Tonkin Gulf: A Study in Historical Interpretation
In August 1964 President Lyndon Johnson announced that U.S. ships had been attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin. Johnson dispatched U.S. planes against the attackers and asked Congress to pass a resolution to support his actions. The resolution, featured here, became the subject of great political controversy in the course of the undeclared war that followed.
The details of the events preceding passage of the resolution remain clouded. Your textbook most likely chronicles the Gulf of Tonkin incident as the Johnson administration described it, but consensus about what actually happened remains elusive. This lack of consensus provides you with an excellent opportunity to discuss the process of historical interpretation with your students.
Questions still arising from the Tonkin Gulf incident are these: Did North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964 once? or twice? or not at all? Were the American ships attacked because they were on reconnaissance for South Vietnamese forces raiding the North Vietnamese coast? How did the hotly contested 1964 presidential election campaign influence President Johnson’s quick response to the attack? Did the mounting instability of the South Vietnamese government affect the U.S. reaction to the Tonkin Gulf incident? Did members of the Johnson administration mislead Congress to gain approval to send U.S. ground forces into South Vietnam? Why didn’t President Johnson ask for a declaration of war against North Vietnam?
To aid you in your class discussions of the resolution, you will find here a brief description of the events surrounding U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the passage of the resolution. This description reflects generally accepted scholarship, but of course the events are subject to alternative interpretations.
The United States in Vietnam
In the 1880s, Vietnam became a colony of France. During World War II, the Viet Minh (the Revolutionary League for the Independence of Vietnam) emerged, intent on national independence. With the defeat of Japan by the Allies, France reasserted her sovereignty in Vietnam and drove the Viet Minh underground. The leader of the Viet Minh, Ho Chi Minh, sought and received support for his guerrilla activities from the emerging communist regime in China. As a counter to Ho Chi Minh’s "Democratic Republic of Vietnam," France granted independence to the "State of Viet-Nam" within the French Union in 1949. The United States formally recognized the government of Emperor Bao-Dai in 1950, but extensive U.S. military and economic aid could not prevent a stunning French defeat by the Viet Minh at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954.
Simultaneously with the fall of Dien Bien Phu, a 14-nation conference seekingan end to the war in Korea was meeting in Geneva. At the request of France, this conference also sought to prevent further fighting in Vietnam between the victorious Viet Minh and a noncommunist nationalist government that succeeded the French-controlled administration. In an informal agreement—the Geneva Accords—the conference provisionally divided the territory of Vietnam into two parts at the 17th parallel until July 1956, when an internationally supervised election would determine the government of all of Vietnam.
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In September 1954, a protocol to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) protected South Vietnam, as well as Laos and Cambodia, from outside invasion or subversion just as the treaty itself did for its regular signatories (United States, Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan). The SEATO agreement, like NATO for Europe and, later, CENTO for the Middle East, institutionalized Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ "containment" policy, which was designed to resist Sino-Soviet expansion on a global scale. By extending the protection of a multinational treaty to South Vietnam, the SEATO protocol gave the area international status. The national elections scheduled for 1956 never took place.
By 1960, Ho’s revolutionary tactics and President Ngo Dinh Diem’s unpopular policies finally culminated in the open conflict that the 1954 Geneva conference had tried to avoid. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy committed the first U.S. military advisers to Diem, thereafter increasing their numbers to establish a U.S. "presence" that would bolster morale in South Vietnam. In November 1963, just before Kennedy’s assassination, the already shaky government of President Diem collapsed under a military coup.
Lyndon Johnson assumed the direction of U.S. policy at a time of great instability in South Vietnam. That country would see seven governments in the year 1964. Johnson faced not only changing governments in South Vietnam, but also a strident presidential election against conservative Republican Barry Goldwater at home. On August 4, 1964, President Johnson shocked the nation when he announced in a late evening television address that:
…renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply. The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes. The destroyers and supporting aircraft acted at once on the orders I gave after the initial act of aggression. We believe at least two of the attacking boats were sunk. There were no U.S. losses…. Air action is now in execution against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Viet-Nam which have been used in these hostile operations. In the larger sense this new act of aggression, aimed directly at our own forces, again brings home to all of us in the United States the importance of the struggle for peace and security in southeast Asia. Aggression by terror against the peaceful villagers of South Viet-Nam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America.*
The President went on to say that he would ask the Congress for a formal resolution in support of his actions. Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution on August 7 with only two senators dissenting (Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening). Johnson, and later, President Richard Nixon relied on the resolution as the legal basis for their military policies in Vietnam. But as public resistance to the war heightened, the resolution was repealed by Congress in January 1971. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution is Public Law 88-408, 88th Congress; General Records of the UnitedStates Government, Record Group 11.
Teaching Activities
1. Analyzing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution
a. Identify terms—joint resolution, 88th Congress, Vietnam, Charter of the United Nations, international waters, commander in chief, Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, protocol state, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Acting President pro tempore of the Senate.
b. Review with students each element of the resolution to assure that they comprehend its meaning. What questions does each raise?
c. Discuss with students the general sense of the resolution.
2. Interpreting the Tonkin Gulf Resolution
a. Why did President Johnson seek congressional support for his actions in Vietnam when Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy had not?
b. On August 7, the day the resolution was passed by the Senate, Senator Wayne Morse, rejecting the resolution, said: "…we are in effect giving the President of the United States warmaking powers in the absence of a declaration of war. I believe that to be a historic mistake." Discuss this point of view with students.
c. For what other reasons did the resolution eventually become so controversial?
d. In recent years, U.S. Presidents have committed military forces to fight in foreign countries without a formal declaration of war by Congress. Discuss with students the arguments for and against this change in governmental responsibilities. Consider the constitutional, political, and military implications.
3. Understanding the Tonkin Gulf incident in the context of the war in Vietnam—student activities
a. Using several sources, develop a time line of the August 1964 events in the Gulf of Tonkin. Compare the facts to see if students can reach agreement as to what happened.
b. Encourage students to talk with several adults about their recollections of the Tonkin Gulf incident and their attitudes toward U.S. involvement in Vietnam during the 1960s. Try to reach a cross-section of adults; e.g., a Vietnam War veteran, an anti-war demonstrator, a newspaper person, a World War II veteran, a draftee. Direct students to ask the adult if his or her attitudes toward U.S. conduct in the war changed and if so, when and why. Develop a list of the attitudes reflected by these adults and consider what accounts for the differences among them. Ask several of these people to visit your class and share with students their recollections of the war.
c. It has been said that television news of Vietnam shaped American perceptions of war in a way not experienced in previous wars. As students interview adults who experienced the war, direct them to test this assertion.
d. Consider with students how the U.S. involvement in Vietnam has affected American attitudes toward the draft, toward conventional war, and toward nuclear war.
* L. B. Johnson, Public Papers of the President of the United States. Book II (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), p. 927.