Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
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| Long title | A joint resolution "To promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia." |
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| Nicknames | Southeast Asia Resolution |
| Enacted by | the 88th United States Congress |
| Effective | August 10, 1964 |
| Citations | |
| Public law | 88-408 |
| Statutes at Large | 78 Stat. 384 |
| Legislative history | |
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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 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 or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty". This included involving armed forces.
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". (Tonkin Gulf debate 1964) The Johnson administration subsequently relied upon the resolution to begin its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and open warfare between North Vietnam and the United States.
The USS Maddox, a U.S. destroyer, was conducting a DESOTO patrol in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964, when it reported being attacked by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats from the 135th Torpedo Squadron, which were attempting to close their range on the Maddox for effective torpedo fire (1,000 yards was maximum effective range for the torpedoes)Maddox fired over 280 5-inch shells and the boats expended their 6 torpedoes (all misses) and some 14.5-mm machinegun fire. Breaking contact, the combatants commenced going their separate ways, when the three torpedo boats, T-333, T-336, and T-339 were then attacked by four USN F-8 Crusader jet fighter bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga. The Crusaders reported no hits with their Zuni rockets, but scored hits on all three torpedo boats with their 20-mm cannons, damaging all three boats. Two days later on August 4, the Maddox and the destroyer Turner Joy both reported to be under attack again, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats; during this alleged engagement, the Turner Joy fired approximately 220 3-inch & 5-inch shells at radar controlled surface targets.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 (DESOTO) mission. It also learned that the U.S. Naval Communication Center in the Philippine Islands, in reviewing the ships' messages, had questioned whether any second attack had actually occurred. In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there may not have been any North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the engagement of August 4. The report stated:
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