August 2, 1964 marks the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin attack, which led to an escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The USS Maddox was patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin, situated between North Vietnam and China, collecting intelligence in international waters when it engaged three North Vietnamese naval boats. The Maddox initially believed it had been fired upon by three torpedoes, which all missed; it retaliated with over 280 3-inch and 5-inch shells, while jet fighter bombers strafed the torpedo boats. One U.S. aircraft was damaged and though one round hit the destroyer, there were no U.S. casualties. A second incident reportedly took place two days later but this appears to have involved false radar images and not actual torpedo boat attacks. As a result of these incidents, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by “communist aggression.”
The resolution served as Johnson’s legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and starting open warfare against North Vietnam. There has long been speculation that the Tonkin incidents were merely a pretext for LBJ and the military to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified, which concluded that “the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first.”
General Maxwell D. Taylor was Ambassador to South Vietnam from July 1964 until July 1965 and was interviewed by Ted Gittinger in September 1981. The Ambassador to South Vietnam from 1957-61, Elbridge Durbrow was in Paris at the time of the incident as a delegate to the NATO conference; he was interviewed by Gittinger in June 1981. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was appointed in 1961 and was a major player in President Johnson’s decisions concerning the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Paige E. Mulhollan conducted this interview in July 1969. James F. Leonard, an employee of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), was in the Far Eastern Affairs bureau and was interviewed by Warren Unna in March 1993. Thomas L. Hughes was the Director of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the State Department and was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy in July 1999. Go here to read other Moments on Vietnam.
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