Kennedy, which had already sent military advisors to the country to support homegrown forces. By 1963, his hold over power in South Vietnam was so tenuous that he was ultimately overthrown (and assassinated) by some of his own generals in a move reportedly sanctioned by the administration of President John F. Support for Diem continued to erode within South Vietnam, and it wasn’t helped by the leader’s unpopular domestic agriculture policies. However, the United States was committed to containing the spread of communism-this was at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union-and by the late 1950s, the American government had thrown its support behind South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem when he refused to hold elections. In 1954, following the defeat of the French colonialists at the hands of the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, the last battle of the First Indochina War, the country of Vietnam was divided into northern and southern halves, ruled by separate regimes, during the Geneva Conference.Įlections were scheduled to reform the country under a unified government-elections the communists of the North, who had support in the rural South, were favored to win.
However, that ultimately proved not to be the case. Johnson, with the understanding that the president would seek their approval before launching a full-scale war in Vietnam with U.S. Senate.Ĭongress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution at the insistence of President Lyndon B. House of Representatives, and with only two opposing votes in the U.S. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution effectively launched America’s full-scale involvement in the Vietnam War.īy 1964, Vietnam was embroiled in a decades-long civil war, and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was the beginning of the United States’ formal involvement in the Vietnam War, with the stated goal of stopping the spread of communism in the region. naval destroyers stationed off the coast of Vietnam. Congress after an alleged attack on two U.S. It was passed on August 7, 1964, by the U.S.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam.
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