Tonkin Gulf resolution

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A resolution passed by Congress on August 7, 1964, to approve President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision to use military force to prevent further Communist aggression in South Vietnam. It was a functional, not actual, declaration of war. It was repealed by Congress in January 1971, but American involvement in the Vietnam War continued through the early 1970s.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Even though Congress never officially declared war against North Vietnam during the 1960s, President Lyndon B. Johnson cited the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as congressional authorization for American military intervention in Vietnam. Congress passed the resolution in 1964 to support Johnson in taking measures to protect U.S. armed forces in Indochina.

As requested by Johnson, Congress passed the resolution in response to incidents between U.S. naval destroyers and North Vietnamese gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. According to the navy, on August 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats fired on the U.S.S. Maddox. Two of these gunboats were damaged by aircraft from the U.S.S. Ticonderoga. On August 4, the Maddox and the U.S.S. Turner Joy were on patrol in international waters when they came under attack, but they were not damaged. On August 5, in retaliation for these attacks, U.S. planes destroyed or damaged 25 patrol boats.

President Johnson asked Congress for a resolution allowing him to take “all necessary measures” to repel any further armed attacks. Congress had previously passed similar resolutions to show support for Presidents in confronting such trouble spots as Formosa (now Taiwan), the Middle East, Berlin, and Cuba. Although some senators worried that these resolutions were “blank checks” and “predated declarations of war,” no President had actually put one of these resolutions to use. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was rushed through Congress with little debate. The House voted unanimously in its support. Only two senators, Wayne Morse (Democrat-Oregon) and Ernest Gruening (Democrat-Alaska), voted against it. J. William Fulbright (Democrat-Arkansas), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, assured senators that the resolution was not a declaration of war and that the President would consult with Congress before expanding U.S. military efforts in Vietnam.

The resolution reads in part: “That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as commander-in-chief, to take all measures necessary to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression…. The United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed forces.”

Johnson later used this resolution as justification for sending 500,000 troops into South Vietnam to defend it against communist armies attempting to overthrow the government. His administration claimed the resolution was the “functional equivalent” of a declaration of war.

Congressional critics argued that Johnson had deceived Congress and the American people. Congressional investigations revealed that Johnson's staff had drafted the resolution well before the Gulf of Tonkin incident. These investigations also raised questions about whether an attack had even taken place. Evidence strongly suggested that the American naval vessels had reacted to radar signals caused by weather conditions rather than by the North Vietnamese.

In 1970, Congress repealed the resolution, but by then Johnson's successor, President Richard M. Nixon, argued that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was not necessary to continue the war. Displeasure with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution led Congress to enact the War Powers Resolution of 1973, over Nixon's veto. It requires Presidents to withdraw troops from combat after 60 days unless Congress has approved the military action.

See also Fulbright, J. William; Johnson, Lyndon B.; War powers; War Powers Resolution (1973)

Sources

• George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (New York: Knopf, 1986). U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Gulf of Tonkin: The 1964 Incidents (90th Cong., 2nd sess., 1968)

On 2 August 1964, the USS Maddox, engaged in an electronic spying operation in the Tonkin Gulf, was involved in a firefight with North Vietnamese PT boats. On 4 August, the Maddox was apparently attacked again in international waters. Although that second attack was never confirmed, President Lyndon B. Johnson informed the American people that he was retaliating against North Vietnam's aggression by ordering air attacks on its military installations and that he was also asking Congress for its support in the form of a congressional resolution.

Drafted weeks earlier by the executive, this resolution was designed to grant the president the authority he desired to protect and defend American interests in Southeast Asia. Managing the Senate floor debate on behalf of the administration was Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, a respected member of that body who also was a good friend of the president. He sought to quell existing doubts about the seemingly open-ended nature of the resolution by informing several skeptical colleagues that the president sought no wider war in Southeast Asia. According to Fulbright, that was the president's intent and the nature of his policy. Thus, given the strong public support for the president's action and congressional unwillingness to challenge his authority, Congress passed the resolution on 7 August 1964 with only two dissenting votes in the Senate.

The resolution charged that North Vietnam had attacked American ships lawfully present in international waters, which was part of a systematic campaign of aggression it has been waging against its neighbors. Congress approved and supported "the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." In addition, it also authorized the president "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any [SEATO] member or protocol state … requesting assistance in defense of its freedom."

President Johnson believed passage of the resolution had given him the necessary legal authority to take whatever action he deemed appropriate in Vietnam. But as disillusionment with the war widened and deepened, and as more information surfaced about provocative American actions in the gulf prior to the alleged incident involving the Maddox, Congress grew increasingly unhappy with how it had been deceived by the president in August 1964. Consequently, it repealed the resolution, which became invalid in 1971. President Richard M. Nixon, disregarding Congress's action, continued to wage war in Vietnam while acting in his capacity as commander in chief.

Bibliography

Hess, Gary. Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Mirsky, Jonathan. "The Never Ending War." New York Review of Books (25 May 2000).

In August 1964 Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (78 Stat. 384), approving and supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson's determination to repel any armed attack against U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. Johnson subsequently relied on the measure as his chief authorization for the escalation of the Vietnam War.

The resolution was prompted by Johnson's report to Congress that the North Vietnamese had fired upon two U.S. destroyers in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. Johnson requested that Congress grant him wide presidential powers to respond to the attacks of the North Vietnamese. Both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution; only two senators opposed it and no representatives. The resolution gave the president power to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." According to the resolution, its purpose was to promote international peace and security and support the defense of U.S. naval vessels lawfully present in international waters from deliberate and repeated attacks by naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam.

It was later revealed that the federal government had drafted the Tonkin Gulf Resolution fully six months before the attacks on the U.S. vessels occurred. It was also revealed that the United States provoked the attack by assisting the South Vietnamese in mounting clandestine military attacks against the North Vietnamese. Although the two U.S. vessels attacked were actually on intelligence-gathering missions, the North Vietnamese could not distinguish them from the South Vietnamese raiding ships. Johnson had also exaggerated the gravity of the attack itself, which did not harm either of the ships.

Although no formal declaration of war was ever issued for the Vietnam War, the Department of Justice and the State Department relied on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution as the functional equivalent. Thus, Johnson was able to send U.S. troops to Vietnam without an official war declaration. In early 1965 the Viet Cong raided a U.S. air base in South Vietnam, killing seven Americans. In response to that action, and in accordance with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Johnson began a large-scale escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The number of U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam grew from 25,000 in early 1965 to 184,000 by the end of that year. The escalation continued, and by 1968 543,000 U.S. soldiers were in South Vietnam.

Although the war initially had widespread support, by 1968 growing numbers of Americans had begun to protest and question Johnson's decisions to escalate U.S. involvement. For a number of reasons, the public felt the president had deceived them. In the 1964 presidential elections, Johnson had campaigned on a promise to keep U.S. troops out of the fighting in Vietnam. In addition, the public learned through the release of the Pentagon Papers that the Tonkin Gulf incident was actually instigated by the United States and was not as damaging as the government had suggested. Some constitutional law authorities argued that it was irrelevant whether Congress was deceived by the executive in passing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution because the resolution provided that Congress could repeal it at any time. In addition, the scholars argued that Congress had the power to stop appropriating money to support the war effort.

In January 1971 Congress repealed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. President Richard M. Nixon continued the war effort, however, by relying on the commander in chief provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Congress continued to appropriate money to support the war effort. The Vietnam War was the longest, costliest, and most controversial war in U.S. history, and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was the focal point of much of the controversy.

See: war.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution (officially, the Southeast Asia Resolution, Public Law 88-408) was a joint resolution of the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964 in response to two alleged minor naval skirmishes off the coast of North Vietnam between U.S. destroyers and Vietnamese torpedo ships from the North, known collectively as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution 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 military force in Southeast Asia. Specifically, the resolution authorized the President to do whatever necessary in order to assist "any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty." This included involving armed forces. The unanimous affirmative vote in the House of Representatives was 416-0. (However, Congressman Eugene Siler of Kentucky, who was not present but opposed the measure, was "paired" with another member who favored the resolution — i.e., his opposition was not counted, but the vote in favor was one less than it would have been.) ^[1] It was opposed in the Senate only by Senators Wayne Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK). Senator Gruening objected to "sending our American boys into combat in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated." ^[2] The Johnson administration subsequently relied upon the resolution to begin its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam conflict.^[3]

Background and Congressional action

The USS Maddox (DD-731), a U.S. destroyer, was in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964 when it was attacked by three North Vietnamese patrol/torpedo boats. Two days later, that vessel and the U.S. destroyer Turner Joy both reported to be under attack, although Hanoi subsequently insisted that it had not launched a second attack. A later investigation by the Senate Foreign relations Committee revealed that the Maddox had been on an electronic intelligence mission. It also learned that the U.S. Naval Communication Center in the Philippine Islands, in reviewing ships' messages, had questioned whether any second attack had actually occurred. ^[4]

Within hours, President Johnson ordered the launching of retaliatory air strikes (Operation Pierce Arrow) on the bases of the North Vietnamese boats and announced, in a television address to the American public that same evening, that U.S. naval forces had been attacked. Johnson requested approval of a resolution "expressing the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in southeast Asia". He said that the resolution should express support "for all necessary action to protect our Armed Forces" – but repeated previous assurances that "the United States... seeks no wider war". As the nation entered the final three months of political campaigning for the 1964 elections (in which Johnson was standing for election), the president contended that the resolution would help "hostile nations... understand" that the United States was unified in its determination "to continue to protect its national interests."^[5]

The administration of President Richard Nixon, which took office in January 1969, initially opposed repeal, warning of "consequences for Southeast Asia [that] go beyond the war in Vietnam." In 1970 the administration began to shift its stance. It asserted that its conduct of operations in Southeast Asia was based not on the resolution but was a constitutional exercise of the President's authority, as Commander in Chief of U.S. military forces, to take necessary steps to protect American troops as they were gradually withdrawn^[6] (the U.S. had begun withdrawing its forces from Vietnam in 1969 under a policy known as “Vietnamization”).

Mounting public opinion against the war eventually led to the repeal of the resolution, which was attached to a bill that Nixon signed in January 1971.^[7] Seeking to restore limits on presidential authority to engage U.S. forces without a formal declaration of war Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973, over Nixon's veto. The War Powers Resolution, which is still in effect, sets forth certain requirements for the President to consult with Congress in regard to decisions that engage U.S. forces in hostilities or imminent hostilities.

Notes

1. ^ David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, "The Christian Conservative Who Opposed the Vietnam War," History News Network, August 21, 2006, [1]
2. ^ "Excerpts from Senate Debate on Tonkin Gulf Resolution", [2]
3. ^ "Gulf of Tonkin Measure Voted In Haste and Confusion in 1964", The New York Times, 1970-06-25
4. ^ "Excerpts from McNamara's Testimony on Tonkin", The New York Times, 1968-02-25.
5. ^ "Excerpts from President's Message to Congress", [3]
6. ^ "Gulf of Tonkin Measure Voted In Haste and Confusion in 1964", The New York Times, 1970-06-25.
7. ^ UPI "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is Repealed Without Furor", The New York Times, 1971-01-14.

External links

• Original Document: Tonkin Gulf Resolution
• Ourdocuments.gov

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