Research Catalog

Tonkin Gulf and the escalation of the Vietnam War

Title: Tonkin Gulf and the escalation of the Vietnam War / Edwin E. Moïse.
Author: Moïse, Edwin E., 1946-
Publication: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, ©1996.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	DS557.8.T6 M65 1996	Off-site

Details

Description

xviii, 304 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

On the night of August 4, 1964, the U.S. Navy destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy reported that they were under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Within hours, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the first U.S. airstrikes against North Vietnam, and on August 7, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which gave President Johnson authority to take "all necessary measures" to prevent further aggression.
Almost everyone on the two destroyers believed at the time that they were under attack. Some still believe so, while others have since decided that what had appeared on radar screens as torpedo boats had actually been false images generated by weather conditions, birds, or American planes overhead. In a careful reconstruction of that night's events, Edwin Moise conclusively demonstrates that there was no North Vietnamese attack.
But the original report was not a lie concocted to provide an excuse for escalation; it was a genuine mistake.
To put this error in context, Moise recounts the genuine battle between the Maddox and three North Vietnamese torpedo boats just two days before the phantom incident and describes the overall context in which the United States was drifting into war during 1964. He argues that U.S. policy was inconsistent: President Johnson's senior military and civilian advisors were drawing up plans to escalate the war, but, at the same time, Johnson was cutting the U.S. military budget instead of expanding it.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-296) and index.

Contents

Covert operations -- Thoughts of escalation -- The DeSoto patrol -- The first incident, August 2 -- The DeSoto patrol resumes -- The second incident, August 4 -- The evidence from the destroyers -- Evidence from other sources -- Retaliation -- Toward further escalation.

ISBN

0807823007
9780807823002

LCCN

96012159

OCLC

ocm34477141
34477141
SCSB-14477565

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library