Johnson's announcement of the incidents involving the destroyers did not mention that SOG vessels had been conducting operations in the same area as the Maddox immediately before, and during, that cruise; nor did it mention that, on 1 and 2 August, Laotian aircraft, flown by Thai pilots, carried out bombing raids in North Vietnam itself, or that a SOG agent team had been inserted into the same relative area and been detected by the North Vietnamese. Hanoi, which may have assumed that all of these actions signaled a coordinated military escalation against them, decided to respond in what it claimed as its territorial waters. Thus, the three P-4s were ordered to attack the Maddox. The second incident, in which Maddox and Turner Joy were claimed to be attacked, never took place. Although some confusion reigned at the time of the second attack, the facts were clear to the administration by the time it went to Congress to obtain the resolution. When confronted by Senator Wayne Morse, who had discovered the existence of SOG's 34-Alpha raids, McNamara lied to him, stating, "Our Navy played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, and was not aware of any South Vietnamese actions." Yet both Commander in Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC) and he were well aware of the possible connections, at least insofar as they might have existed in the minds of the Hanoi leadership. These events were not disclosed until the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1970.
