Aug. 5, 1964 | Robert McNamara News Conference on Vietnam

Aug. 5, 1964 - United States aircraft bombed North Vietnamese bases, naval craft, and an oil storage depot in a five-hour raid along 100 miles of coast early today.
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara reported on the hostilities at a news conference at the Pentagon this morning.
He said that 25 North Vietnamese patrol boats had been destroyed or damaged and that the oil installation had been 90% destroyed.
He declared that unless the U.S. was further provoked, no new American attacks were planned.
McNamara also announced that strong reinforcements had been dispatched to the Southeast Asia crisis area. He said certain Army and Marine Corps units had been alerted.
Two of the attacking American planes were lost and two returned damaged from the raids, McNamara said. He attributed the casualties to antiaircraft fire in the vicinity of the bases.
Told of a North Vietnamese claim that one of the two lost Navy pilots had been captured, the Defense Secretary said that was “possible.”
One of the lost planes may have been downed in North Vietnam although the other was believed to have been lost at sea, he said.
The atmosphere in the press conference room was reminiscent of the Cuba missile crisis of 1962. The Secretary, as in that earlier crisis, had slept in his office. He seemed confident and relaxed as he discussed the first American military attack since the Korean War.
Asked whether he thought the air strike had accomplished its objectives, McNamara said that it “made clear to the North Vietnamese our intention to maintain our right to operate on the high seas. That was the objective. I think that has been accomplished.”

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