centralized responsibility for the direction, support, and coordination of clandestine operational activities within the United States...." One of those was burglarizing foreign diplomatic sites at the request of the National Security Agency (NSA). Additionally, the CIA reaches out to former agents, officers, contacts, and friends to help it run its many fronts, covers, and phony corporations. This "old boy network" will provide the CIA with trusted people to carry out its illegal domestic activities. (Domestic Surveillance)
- The US Supreme Court rules that Prince Edward County in Virginia is in breach of the law by closing its public schools rather than desegregate them. The county has provided funding for students to attend private schools, which are white-only. The Court orders that the county stop funding private schools and reopen its public schools to all of its students. (Fireside and Fuller)
- January: Johnson approves OPLAN 34-A, authorizing covert naval commando attacks against North Vietnamese targets in an effort to pressure Hanoi. The attacks are also devised to gauge the North Vietnamese's reactions as part of the US plans to escalate its presence in that area. US officials wrongly conclude that the attacks will pressure the North Vietnamese to back down on attacking the South; instead, Hanoi commits its regular army forces to the fighting. (National Security Archive)
- January 30: General Minh is ousted from power in a bloodless coup led by General Nguyen Khanh who, with US support, becomes the new leader of South Vietnam. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- February 5: Investigative journalists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson publishes information smearing businessman Don Reynolds for being a secret associate of Joe McCarthy, lying about his academic record at West Point, and for making anti-Semitic remarks in Berlin in 1963. Reynolds is an integral informant for the Senate investigation into the possible corruption of Johnson's secretary and political intimate Bobby Baker. Baker, who resigned his post in October 1963, was found to have facilitated a $100,000 payoff from Reynolds to Johnson. Reynolds also provided Johnson a number of smaller kickbacks, including a Magnavox stereo and the purchase of $1200 worth of advertising on Johnson's Austin, Texas television station, KTBC. Ironically, Reynolds's testimony takes place on the same day as the Kennedy assassination. Upon Johnson's ascension to the presidency, he asked senator B. Everett Jordan if there was any way to keep the Reynolds/Baker information from the public; in December 1963, Jordan told Johnson during a phone conversation that he was doing his best to suppress the story because "it might spread [to] a place where we don't want it spread." Lawyer Abe Fortas, a future Supreme Court justice, also works to suppress the story. Johnson orchestrates the smear campaign on Reynolds, which includes leaking information from Reynolds's FBI file to Anderson. The smear campaign doesn't do much to derail the public outcry when on January 17, 1964, the Senate Rules Committee decides to release to the public Reynolds's testimony. (Spartacus Educational)
- March: Secret US-backed bombing raids begin against the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos, conducted by mercenaries flying old American fighter planes. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- March: After a visit to South Vietnam, Defense Secretary McNamara advises President Johnson to increase military aid to shore up the sagging South Vietnamese army. McNamara and other Johnson policy makers now become focused on the need to prevent a Communist victory in South Vietnam, believing it would damage the credibility of the US globally. The war in Vietnam thus becomes a test of US resolve in fighting Communism with America's prestige and President Johnson's reputation on the line. The cost to America of maintaining South Vietnam's army and managing the overall conflict in Vietnam now rises to two million dollars per day. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- May: Johnson's aides begin work on a Congressional resolution supporting the President's war policy in Vietnam. The resolution is shelved temporarily due to lack of support in the Senate, but will later be used as the basis of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- May: With the support of Syria and elements in Egypt and Jordan, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is formed during a meeting in East Jerusalem from disparate elements of Palestinian exiles. The PLO and its Palestinian Liberation Army are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian homeland. The largest group of the members of the PLO is Fatah, whose leader, Yasser Arafat, takes over leadership of the entire PLO. (Cohn-Sherbock)
- May 4: Johnson imposes a trade embargo on North Vietnam in response to Northern attacks on South Vietnamese targets. (Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
CIA assists in assassination of India's Nehru
- May 27: India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a moderate socialist and follower of Mohandas Gandhi, is assassinated with the assistance of US intelligence agents. (Historical Context of US Interventions, Wikipedia)
- June: Ronald Reagan's adopted son, Michael Reagan, who will become a conservative talk radio host, writes in his autobiography On The Outside Looking In that his father is the commencement speaker at an exclusive prep school in Scottsdale, Arizona. Reagan stands with several graduates for photographs and chats with each one in turn until he turns to a senior and says, "My name is Ronald Reagan. What's yours?" The boy says, "I'm your son Mike." Reagan replies, "Oh. I didn't recognize you." (Al Franken)
- July 1: Johnson appoints Lieutenant General William Westmoreland to be the supreme commander of US forces (MACV) in Vietnam, succeeding General Paul Harkins. He also appoints General Maxwell Taylor as ambassador to South Vietnam; during his single year's tenure, Taylor will have to deal with five different South Vietnamese governments. (Vietnam War Timeline, Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
Civil Rights Act of 1964; fundamental change reshapes both Republican and Democratic parties
- July 2: Johnson signs into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a groundbreaking set of legislations originally mandated by John F. Kennedy that abolishes discrimination against blacks and other minorities in all public venues, ensures the rights of minorities to vote, empowers the Office of Education to draw up plans to end segregation in public schools, authorizes the Justice Department to enforce desegregation, and authorizes the withholding of federal funds from schools who refuse to desegregate. Southern Democrats led by Alabama's Richard Russell attempted to block passage of the bill in the Senate by one of the longest and most vituperative filibusters in Senate history; more liberal Senators such as Mike Mansfield and Hubert Humphrey eventually win out in ending the filibuster. The bill also includes protections for women, added in an ironic touch by legislators who wanted to kill the bill. Besides sweeping away the "Jim Crow" laws that had for decades prevented blacks from enjoying equal status under the law, the Civil Rights Act will lead to a mass reorganization of the Democratic and Republican parties, with many Southern Democrats in opposition of the bill (Strom Thurmond and Phil Gramm among them) defecting to the Republican party, while the Democrats redefine themselves as the party of civil liberties and equal opportunity. The passage of the bill is in large part responsible for the eventual loss of the Democrats' "solid South" voting bloc, as Southern states swing more and more towards the Republican party with every election. (Johnson recognizes that when he tells his aide Bill Moyers, "I think we have just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come.") (Wikipedia, Fireside and Fuller, Paul Waldman)
- July 16 - 17: Senator Barry Goldwater is chosen as the Republican nominee for president at the Republican National Convention; during his acceptance speech Goldwater declares, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Goldwater is an arch-conservative and virulent anti-Communist whose campaign rhetoric will impact coming White House decisions concerning Vietnam. Above all, Johnson's aides do not want the President to appear to be "soft on Communism" and thus risk losing the November presidential election. But at the same time, they also want the President to avoid being labeled a "war monger" concerning Vietnam. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- Summer: Responding to the escalation of the conflict by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army troops pouring into South Vietnam, Johnson approves Operation Plan 34A, which is a CIA-run covert operation using South Vietnamese commandos in speed boats to harass radar sites along the coastline of North Vietnam. The raids are supported by US Navy warships in the Gulf of Tonkin, including the destroyer USS Maddox, which conducts electronic surveillance to pinpoint the radar locations. (Vietnam War Timeline)
US presence in Vietnam escalates sharply after "Gulf of Tonkin" incident, where US warships are supposedly attacked by North Vietnamese vessels
- August 2: Three North Vietnamese patrol boats attack the American destroyer USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin ten miles off the coast of North Vietnam. They fire three torpedoes and machine-guns, but only a single machine-gun round actually strikes the Maddox with no casualties. Navy fighters attack the patrol boats, sinking one and damaging the other two. Johnson, reacting cautiously to reports of the incident, decides against retaliation. Instead, he sends a diplomatic message to Hanoi warning of "grave consequences" from any further "unprovoked" attacks. Johnson then orders the Maddox to resume operations in the Gulf of Tonkin in the same vicinity where the attack had occurred. Meanwhile, the Joints Chiefs of Staff put US combat troops on alert and also select targets in North Vietnam for a possible bombing raid, should the need arise. Later, formerly classified records show that the Maddox was not "innocently traversing" the area in accordance with maritime law, as the US will insist, but was instead recording North Vietnamese radar and other electronic emissions as part of the US's covert naval raids against North Vietnamese naval targets. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara will lie to Congress about the raids, insisting that they were carried out by South Vietnamese and not American vessels, saying on August 6, "Our Navy played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were any." (Vietnam War Timeline, National Security Archives)
- August 3 - 4: The Maddox, joined by a second destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, begins a series of vigorous zigzags in the Gulf of Tonkin sailing to within eight miles of North Vietnam's coast, while at the same time, South Vietnamese and American naval commandos in speed boats harass North Vietnamese defenses along the coastline. By nightfall, thunderstorms roll in, affecting the accuracy of electronic instruments on the destroyers. Crew members reading their instruments reportedly believe they have come under torpedo attack from North Vietnamese patrol boats. Both destroyers open fire on numerous apparent targets but there are no actual sightings of any attacking boats and no physical evidence of any attackers. Commander James Stockdale, who leads a flight of attack aircraft from the carrier Ticonderoga, later writes, "There was absolutely no gunfire except our own, no PT boat wakes, not a candle light let alone a burning ship. None could have been there and not have been seen on such a black night. ...I had the best seat in the house from which to detect boats -- if there were any. I didn't have to look through surface haze and spray like the destroyers did, and yet I could see the destroyers' every move vividly." (Stockdale, who is later shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese, retires as an admiral after a distinguished career, and in 1992 joins Ross Perot on the Reform Party ticket as Perot's vice-presidential candidate.) Although immediate doubts arise concerning the validity of the second attack, the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly recommend a retaliatory bombing raid against North Vietnam. Press reports in America greatly embellish the second attack with spectacular eyewitness accounts, although no journalists had been on board the destroyers. Johnson decides to retaliate. Thus, the first bombing of North Vietnam by the United States occurs as oil facilities and naval targets are attacked without warning by 64 US Navy fighter bombers.
- "Our response for the present will be limited and fitting," Johnson tells Americans during a midnight TV appearance, an hour after the attack begins. "We Americans know, although others appear to forget, the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war." The next day's opinion polls indicate 85 percent of Americans support Johnson's bombing decision. Numerous newspaper editorials also come out in support of the President. Johnson's aides, including Defense Secretary McNamara, now lobby Congress to pass a White House resolution that will give the President a free hand in Vietnam. Many years later, it is revealed that there was no mistake made, no misreading of Vietnamese intercepts, but a deliberate distortion by McNamara and the National Security Agency of the situation to give Johnson the excuse he desires to send American troops to Vietnam. This conclusion will be drawn in 2001 by the NSA's own historian, Robert Hanyok, in documents that remain classified. Newly unclassified documents show that national security advisor McGeorge Bundy was aware that the intercepts were being deliberately misinterpreted, but according to staffer Douglass Cater, "Bundy, in reply, jokingly told him perhaps the matter should not be thought through too far. For his own part, he welcomed the recent events as justification for a resolution the Administration had wanted for some time."
- Investigative journalist John Prados, who unearthed many of the documents proving the malfeasance behind the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, writes, "This new evidence permits us to view more accurately the internal deliberations of the Johnson administration. Especially in combination with LBJ's telephone conversations with McNamara, recently made available to the public with transcriptions, the material clearly shows Washington rushing to a judgment on events in the Tonkin Gulf, which it seized upon as evidence in support of its predetermined intention to escalate the conflict in Vietnam. Those who questioned the veracity of the Johnson administration's description of the Gulf of Tonkin incident at the time were right to do so. The manipulation of this international situation for the administration's political purpose of obtaining a congressional authorization for the use of force bears considerable similarity to the manner in which the Bush administration manipulated intelligence regarding the possibility that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to gain its own legislative approval for war against that country [in 2003]. ...In both cases, truth became the first casualty. In both cases, the consequences far outweighed anything anticipated by the presidents involved." (Vietnam War Timeline, Kurt Nimmo, National Security Archives)
- August 6: During a meeting in the Senate, McNamara is confronted by Senator Wayne Morse, who has been tipped off by someone in the Pentagon that the Maddox had in fact been involved in the South Vietnamese commando raids against North Vietnam and thus was not the victim of an "unprovoked" attack. McNamara responds that the Navy "...played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were any..." (Vietnam War Timeline)
- August 7: In response to the two incidents involving the US destroyers, Congress, at the behest of Johnson, overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution put forward by the White House allowing the President "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force" to prevent further attacks against US forces. The resolution, passed unanimously in the House and 98-2 in the Senate, grants enormous power to President Johnson to wage an undeclared war in Vietnam from the White House. The only senators voting against the Resolution are Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening, who says "all Vietnam is not worth the life of a single American boy." (Vietnam War Timeline, Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
- August 26: President Johnson is nominated at the Democratic National Convention. During his campaign he declares, "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves." (Vietnam War Timeline)
USSR's Khruschev ousted in favor of Leonid Brezhnev
- October 14: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev is ousted from power, replaced by Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the USSR. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- October 16: China tests its first atomic bomb. China, by this time, has also massed troops along its border with Vietnam, responding to US escalation. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- November 3: With 61 percent of the popular vote, Democrat Lyndon Johnson is re-elected as president of the United States in a landslide victory, the biggest to date in US history. The Democrats also achieve big majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate. Johnson's tenure will witness the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the escalation of US involvement in Vietnam. The Republicans run far-right ideologue Barry Goldwater as their candidate. Goldwater's opposition of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other extremist positions costs him dearly, especially among black voters: whereas his predecessors Eisenhower and Nixon had won over a third of the African-American vote, Goldwater reaps a mere 6%, signifying a sea change among voters in general and black voters in particular, as the Republican Party begins to embrace segregationist and isolationist philosophies, and Democrats begin to abandon their Confederate-era support for segregation and adopt a more internationalist, multilateralist view. (Vietnam War Timeline, Joe Conason)
- November 3: George Bush loses in his first bid for Congress. Running as a "Goldwater Republican," he campaigns against civil rights. During his campaign, he is unflatteringly characterized as "admit[ting] to having human feelings for the poor and dispossessed, although he does not let these feelings interfere, in any way, with his steadfast convictions against the issues." (Bushwatch, Kevin Phillips)
- December 1: At the White House, President Johnson's top aides, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and Defense Secretary McNamara, recommend a policy of gradual escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- By year's end, the number of American military advisors in South Vietnam is 23,000. There are now an estimated 170,000 Viet Cong/NVA fighters in the "People's Revolutionary Army," which has begun waging coordinated battalion-sized attacks against South Vietnamese troops in villages around Saigon. (Vietnam War Timeline)
"When the operation of the machine becomes so odious...you've got to throw your body upon the wheels, upon the gears, upon the levers, and upon all the apparatus of the machine, and you've got to make it stop." -- Mario Savio, leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, 1964
