Gulf of Tonkin Incident
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident refers to a series of events in August 1964 that escalated U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Triggered by covert operations near the North Vietnamese coast, the first confirmed incident occurred on August 2 when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the U.S. destroyer USS Maddox, although it was reported that the Maddox had been conducting reconnaissance operations in the area. The second incident, which took place on August 4, remains controversial and is widely believed to have been misreported or possibly fabricated, as subsequent investigations indicated no actual attack occurred.
President Lyndon B. Johnson and his administration portrayed these incidents as acts of aggression, leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which Congress passed overwhelmingly, granting the president broad authority to increase military actions in Southeast Asia. This resolution underpinned significant escalations in the Vietnam War, raising questions about government transparency and contributing to a growing skepticism among the American public. The incident and its aftermath have since been regarded as pivotal in shaping U.S. foreign policy and military engagement strategies, influencing the antiwar movement and leading to legislative changes such as the War Powers Act of 1973.
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
Date: August 2-4, 1964
An attack and an alleged attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on U.S. destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam. These incidents were used by President Lyndon B. Johnson to obtain the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which became the legal basis for U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
Origins and History
Early in his administration, President Lyndon B. Johnson had decided that South Vietnam’s survival required increased U.S. military involvement. In preparation, U.S. military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) forces began two covert operations in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam, code-named DeSota (an electronic reconnaissance mission conducted by U.S. naval forces) and 34A (CIA-trained commando hit-and-run attacks against North Vietnamese island and shore installations). Though ostensibly separate operations, U.S. naval commanders also monitored and responded to 34A actions. One such operation, hit-and-run attacks against the North Vietnamese offshore islands of Hon Me and Hon Ngu on the night of July 30-31, resulted in the U.S. destroyer Maddox being sent on a reconnaissance mission into the Tonkin Gulf near these islands. Two days later, the Maddox encountered the enemy.
The Incidents
On August 2, North Vietnamese torpedo boats from Hon Me unsuccessfully attacked the Maddox and then fled. The Maddox also withdrew. This confirmed attack is referred to as the “first incident.” U.S. officials responded by ordering the Maddox and a second destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, to return to the gulf and resume operations. On August 2-3, while the destroyers patrolled, 34A operations continued and included an August 2 bombing of North Vietnamese villages and an August 3 guerrilla commando raid. Meanwhile, on August 3, the two destroyers made runs toward the North Vietnamese coast, coming within eight miles of shore. On the night of August 4, in bad weather, low clouds, and darkness, the destroyers claimed their radar had picked up high-speed attacking vessels and that they were under torpedo attack. This attack, referred to as the “second incident,” remains unconfirmed and probably never happened. Hours after the initial report, FLASH messages from the Maddox arrived in Washington, D.C., indicating that overeager sonar operators and the effects of bad weather on sonar and radar had led to error. Moreover, the Maddox’s commander, Captain John J. Herrick, admitted that no visual sightings of enemy vessels or weaponry had occurred.
President Johnson, held hostage by his domestic reform program and by election-year politics, saw in these incidents an opportunity to increase the United States’ military commitment in Vietnam and to silence Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s criticism of Johnson’s foreign policy. On August 5, Johnson declared the incidents to have been “deliberate attacks” and “open aggression on the high seas,” and he sent Congress the text of a resolution actually drawn up two months earlier that would allow him officially to commit U.S. forces in Vietnam. In explaining the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to a Senate hearing on August 6, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara claimed that the North Vietnamese attacks were unprovoked, that the United States had not been engaged in any recent attacks on North Vietnam, and that the destroyers were there for defensive purposes only. Such statements were at best disingenuous, since McNamara had approved the DeSota and 34A operations.
On August 7, Congress, with only two dissenting votes Senators Ernest Gruening and Wayne Morse passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed Johnson to take “all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” and to defend any Southeast Asia Treaty Organization member.
Impact
Although no evidence exists suggesting Johnson and McNamara engineered the incidents, their less than candid reporting of events later led many members of Congress and the general public to feel that they were misled. By the late 1960’s, journalistI. F. Stone and others had begun calling the incidents a hoax, which contributed to the Johnson administration’s growing “credibility gap.” Many people believed that if the government had misled the nation about the Tonkin Gulf incidents, it might be less than honest about the events of the Vietnam War. This distrust of the U.S. government greatly aided the antiwar movement. Certainly the administrations of Johnson and Richard M. Nixon had used the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as the basis for escalating military operations in Vietnam, and Nixon even invoked the resolution to justify his invasion of Cambodia. In December, 1970, Congress repealed the resolution. To prevent future presidential misuse of U.S. military power, Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973.
Additional Information
Edwin E. Moïse’s Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (1996) and Robert McNamara’s In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of the Vietnam War (1995) provide two perspectives on the Gulf of Tonkin incident.