"What if we had a WikiLeaks in August of 1964, when we were told the North Vietnamese fired on...

[coalition_unwilling]

9. Much as I like MM, the lie was NOT concocted "at the Pentagon." If any lie

was concocted, it was concocted at the White House. Accurate reporting of the supposed raid -- that it did not happen as originally reported -- was received at the Pentagon as soon as the day after the incident and relayed immediately to LBJ's White House. If the lie were 'concocted at the Pentagon,' it would mean that senior military officers lied to LBJ and his staff. No serious historian maintains this. Instead, the record convincingly shows, LBJ and his staff exerted pressure on the Pentagon to get after-action reports to confirm that the North Vietnamese had fired upon the Joy and the Maddox because LBJ needed to be able to prove that his retaliatory airstrikes had not been ordered on false pretexts.

I hold no warrant for the desk jockeys at the Pentagon, but history demands accuracy and precision.