The new president of the United States was Lyndon Baines Johnson. One of the best politicians since Franklin Roosevelt, Johnson had been poor as a child, but he had worked hard and had become the leader of the United States Senate, where his ability to bring opponents together and to make deals had made him a legend.
In 1960, Johnson sought the Democratic nomination for president. John F. Kennedy defeated him, but recognized that, as an Irish Catholic from the Northeast with a Harvard background, he needed help in winning the traditionally Democratic South. For that reason he selected Johnson to run for vice-president on his ticket. The two won a close race against Nixon and Lodge.
After the election Kennedy and his “New Frontiersman” paid little attention to Johnson. Kennedy’s people were very able and were very loyal to the president. Johnson, with his rough manner and folksy ways, was not liked by the Kennedy people. But he had his own vision for America. He wanted to bring about great changes-to complete the work of the man he idolized, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Johnson’s presidency began in the tragedy of Dallas and was to end in the tragedy of Vietnam. His dream of a fair and wealthy society was left behind in the nightmare of war in a nation he may not have heard of in his youth. Johnson’s skills were in domestic policy-social programs, justice, and civil rights-not foreign policy. But Johnson took over the nation’s highest office at a time in history when a very important decision had to be made about foreign policy.
It was not really just one decision, though. No one came into the president’s office and said, “Hey you have to decide today if America is going to fight a war in Vietnam.” No, what happened was that small decisions had to be made one at a time. Each one moved America closer to the day when it would wake up and find that it was at war. To gain a better understanding of what was to happen, let us step back a little and see what happened in Vietnam from the communist viewpoint.
In December of 1960, the National Liberation Front (NLF) was formed in South Vietnam. Its members included many parts of the Vietnamese community. There were communists, to be sure. In fact, the communists played a major role in the leadership of the NLF. But there were others, too, who sought a free and democratic Vietnam, who opposed the religious persecution of the Diem regime, who sought to overthrow the government if only to gain power for themselves.
There was something in the NLF to appeal to almost every part of Vietnamese society. In fact, by 1962, the NLF had become an important part of as many as eighty percent of the rural villages in South Vietnam. It had become a second government and one that was in many ways closer to the people.
It was also becoming pushier. With weapons from the North, it started a campaign against the village leaders appointed from Saigon. Hundreds of these were killed. The NLF killing in the villages, joined with Buddhist protests in the streets, made the government in Saigon a shaky one at best. Even without these problems, that government might have been in trouble, for Diem’s death did nothing to end the battle for power among the politicians.
In January of 1964, just two months after Diem’s death, the government in Saigon changed hands twice. It was to do so twelve more times in the next two years. The news, in short, was bad news for those who counted on the American-backed government in Saigon to hold off communism in Southeast Asia.
At this time the number of American advisors had grown to sixteen thousand-which is a good many “advisors” to have. Included in the advice they gave was a plan to have the South Vietnamese Navy act to cut off supplies from North Vietnam. Some of these supplies were being delivered by sea, landing on the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin. The coastline of Vietnam is shaped like the letter “S”, and the Gulf of Tonkin fills the upper loop in the letter.
Along this huge coastline the North Vietnamese could deliver their supplies almost anywhere, but, of course, there were only a few naval bases at which their ships could load. The easiest way to cut off naval shipments was to do so at their source-the North Vietnamese naval bases.
In January of 1964, the South Vietnamese Navy with the help of the CIA began firing at these bases from ships off shore. It was a small step to take, but an important one. South Vietnam’s successes were to be American successes, and its failures were America’s failures as well. The United States had raised the stakes just as the North Vietnamese had when they began supplying the NLF.
Within two months, the North Vietnamese raised the stakes again. NLF assaults expanded and included some attacks on Americans. The newest leaders of South Vietnam (General Minh and Tran Van Don) were not sure they would be able to contain the NLF. They began to talk of a “neutralist” answer. This would be similar to what happened in Laos. A government would be formed that included some NLF members in important positions, but the country would be neutral, at least for a while.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was very much against a neutralist solution in Vietnam for he felt that it would simply mean a temporary neutralist government followed by an NLF takeover without the need to win a military victory. Bur the United States could not really oppose the wishes of the South Vietnamese leaders without offering them another solution, so the military commitment in South Vietnam was increased to twenty-three thousand advisors.
At the same time President Johnson ordered his aides to come up with a list of targets to be bombed in North Vietnam in case North Vietnam pushed too hard. Johnson’s action here is important. The bombing of North Vietnam, a nation with no troops officially in South Vietnam, meant real war. It was also possible that the Chinese would come into such a war.
The action can be seen in different ways. It could be seen as though the United States was looking for an excuse to bomb North Vietnam or it could be seen as normal planning, just in case. In an age of jets and missiles, the leaders of a nation cannot be expected to think up their responses to attack after the attack has taken place. Things move too quickly for that. It is normal and proper that plans be developed in advance. The motto “Be Prepared” is not used only by the Boy Scouts.
As we will see the bombing plan probably fit somewhere between these two ideas. It was not exactly just a plan on a piece of paper nor was it the raising of a fist. It was more like taking off a glove, a decision that if the United States felt pushed there would be a strong response. This is the danger in contingency planning. The decision to take strong action against a country if it commits a certain act is easy to make if you do not believe that you will ever have to take the action. Then, when that country does act, the reaction takes place without much further thought. So a decision made without any belief that it will be needed becomes something close to a final decision.
By late spring little had changed. Indeed, if anything, matters were worse. The South Vietnamese, by this time led by General Khanh, asked the United States to help take the land war to North Vietnam. The request was turned down, but other choices were considered. Johnson himself was upset by the events in Southeast Asia. He asked the CIA to look into the reason given for American involvement: That the fall of South Vietnam would have a “domino” effect and lead to the toppling of other non-communist nations in Asia. The CIA disagreed with the theory.
Johnson apparently ignored the CIA’s views, for, soon after its report, he took another quiet step in the growing conflict. The step had to be quiet because Johnson was beginning his campaign for election to a full term as president, and in that election he would paint his opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater, as a dangerous man who would readily risk war. He would try to show himself as a man of peace. No one would have believed Johnson’s campaign if they knew of his next step. He was about to offer the North Vietnamese the choice of a carrot or a stick, and the stick was a very powerful one.
Johnson’s messenger was Blair Seaborn, a Canadian diplomat, who had been recently assigned to the unpleasant post of being the Canadian delegate to the International Control Commission. That group, you remember, was set up by the Geneva agreements at the end of the French war. Its purpose was to oversee those agreements. The job was unpleasant because neither side had paid the least attention to the agreements for years. It was a do-nothing job, the kind that could place a diplomat out of the real action long enough so that everyone would forget about him.
As it turned out, Seaborn was to have an exciting and important role to play on his very first day on the job. The United States approached the Canadian government, which agreed to deliver a message through Seaborn to the government in Hanoi. In mid-June, Seaborn, armed with briefing papers from the American State Department, met with Pham Van Dong, the prime minister of North Vietnam.
The message he delivered was not very clear. He told the prime minister that while the United States had only slight interest in Vietnam, it also only had limited patience with the subversion sponsored by North Vietnam. On behalf of the United States he offered economic aid for North Vietnam in exchange for an agreement by that nation to halt its aid to the National Liberation Front.
Pham Van Dong’s response was clearer. He told Seaborn that Hanoi was interested in a just solution to the problem. But that, for a solution to be just, it must include a neutralized South Vietnam, that is, a government including the NLF. Such a government would be seen as the first step toward making the nation one again. In general, this response was a rejection of the American carrot. But Phan Van Dong coupled it with a statement of interest in talks. In other words, he had heard what the Americans wanted and stated what the North Vietnamese wanted. Further talks might lead to a middle ground in which both sides got some part of what they wanted.
Seaborn warned him that, if pushed, the United States might feel obliged to carry the war into the north. The prime minister assured him that there would be no reason to do that and again stated his interest in further talks.
There were no further talks before trouble brewed, and there is no known record on paper as to why there were not. Seaborn, an experienced diplomat, felt that the North Vietnamese were serious and looked forward to further discussions, but the State Department did not follow up on his offer to start such talks. In eight more weeks it would be too late for talking.
Richard Nixon has said that the greatest danger to peace is miscalculation: one side misunderstanding the other side. In this case it seems likely that both sides miscalculated. The North Vietnamese were not told what the American “stick” was, because Seaborn himself did not know that President Johnson had agreed to a program of air and naval bombing of the north if they did not stop aiding the NLF. It is possible they thought the American “stick” was something else: an increase in military advisors or arms shipments to South Vietnam. These matters would not have troubled them very much.
It seems sure that the United States was wrong about the dedication of the North Vietnamese and their willingness to suffer great losses to reach their goal of a united Vietnam under communist rule. We will never know if a knowledge of those facts would have made any difference. The situation in South Vietnam was so bad that it might not have.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara believed forty percent of South Vietnam was under NLF control or influence and that the South Vietnamese had very little will to fight back. The soldiers were deserting, and the people’s support for the war was very low. The American presence was disliked by many.
In that same report to President Johnson, McNamara stated: We are not acting against North Vietnam except by a very modest ‘covert’ program operated by South Vietnam… a program so limited it is unlikely to have any significant effect.”
The “very modest” program mentioned by McNamara was Operation 34-A, and it was going to have a very important effect. South Vietnamese gunboats, under directions from’ American commanders, were bombarding islands used as bases by the North Vietnamese along the Gulf of Tonkin. Late on the evening of July 3r, 1964, a group of such boats left Da Nang to engage in such a mission well into North Vietnamese territory.
At the same time the American destroyer USS Maddox was sailing in international waters one hundred miles to the south. lts orders were to come not closer than eight miles from the coast. By noon on August 2, 1964, the Maddox was in the general area in which the South Vietnamese had been bombarding when it came under fire from three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The Maddox reported the attack to the Pentagon and forced the attackers to retreat. It reported its position as thirty miles offshore. President Johnson ordered another destroyer to join the Maddox. The second ship-the USS C. Turner Joy-joined the Maddox in the early morning of August 4. At about the same time, further Operation 34-A attacks were launched against North Vietnamese facilities on the coast, and South Vietnamese planes attacked North Vietnamese border villages.
A few hours later the Maddox and the C. Tuner Joy reported a second attack. Later telegrams from the ships were less clear as to whether an attack had taken place or not. But it does seem clear that the president and his advisors believed that a second attack had taken place and had good reasons for that belief. The president ordered the bombing of selected targets in North Vietnam and announced his decision to the American people as the planes were returning from their mission. They had destroyed twenty-five North Vietnamese patrol vessels and a large number of oil storage tanks.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident was the beginning of a full-scale American commitment to the war in Vietnam. It is the major event of the period and, as we shall see, provided the legal basis for further American involvement. But what happened and why it happened remains unclear.
An attack of some sort took place. It seems safe to believe that the attack took place because of the South Vietnamese coastal raids as well as the bombing of the border villages. What is not clear is whether the second attack, which led to the American bombing, really took place and why the Maddox was in the area to begin with.
All that is officially said about the Maddox is that it was on a regular information gathering mission. If that mission was meant to aid the Operation 34-A attacks, then one can understand, from a military sense, why the North Vietnamese responded to those attacks by attacks on American vessels. But Operation 34-A had been going on for six months when the Gulf of Tonkin incident took place, and the North Vietnamese had not attacked American vessels before.
The North Vietnamese response seemed well prepared. Coming as it did so soon after the Seaborn mission to Hanoi, it is best understood by assuming that the North Vietnamese were testing to see what the American “stick” might be. It is also likely that the North Vietnamese were simply angry with the Operation 34-A attacks and were showing the Americans that they would be held responsible for future ones.
Whatever the reason, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was to lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths and eight more years of war.
For some months, as we know, there had been plans to deal with an attack by the North Vietnamese. One part of those plans was to get an agreement from the Congress giving the president the power to act freely in Vietnam. President Johnson had spent many years in Congress. He was an expert at getting what he wanted from it, but he knew also that he had to respect its authority. Under the Constitution of the United States only Congress may declare war.
Johnson did not want a declaration of war because that act carried with it the danger that the Russians and the Chinese would become obligated by treaty to declare war on the United States. While that was unlikely, the danger of it was too great to risk.
The resolution drafted by Johnson’s aides was not a declaration of war, but its language provided a legal basis for almost any action that the president chose to take. After talking with Congressional leaders, the resolution, known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, was presented to Congress and passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on August 7, 1964. The vote in the House was 416-0, and the vote in the Senate was 88-2. The two Senators opposing the resolution were Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska. Both felt that the resolution gave the president too much power. Both were right.
The important language read as follows:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the Congress approve and support the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack and to prevent further aggression.
The formal language is amazing in its scope. The Congress gave the president the power to “take all necessary measures” to “prevent further aggression.” What measures were necessary? What actions could be seen as aggression? These were matters for the president to decide.
The resolution was passed on promises from Secretary McNamara and Secretary Rusk that the United States had not acted against the North Vietnamese. Included in these promises were statements from both men that the South Vietnamese coastal raids were conducted in the south. Secretary McNamara admitted that he thought they may have included some raids on the north. This hesitation about the area of the raids is odd because McNamara had received papers on the subject on May 19, June 13, July 1 and July 28.
Had Congress been fully aware of the nature of the raids, it is unlikely that the outcome would have been much different. A very popular president, who was running for reelection, had asked a Congress controlled by his fellow Democrats for the power to act in response to a foreign attack on American ships in international waters. Most of the Congress was up for reelection, too and the public would have been very angered by a vote against the resolution.
Whether they knew it or not, and many said later that they did not, the Congress had given the president the power to wage war in Southeast Asia and over the months and years ahead, the president would use that power fully.
