The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to a sea battle between the North Vietnamese Navy's Torpedo Squadron 135 and the destroyer USS Maddox on August 2 and an alleged second naval engagement between North Vietnamese boats and the U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy on August 4 in the Tonkin Gulf; both naval actions are known collectively as the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It is of historical significance because it gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of "conventional" military force in Southeast Asia. Specifically, the resolution authorized the President to do whatever necessary in order to assist any member of protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was Congress' permission for the President to use force in response to North Vietnamese hostile action. It became a turning point in American involvement in Southeast Asia. On August 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the destroyer USS Maddox 28 miles off the North Vietnamese coast in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two nights' later attacks were reported against the Maddox and the USS C. Turner Joy. In response, President Lyndon Johnson ordered U.S. Navy planes to bomb the torpedo boat bases and an oil storage depot.

This event is a turning point because on August 7, Congress adopted the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving President Johnson authority to use armed force to assist South Vietnam. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution and continuing attacks on Americans in South Vietnam marked the beginning of a dramatic increase in U.S. participation in the war in Southeast Asia. In the first months of 1965, the President ordered the deployment to South Vietnam of major U.S. ground, air, and naval forces. Thus began a new phase in America's long costly Vietnam War. 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 August 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. Almost all the members of Congress supported the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution at the time it was passed but then realized it wasn't the best resolution. The resolution started the major battle with Vietnam with the President having control. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave the President complete control of the war and made for several disagreements. The President could do what he felt was necessary to win the war and had nobody to stop him. Once the resolution was passed the President used it to increase involvement in the war that offended many people. With people angry that the President