"Hell, everybody knows that LBJ was crooked as a dogs hind leg, so this shouldn't come as a surprise."
I'm trying to recall, wasn't Johnson trying to get to the right of Goldwater in the Presidential election in 1964 and the Tonkin Gulf episode conveniently played into that strategy, some thinking even then the intelligence about that episode might be misleading?
I was told if I voted for Goldwater, that we would get into a long unwinnable war, and have riots in the streets. I did, and darned if they weren't right.