The sun rose on FRIDAY today!

On this day in 1964, the US Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.

The USS Maddox, a U.S. destroyer, was conducting a electronic eavesdropping 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. Breaking contact, the combatants commenced going their separate ways, when the three torpedo boats were then attacked by four USN F-8 Crusader jet fighter bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga.

President Johnson, fearful of being portrayed as soft on communism, ohnson wanted another “incident” where it was unambiguous that the North Vietnamese were the aggressors by attacking American warships in waters that the American regarded as international. ohnson ordered the Maddox to continue to cruise off the coast of North Vietnam, to be joined by another destroyer, USS Turner Joy, with orders “to attack any force that attacks them”. Two days later on a very stormy night on 4 August 1964, Maddox and the destroyer Turner Joy both reported to be under attack again, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats; during this alleged engagement, Turner Joy fired approximately 220 3-inch & 5-inch shells at surface targets showing on the radar. In response to the reported attack, aircraft from the Ticonderoga were launched, but the pilots reported no visual contact with any craft other than the two destroyers.

Early on the morning of August 4, 1964, Johnson told several congressmen at a meeting that North Vietnam had just attacked an American patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin in international waters and promised retaliation. A press release from the Defense Department accused North Vietnam of a “second deliberate attack” on American warships in international waters. Within hours, President Johnson ordered the launching of retaliatory air strikes on the bases of the North Vietnamese torpedo boats and announced, in a television address to the American public that same evening, that U.S. naval forces had been attacked.

On 5 August 1964, Johnson submitted the resolution to Congress, which if passed would give him the legal power to “take all necessary measures” and “prevent further aggression” as well as allowing him to decide when “peace and security” in Southeast Asia were attained. Johnson commented the resolution was “like grandma’s nightshirt-it covered everything”. Armed with the resolution, the United States gradually increased it’s commitment to the war in Vietnam to tragic consequences for both countries.