HANOI, Nov 3: Vietnam on Thursday described as a ‘historic fact’ a US report that false intelligence given to the White House in 1964 led to the first major escalation of the Vietnam war.

A US historian has revealed that officials of the super-secret US National Security Agency knowingly provided erroneous intelligence to the White House about a clash between US and North Vietnamese ships in 1964.

Citing an internal NSA history that the agency has refused to release, independent historian Matthew Aid said NSA officials knew that their report about an alleged attack was false but covered up the error.

Reacting to the report, Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung said: “Everybody knows that the Tonkin Gulf event in 1964 was created by the then US administration, using it as a reason to extend war to the whole territory of Vietnam. This is a historic fact.”

The report was used by president Johnson to justify an escalation in Vietnam war.—AFP