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A joint resolution "To promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia." The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub. L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin ...
The Gulf of Tonkin incident ( Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ) was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It consisted of a confrontation on August 2, 1964, when United States forces were carrying out covert amphibious operations close to North Vietnamese territorial ...
The Gulf of Tonkin is a gulf at the northwestern portion of the South China Sea, located off the coasts of Tonkin ( northern Vietnam) and South China. It has a total surface area of 126,250 km 2 (48,750 sq mi). It is defined in the west and northwest by the northern coastline of Vietnam down to the Hòn La Island, in the north by China 's ...
We know that the government under LBJ pushed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution under false pretenses, "authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to ...
Fulbright, who sponsored the resolution, would later write: Many Senators who accepted the Gulf of Tonkin resolution without question might well not have done so had they foreseen that it would subsequently be interpreted as a sweeping Congressional endorsement for the conduct of a large-scale war in Asia. [49]
It was on the basis of the administration's assertions that the attacks were "unprovoked aggression" on the part of North Vietnam, that the United States Congress approved the Southeast Asia Resolution (also known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on August 7. The law gave the President broad powers to conduct military operations without an ...
These attacks, and the ensuing naval actions, known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, were seized upon by President Lyndon Johnson to secure passage by the U.S. Congress of the Southeast Asia Resolution (better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on 7 August 1964, leading to a dramatic escalation of the Vietnam War.
Johnson believed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave him all the authority he needed, and, indeed, Senators both opposed and supporting the escalation did not believe it was a proper matter for Congressional debate. Much later, McNamara wrote that it was wrong not to have that debate, even if it encouraged the enemy.