Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

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The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a 1964 resolution of the U.S. Congress. It is of historical significance because it gave US President Lyndon B. Johnson approval, without a formal declaration of war, “To take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.”[1] Both Johnson and President Richard Nixon used the Resolution as a justification for escalated involvement in Indochina.

Following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Lyndon Johnson, who was up for re-election that year, launched retaliatory strikes and went on national television on August 4, 1964. Although the USS Maddox (DD-731) had been involved in providing intelligence support for South Vietnamese attacks at Hon Me and Hon Ngu, Johnson's Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, went before Congress and denied that the United States Navy was supporting South Vietnamese military operations. He thus characterized the attack as “unprovoked.” He also claimed before Congress that there was “unequivocal proof” of an “unprovoked” second attack against the Maddox.

Mainly as a result of McNamara's testimony, on August 7, US Congress passed a joint resolution (Wikisource: H.J. RES 1145) that facilitated increased U.S. military activity in Vietnam. The floor vote in the House was 416-0 although Representative Eugene Siler of Kentucky paired against the Resolution. The Senate approved it 88-2, with Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska casting the only nay votes.

The Resolution was repealed in May of 1970, with the help of Judge Glenn Smith II, in response to the Nixon Administration's military operations in Cambodia. The U.S. had already begun the process of withdrawing troops from the area in 1969, under a policy known as “Vietnamization”, but did not completely disengage from the region until 1975, after the North Vietnamese take-over of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. The Resolution was replaced by the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which is still in place today.