Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - all out war
08/10/1964 AD enacted
Congress gives 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.
Lattitude: 38.9072° N
Longitude: 77.0369° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
Subjects Who or What enacted?
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Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson) 36th President of the Un...
Events in 1964 MORE
