On Aug. 7, 1964, 50 years ago last week, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing President Lyndon Johnson to take “all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” in Vietnam. Only two senators voted against the measure, and the resolution passed unanimously in the House of Representatives with 416 votes.
For a conflict that resulted in more than 58,000 American dead (1,049 from Washington state and 31 of those from Everett), 303,000 wounded, 1,400 to 1,900 American soldiers missing in action, 4 million North and South Vietnamese civilians killed, 1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and their armed supporters in the South dead, 200,000 to 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers killed in action, and millions of Cambodians and Laotians dead as the war expanded into those nations, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was as close to a declaration of war as Congress ever made during the undeclared war in Vietnam.
Today, most Americans believe sending U.S. troops to Vietnam was a mistake, not only because of the terrible carnage and the eventual communist victory in unifying North and South Vietnam, but also because American leaders lied about the reality of the war. The duplicity of the Johnson administration in securing passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is one of the clearest examples of this deviousness, what during the Vietnam War would quickly become known as the “Credibility Gap,” and would begin a continued distrust of government to the present day.
During the evening of Aug. 4, Johnson went on television just before midnight and told the nation that American jets from two aircraft carriers were at that moment taking off to bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for an attack against the American destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin.
President Johnson did not relate that on July 30 and 31 American-sponsored South Vietnamese commandos in swift boats had attacked shore bases in North Vietnam to activate their radar with the Maddox recording data about the locations of those facilities. On Aug. 2, a local North Vietnamese commander, connecting the commando attacks with the presence of the Maddox offshore, ordered three patrol boats to confront the American ship. Although several torpedoes were fired at the Maddox, none hit their mark. With aid of American aircraft, the Maddox sank one boat and disabled the other two in the 20-minute encounter. With only one bullet from the enemy striking the destroyer, Johnson decided not to take action.
Days later, on the late night and early morning of Aug. 3 and 4, during a storm, the captain of the Maddox, bolstered by support of the Turner Joy, reported to Washington, D.C., a several-hour battle with the enemy. The ships madly maneuvered on the rough seas to avoid a reported 22 torpedoes. In turn, the destroyers wildly fired a total of 249 five-inch and 123 three-inch shells at the communist boats with the alleged destruction of two or three of the vessels.
The second attack on the Maddox and Turner Joy never occurred. Poor weather conditions played havoc with sonar and radar, aircraft overhead saw no enemy ships, and Navy crewmen were understandably tense given the earlier attack on the Maddox. Although the captain of the Maddox did send a report confessing the attack might not have occurred, Johnson acted on incomplete and misinterpreted information about the questionable battle and discounted the fact that the U.S. had provoked the attacks by collaborating with the South Vietnamese raids on the North Vietnamese shoreline. Later as his doubts about the attack on the Maddox and Turner Joy solidified, he told an aide, “Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish.”
After the nonexistent attack in the Gulf, but before his televised address to the nation announcing what were the bombing attacks against North Vietnam, Johnson told a congressional delegation that the United States must show Hanoi it would respond to their aggression. He emphasized he wanted a congressional resolution supporting his military actions against North Vietnam. “Some of our boys are floating around in the water,” he dramatically told Congress. Certainly this statement was an imaginative fabrication, but it had the necessary effect.
Johnson was deeply gratified by the overwhelming vote for the resolution. He remarked that it was “like grandma’s nightshirt — it covered everything.”
Johnson was a master politician at work, but at what cost? The United States had made a greater commitment to Vietnam and with promise to resort to the use of force to fulfill that obligation.
Johnson had lied to and deceived the American public. His deceptions about the war would increase as the conflict escalated, leading to one of the worst debacles in American history. In 1971, Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and two years later passed the War Powers Resolution setting limits on a president’s ability to send combat troops into military action without congressional approval, a power it refused to use in the Vietnam War and has refused to use in subsequent conflicts.
Dr. Tom Gaskin taught U.S. history at Everett Community College for more than three and a half decades and is now retired.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
