The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Was Passed - Aug. 7, 1964

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed on this day in 1964.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff You
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and its August seven.

(00:21):
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed on this date
in four This was when the United States became fully
involved in the Vietnam War. Vietnam had been divided into
North and South Vietnam about ten years earlier, and this
was supposed to be temporary. It's a temporary measure and
some fighting, but the Cold War between the United States
and the Soviet Union got in the way. They were

(00:43):
both involved in these negotiations. It became pretty much a
stalemate as they had their own issues to resolve. The
United States, though, wanted to stop the spread of communism,
and there were fears that a United Vietnam would be
united under a communist government. So the nation remained divided
with a communist government in North Vietnam and a government

(01:05):
in South Vietnam that had a lot more ties to
the capitalist nations. In the West, but a war soon followed.
At first, the United States wasn't formally involved in this war,
but it did support the efforts of South Vietnam, especially
when it came to fighting communist insurgents within South Vietnam
who were being aided by the North, and that's why

(01:28):
there was already a U. S. Military presence there before
the United States was officially involved in this war. On
August two of nineteen sixty four, the U. S. S.
Maddox was on a reconnaissance mission in the Gulf of
Tonkin that's a body of water between Vietnam and China,
that was attacked by a Vietnamese patrol boat. In response

(01:48):
to that attack, the United States sent a second destroyer
to the area, that was the U. S. S. Turner Joy.
On August four, Both these destroyers reported another attack by
North Vietnam as well, although there was a lot of
confusion about exactly what happened. The events of August two
and fourth, though, prompted US President Lyndon Johnson to seek

(02:09):
Congressional approval to go to war. The Gulf of Tonkian
Resolution followed. It read quote, Congress approves and supports 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.
This was unanimously passed in the House of Representatives and

(02:31):
only two no votes were recorded in the Senate, and
the President signed it into law on August ten. Following this,
United States started an intensive bombing campaign, and American troops
were in Vietnam in March of nineteen sixty five. What
followed after this was a long and deadly war, with
hundreds of thousands of civilians killed. US involvement lasted for

(02:53):
almost a decade, and as the war became more and
more unpopular in the United States, the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution was repealed in ninety one, and the United States
withdrew in nineteen seventy three. There were doubts from the
beginning about what had really happened on August four. Visibility
on the water at the time was really poor, and

(03:15):
the crew of both vessels were extremely anxious about the
possibility of another attack. A pilot who was flying recon
over the area so that there were no Vietnamese vessels
attacking the American ships. The incident was described as firing
on phantom ships basically radar and sonar readings that were
being misread by over eager operators. Then, documents that were

(03:40):
declassified in two thousand five and two thousand six suggested
that this whole thing might have been fabricated, and that
some officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, might have
deliberately misled the President and the Congress in this information
about what led them to go to war. The Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution had also been incredibly broad. It had

(04:00):
given the president almost unlimited power when it came to
the war in Southeast Asia, so Congress passed the War
Powers Act in three was passed over President Richard Nixon's
veto get set limits on presidential power to take military
action without involving Congress. The goal was to prevent another

(04:22):
Vietnam War, although presidents since then have argued that it's
an unconstitutional infringement on presidential power. Thanks to Eve's Jeff
Code for her research work in today's episode and Tatari
Harrison for her audio work on this podcast, You can
subscribe to This Day in History class on Apple Podcasts,
Google Podcasts, and wherever rail do you get your podcasts.

(04:43):
You can tune in tomorrow for a major battle that
turned the tide of the First World War.