The Tonkin myth
Admiral Stephen “Steve” Morrison
Rock books keep repeating it: Jim Morrison’s father commanded U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964, and so had a hand in starting the Vietnam War.
He didn’t. That August he was still a captain, commanding officer of USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31). The deck logs for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th put the ship on the Japanese coast, Sasebo toward Yokosuka. The carrier covering Maddox on the 2nd was Ticonderoga. The 5 August strikes were Ticonderoga and Constellation. Task Force 77 was Rear Admiral Robert B. Moore, embarked in Ticonderoga.
This page is not about politics, and it is not about what happened in the Gulf. The only interest here is the man the books put on that scene. He was not there.
Captain, not admiral
Morrison took command of Bon Homme Richard on 22 November 1963. Rank: captain. The ship was then a First Fleet carrier-division flagship out of San Diego — that is not Task Force 77 in the Gulf. Rear admiral only comes in 1967. In 1968 he had a task group, flagship Hancock. The biographies call him Admiral Morrison in 1964 because it sounds like he could have run a task force. A captain on a Japanese transit could not.
2–4 August 1964 · the logs
Every watch, the ship writes where she is. The 1964 deck logs for CVA-31 are in the National Archives (catalog.archives.gov). These are the days of the incident.
2 August 1964 · deck log
Sunday 2 August — same day as Maddox. Steaming in company with USS Cowell (DDR-547) and USS Small (DDR-838), Sasebo, Japan to Yokosuka, Japan, ComSeventhFleet quarterly employment schedule. Base course 120°, 13 knots. This ship is the guide. SOPA and OTC are her own commanding officer, i.e. Morrison, on this deck. Later they take fuel from USS Manatee (AO-58). Hundreds of miles from the Gulf.
3 August 1964 · deck log
Monday 3 August. Still Sasebo to Yokosuka, now a 3C3 ASW screen with Small, Cowell and USS Prichett (DD-561). Course 230° T, 12 knots. OTC and SOPA again the CO of this ship. Condition three. They work the flight deck and launch aircraft off Japan. Task Force 77 is not mentioned because they were not with it.
4 August 1964 · deck log
Tuesday 4 August. Same screen, same track. Course 030° T, 11.6 knots. Man-overboard drill, countdown drill, more flying. The second Tonkin report is that night. This page never leaves Japanese waters.
The cruise book
Air Wing 19 printed the year as The Cruise That Was. Full book: navysite.de. Captain G. S. Morrison is named as commanding officer. Tonkin, in the first week of August, is not.
The Cruise That Was · CVA-31, 1964
28 January to 21 November 1964. 76,475 miles, 298 days, 10,610 arrested landings. The air wing that was actually on Bon Homme Richard. A Tonkin flagship cruise would show up here. What shows up is a WestPac year.
Itinerary · 28 January–23 July 1964
San Diego, Pearl, Subic, Yankee Team, Hong Kong, then Concord Squadron into the Indian Ocean — Madagascar, Kenya, Aden, Iran — then Sasebo, Yokosuka, Hong Kong again. Morrison is named, including a catapult shot on 1 February. By 23 July he is still CO of this ship, still on this itinerary.
Itinerary · from 23 July 1964
23 July leave Hong Kong. 28 July Sasebo. 31 July leave Sasebo. 11 August arrive Yokosuka. 17 August leave Yokosuka. 20 August Sasebo. 24–25 August out and back. 28 August they finally leave Sasebo for Special Operations in the South China Sea — more than three weeks after 2–5 August. That is when this ship heads south. Not before.
Air Wing 19 · Fighter Squadron 191
Satan’s Kittens, VF-191, Cdr. J. C. Smith, F-8E Crusader. Embarked in Bon Homme Richard this WestPac. Cover for Maddox on the 2nd came from Ticonderoga. The 5 August strikes came from Ticonderoga and Constellation. Two other carriers. The biographies fold them into Morrison’s.
Cruise chronology · August 1964
Hong Kong 8–23 July, Sasebo 28–31 July, then Yokosuka 11–17 August, Sasebo 20–24 and 25–28 August, then Special Operations. 2–5 August sits in the Japanese stretch. There is no Tonkin line for Morrison on this page.
26 August 1964 · newsletter, Captain G. S. Morrison
Addressed to the families and friends of the men of the Bon Homme Richard. The WestPac tour was supposed to end in October; they have been extended because of the fighting in Southeast Asia. Signed G. S. Morrison, Captain, U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer. Three weeks after Tonkin he is still a captain, still on this ship. Rear admiral: 1967. Hancock: 1968.
Who was at Tonkin
Rear Admiral Robert B. Moore had Carrier Task Force 77, embarked in Ticonderoga (CVA-14). Ticonderoga launched the F-8s that went to Maddox on the 2nd. On the 5th Ticonderoga and Constellation flew the reprisal strikes. Bon Homme Richard flew none of that. There is film of Moore in Ticonderoga’s CIC while she is underway in the Gulf: Rear Admiral R. B. Moore, USS Ticonderoga.
Edward J. Drea later went through the Navy’s message traffic for that week — published in MHQ, now at HistoryNet. The chain on the net is Captain John J. Herrick with Maddox and Turner Joy; Rear Admiral Moore, Task Force 77, aboard Ticonderoga; Vice Admiral Roy L. Johnson, Seventh Fleet. Moore’s 10:34 signal on 4 August goes out from Ticonderoga. Constellation is ordered to join her. Bon Homme Richard is not in that traffic. Neither is Captain Morrison.
Moore did not have a famous son. Morrison did. That is most of the explanation.
Rear Admiral Robert B. Moore
Task Force 77, Ticonderoga, August 1964. The man the newspapers named.
Period press · Rear Adm. Robert B. Moore, Task Force 77
“Rear Adm. Robert B. Moore, commander of Task Force 77, told newsmen the force which hit North Vietnamese PT bases and oil storage facility Aug. 5…” They quote Moore. They do not quote Captain Morrison. They do not mention Bon Homme Richard. The mix-up is later, in the rock books.
That week the wires had a correspondent on Ticonderoga. The name they sent home was Moore. Not Morrison. These are some of the papers.
UPI · aboard Ticonderoga
“UPI sent out a dispatch from its correspondent aboard the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga, quoting Rear Admiral Robert B. Moore, commander of the American task force which attacked North Viet Nam last Wednesday.” The ship in the byline is Ticonderoga. The admiral in the byline is Moore.
Same dispatch · the attacking force
The rest of that quote. Moore is “commander of the American Task Force which attacked North Viet Nam last Wednesday.” The papers of that week already knew who ran the strikes. They did not have to invent a name later.
10 August · Moore to UPI
“A statement by Rear Admiral Robert B. Moore, commander of the task force that led the raids… He said on August 10, in an interview with United Press International…” Six days after the second report they are still talking to Moore. Morrison is not in the interview, because he was not in the Gulf.
11 August · “Admiral Tells Of Viet Raid”
Dateline: ABOARD THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS TICONDEROGA, Aug. 11. Compiled from AP and UPI. “Rear-Admiral Robert B. Moore said yesterday the U.S. attack on North Viet-Nam last Wednesday…” Then: “Moore is the commander of the American strike task force, now cruising off Viet-Nam.” Two planes lost from Constellation, sister ship of Ticonderoga. The carriers in the story are those two. Bon Homme Richard is not one of them.
UPI · “Admiral Says Broadcast By LBJ Did Not Help North Vietnamese”
Fuller UPI from the same visit. Aboard Ticonderoga. Moore is “the commander of the American strike task force now cruising off Viet Nam.” Newsmen went to Ticonderoga and talked to him. If the man on that deck had been Captain Morrison, this is the paper that would have had his name. It has Moore’s.
How it stays in print
Oliver Stone’s The Doors, 1991. New Haven, 9 December 1967, backstage. Kathleen Quinlan as Patricia Kennealy. She has called his father. The line, as written: “An Admiral in the United States Navy. Who’s at the Gulf of Tonkin when Vietnam starts. Your Dad’s a Deputy Chief of Operations.” Then: never lie to me again about your father.
Stone puts Tonkin in her mouth. Not a reconstruction of 2 August. One sentence, 1991, seventeen years before the New York Times obituary.
Wikipedia does not even agree with itself. George Stephen Morrison still has him “involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident” in August 1964. The footnotes are magazine pieces, not the log. Jim Morrison goes further: “His father Admiral Morrison was commanding U.S. naval forces during the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964.” He was a captain that month.
Then the ship’s own page, USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31), calls it a popular myth and names Ticonderoga as the carrier involved. That much matches the logs. It still styles him Admiral and has him flying his flag — a flag officer’s phrase. In August 1964 he was the commanding officer. Captains do not fly flags. The two Morrison pages keep the Tonkin claim.
The Navy’s own photo file does not help. NH 97344 is still captioned “USS Bon Homme Richard in the Tonkin Gulf, 2 November 1964.” The log for that Monday: Sherman Pier, Yokosuka. She was not in both places. A wrong date on an official photograph is enough. People copy the caption and the story walks on.
2 November 1964 · moored, Yokosuka
Monday 2 November. Moored starboard side to berth 8, Sherman Pier, Yokosuka, Japan, six lines doubled. Ranger and Oklahoma City in port. SOPA is ComCarDiv Three. This is the Monday NH 97344 still files as Tonkin Gulf.
NH 97344 · the caption is wrong
Under the picture: “USS Bon Homme Richard in the Tonkin Gulf, 2 November 1964.” Description: “Operating in the Gulf of Tonkin, 2 November 1964.” Same Monday as the log above. Yokosuka, not Tonkin.
The logs, the cruise book and the newspapers from that week line up. Morrison was not at Tonkin. Moore was.
The same case, short, is on X.