President Lyndon Johnson’s televised speech on the night of August 4, 1964 gave an impulse for an increased military engagement of America in Vietnam.
“Aggression by terror against peaceful villages of South Vietnam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America.” (Appy, 112).
Johnson informed the Congress, as well as all ordinary civilians, of the unprovoked aggression of the Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tokin. He explained that Maddox and Turner Joy, the ‘innocent’ destroyers stationed in that area had torpedoes launched against them in two separate attacks. Clearly the Vietnamese were getting out of hand if they began attacking the American people, who were simply surveying the area, “…sailing innocently…” (Appy 112).
Although Johnson did not directly imply a state of war, he sparked a large enough interest in the protection of America’s safety overseas. Within a few days of the speech, he had the Congress wrapped around his finger and gained almost wholehearted support in increasing military presence in Vietnam. The presence of American soldiers in Vietnam grew exponentially with time.
There would be nothing wrong with this situation, had it not been for one “minor” detail – the fact that the incident was fabricated. There were no two separate attacks, and the Americans were not innocently surveying the area – they were targeting the North Vietnamese for over three years.
What I found most shocking in all of this was that the White House had prepared a Gulf of Tokin Resolution two moths prior to the incident, hoping that an incident leading to it would eventually occur. We give our trust to the government and believe the justifications of its actions – but time and time again, the truth surfaces and with it a lot of “what ifs.”