So you know that verbal and written report I did in 1983 in Mr. Rath's history class? The big one on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident? You know, where American destroyers were attacked by Hanoi war ships? That was the fulcrum Robert McNamara and Lyndon Johnson used to get the Vietnam Police Action fully underway with the support of Congress and America. I loved writing that paper. I turned it into a full-on 60's widescreen epic war movie, with the destroyers outwitting and outfiring the commie warlords. I read it aloud like a radio play and got a good grade.

Too bad the story was a play. Or lie.

The history books will literally have to be revised as of today:

But he said that probably the "most historically significant feature" of the declassified report was the retelling of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.

That was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to president Lyndon Johnson's sharp escalation of American forces in Vietnam.

The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night,'" FAS said in a statement.

"What this study demonstrated is that the available intelligence shows that there was no attack. It's a dramatic reversal of the historical record," Aftergood said.