In his book, "Body of Secrets", James Bamford, who spent three years in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst, writes that the primary purpose of the "Maddox" "was to act as a seagoing provocateur—to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its five-inch cannons up the nose of the communist navy. ... The Maddox mission was made even more provocative by being timed to coincide with commando raids, creating the impression that the Maddox was directing those missions ..." Thus, the North Vietnamese had every reason to believe that "Maddox" was involved in these actions.