Gulf of Tonkin incident

Gulf of Tonkin incident

Introduction

Clash that triggered US entry into the Vietnam War in August 1964. Two US destroyers (USS C Turner Joy and USS Maddox) reported that they were fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. It is unclear whether hostile shots were actually fired, but the reported attack was taken as a pretext for making air raids against North Vietnam. On 7 August the US Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which formed the basis for the considerable increase in US military involvement in the Vietnam War.

The resolution allowed President Johnson to 'take all necessary steps, including the use of armed forces' to help SEATO (South-East Asia Treaty Organization) members 'defend their freedom'. It was repealed 1970 in the light of evidence that the Johnson administration contrived to deceive Congress about the incident.

Tonkin Gulf resolution, in U.S. history, Congressional resolution passed in 1964 that authorized military action in Southeast Asia. On Aug. 4, 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin were alleged to have attacked without provocation U.S. destroyers that were reporting intelligence information to South Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers decided upon immediate air attacks on North Vietnam in retaliation; he also asked Congress for a mandate for future military action. On Aug. 7, Congress passed a resolution drafted by the administration authorizing all necessary measures to repel attacks against U.S. forces and all steps necessary for the defense of U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. Although there was disagreement in Congress over the precise meaning of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, Presidents Johnson and Richard M. Nixon used it to justify later military action in Southeast Asia. The measure was repealed by Congress in 1970. Retired Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap, in a 1995 meeting with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, categorically denied that the North Vietnamese had attacked the U.S. destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, and in 2001 it was revealed that President Johnson, in a taped conversation with McNamara several weeks after passage of the resolution, had expressed doubt that the attack ever occurred.

Discussion

Major event in the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that prompted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. On July 31, 1964, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox began a reconnaissance cruise in international waters off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam). The destroyer carried extra radio gear and personnel to monitor North Vietnamese radio communications but not enough of either to give the ship the capabilities of a true electronic espionage vessel.

Around the time of the cruise, the United States also scheduled an unusually intense string of covert operations against the North Vietnamese coast. These were carried out by relatively small vessels (mostly Norwegian-built “Nasty” boats) that had Vietnamese crews but operated under American orders, were based in the vicinity of Da Nang, and were part of a program called Operation Plan 34A (OPLAN 34A). Two islands off the North Vietnamese coast were to be attacked on the night ...