The Tonkin Gulf Resolution And The Vietnam War

The United States of America is the longest lasting democracy to date, but America did not get there in holy grace as many believe it to have done. The fact is America got to where she is through failures, miscalculations, terrorism, conspiracy, and lying to its very own people through many facets of foreign policies and actions in other countries. The Vietnam War, specifically the Gulf-of-Tonkin Resolution and the Gulf-of-Tonkin Incident, are prime examples of how far American Presidential Administrations went to exclude themselves from their own Constitution to give themselves a blank check for war. The Gulf-of-Tonkin Incident was a complete fabrication that from the start was meant to provoke a military response from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The time frame is December 1962 and the Joint Chiefs of Staff started a covert reconnaissance patrol just off the shores of a few high interest western Pacific Ocean countries, dubbed the DeSoto Patrol. (Moise 50) The claimed purpose “was to collect information about seaborne infiltration from North Vietnam to South Vietnam.” (Moise 51) Another released purpose was to determine the DRV’s coastal patrol activity and to also get a ‘better’ intelligence picture of the coast ‘in case’ we had to engage in operations. . The December 1962 and the following April Patrol in 1963 was said to be a waste of time by their crews, visibility was low and little to no intelligence was gathered; Lieutenant Gerrell Moore who was the officer in charge of the simply equipped NSA listening ‘COMVAN’ that was on board the ships and said, “We had no capability to learn anything significant in that area.” (Moise 51) What the real objective was; there was no real objective! This was also a cover story in the larger plan of the provocation of the DRV hoping to get them to fire at US forces. The equipment in the COMVAN was simple at best, nowhere near the technology they needed nor the distance capabilities they needed. A small excursion ordered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January 1964 was also unsuccessful once again to bad weather, but newly in Command Captain John Herrick of the USS Maddox would forever change the way history is written in late July and early August. A July 27th briefing to commanding officers of the USS Maddox left them feeling like they were embarking on a leisure cruise with no hostility expected.