Tonkin Gulf Incident and Resolution

[Hawk1981]

An American navy ship, the USS Maddox reported on August 2, 1964, that it had been attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats while on patrol near the North Vietnamese coast. The Maddox was struck by machine gun fire but successfully evaded the torpedoes that had been launched toward it. One of the torpedo boats was struck by gunfire from the Maddox. Two of the torpedo boats were seriously damaged by attacks from US Navy aircraft that had been summoned to assist the Maddox.

On August 4, 1964, the Maddox and another US Navy ship, the USS Turner Joy reported that they were again engaged with suspected torpedo boats in the same waters as the first attack, and firing at multiple radar contacts and evading torpedoes. The US ships were undamaged and although no wreckage or other evidence was found, reported that two torpedo boats had been sunk.

Late in the evening on August 4, President Lyndon Johnson made a televised announcement regarding the attacks by North Vietnamese forces on the two US ships and requesting Congressional authority to undertake a military response. The North Vietnamese government acknowledged that the first incident had occurred claiming that their boats had been fired on first, but denied that the second incident had occurred.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara Presenting the Incident

On August 5 President Johnson publicly ordered a retaliatory strike against North Vietnam stating that "The determination of all Americans to carry out our full commitment to the people and to the government of South Vietnam will be redoubled by this outrage." Within two hours US Navy aircraft attacked four North Vietnamese torpedo boat bases and an oil storage facility.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara appeared before joint sessions of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees on August 6 to provide details of the attacks from the previous days. He described the missions of the US ships as having been routine patrols of the type "we carry out all over the world at all times" and maintained that nothing had been done to provoke the attacks.

After deliberation and floor debate, Congress voted on a joint resolution on August 10, authorizing the president "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the South East Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom." Officially titled "A Joint Resolution 'To Promote the Maintenance of International Peace and Security of Southeast Asia'", the resolution passed with a vote of 416 - 0 in the House and 88 - 2 in the Senate. President Johnson signed the measure later in the day.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution provided the legal justification for the further US escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Shortly after the signing the US sent the first of many deployments of combat troops to South Vietnam and the start of a lengthy bombing campaign against targets in the North.

 

[Hawk1981]

In August 1964, US Navy ships were regularly conducting intelligence collecting patrols in hostile waters including the coast of North Vietnam called DESOTO patrols.

These DESOTO patrols along the coast of North Vietnam supported a larger program of covert actions against North Vietnam called Operation Plan 34A (OPLAN). This covert program included agent team insertions into the North, aerial reconnaissance missions and naval sabotage missions. On August 2, 1964, a special operation by South Vietnamese commandos in the OPLAN program attacked a North Vietnamese radar facility near the area where the Maddox was patrolling. Although the Maddox was apparently not directly involved, North Vietnam assumed that it was part of the operation and sent its torpedo boats to attack the ship. When the torpedo boats appeared to be making aggressive runs toward the ship, the Maddox opened fire to drive them off. The torpedo boats then returned fire and launched torpedoes.

Further investigation into the August 4 incident with the Maddox and Turner Joy indicate that the ships' crews likely misinterpreted the information from their systems and mistakenly believed that they were under attack. Analysis of the incident report the next day cast doubt on whether or not there was an attack, concluding that false readings from the Maddox's ship controls likely led to the response. Ships from the North Vietnamese Navy were in the area salvaging the wrecks of the two boats lost in the earlier incident, but they did not attack the American ships.

 

[Hawk1981]

Congress began its moves to repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1968 based on the revealed information and the change in climate for support of the war. The repeal was initially opposed by the incoming Nixon administration in 1969 for fear of "consequences for Southeast Asia that go beyond the war in Vietnam." In 1970 the Nixon administration determined that the ongoing program to withdraw forces from Southeast Asia was no longer based on the resolution but was now part of the President's constitutional authority to take the necessary steps to protect US forces during the withdrawal. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was officially repealed as part of the Foreign Military Sales Act, signed by President Nixon in January, 1971.

President Johnson Signing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

 

[Persistence Of Memory]

A firecracker is the reason we got in that God Damned mess.

Carry on.

 

[Muhammed]

Johnson was just looking for a bullshit excuse to enslave Americans. Democrats are tyrants.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes (it was unanimous in the House).

I remember those two brave Senators: Wayne Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK). Senator Gruening objected to "sending our American boys into combat in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated".

I was 15 then and understood clearly the situation. My Dad thought I was nuts. When just 13 years old I had wondered — almost by accident — into a colorful Manhattan demonstration against the beautiful “Dragon Lady of Vietnam.” A real piece of work she was. The press ate up her every word. She was gorgeous in her diamonds and tight-fitting sexy silk dresses. Everybody knew she often bullied her brother-in-law — President Diem — and sometimes even her husband who ran the terrifying secret police.

“Madam Nhu” — like that whole clique — was a vicious Catholic anti-communist. She pushed for the passing of "morality laws" outlawing abortion, adultery, divorce, contraceptives, dance halls, and beauty pageants, even as she was widely mocked by Vietnamese Buddhists and Confucians as a hypocrite, a privileged aristocratic bitch.

Even a kid could see something was wrong back in September, 1963 when she clapped her hands and laughed as a famous Buddhist Monk publically burned himself to death in protest of the regime. She said she liked barbecues! She spoke of all her husband’s opponents like some lunatics here on USMB speak of socialists or “Demonrats” today: "We will track down, neutralize and extirpate all these scabby sheep."

Nobody had any excuse not to look more deeply at what we were getting into in Vietnam. The history and reality were clear to all who bothered to look, who cared to see.

And then came ... “The Gulf of Tonkin.”

 

[whitehall]

There were no injuries and there never was any evidence of enemy"torpedo boats". Later it was determined that the radar malfunctioned and produced ghost images. Pilot Randy Cunningham (originator of Top Gun school) always claimed that the flyers saw nothing in the area. Democrats finally managed to put congressman Cunningham in prison for accepting gifts from lobbyists. Cunningham was guilty of essentially the same thing as John McCain (Keating Five) but McCain got a break and democrats were determined to put war hero Cunningham in prison.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

As I pointed out above, Congress was virtually unanimous in support of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. At this early stage the war was not seen primarily as a partisan matter.

 

[whitehall]

In 1964 the democrat party had a 2/3 majority in the House and LBJ had total support (at first) of the mainstream media. LBJ was riding a wave and there was nothing to stop him even if the "crisis" was a proven fake. The Senate voted to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin resolution but it was too late.

 

[harmonica]

....in 1963, the US could not see the writing on the wall when Diem and his brother were murdered...that right there, should've raised eyebrows!!
....the Bay of Pigs fiasco should've been a wake up call--but it wasn't
etc etc