The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was actually two separate incidents claimed to have occurred on August 2 and August 4, 1964. USS Maddox, a US Navy destroyer, engaged in combat with North Vietnamese gunboats when attacked by the latter, and the US government used the attacks as impetus to ramp up American involvement in Southeast Asia. A study of the incident by the National Security Agency, declassified in 2005, revealed that in the incident of August 2 Maddox fired first, not in response to North Vietnamese fire. It also revealed that the reported second attack on August 4 was inaccurate, and that the North Vietnamese did not approach Maddox on that date.
Late on the night of August 4 Americans watching television were surprised when scheduled programming was interrupted by the President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, who informed them that there had been attacks launched by the North Vietnamese Navy against the United States Navy. Johnson claimed the attacks were against two US warships, Maddox and USS Turner Joy. Johnson said that the attack occurred “…on the high seas.”
TIME Magazine reported on the story, increasing the number of attacking North Vietnamese vessels to “…at least six of them…” Life and Newsweek ran similar distortions of the attack, embellished with comments from undisclosed sources. Meanwhile Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was informed by the US Commander of Naval Forces in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John Herrick, that the reported attack on August 4 was highly questionable.
Johnson ordered “retaliatory” air strikes against North Vietnamese military installations and gunboats and pressured Congress for a joint resolution giving him greater flexibility in Vietnam. Congress responded with the Southeast Asia Resolution which provided Johnson with the authority to prosecute the war in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. American involvement in Vietnam began to grow from that moment.
The truth of what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964 has still not been fully revealed, but enough information has been declassified and released to confirm that it was not what was reported by Johnson to the American people and Congress, and that he and McNamara knew that the reports of the August 4 attack were false. Johnson was elected President in a landslide November 1964. The American public support of his policies and actions in Vietnam would steadily deteriorate from that point.