Gulf of Tonkin incident and American escalation in Vietnam

Date

August 1964 – March 1965

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Southeast Asia (Vietnam)

Era

Contemporary

Significance

In early August 1964 the United States reported clashes between US Navy destroyers and North Vietnamese vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin; a claimed second attack on 4 August was later shown not to have occurred. President Lyndon B.

Johnson used the incidents to secure the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by Congress on 7 August 1964, granting broad authority to use military force in Southeast Asia. This became the principal legal basis for a vast escalation of US involvement in the Second Indochina (Vietnam) War. Sustained bombing of North Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder) began in early 1965, and on 8 March 1965 the first US Marine combat units landed near Da Nang, marking the start of large-scale American ground operations. US troop levels rose to over 500,000 by 1969. The escalation transformed a regional anti-colonial and civil conflict into a major Cold War confrontation with global repercussions and intense domestic opposition in the United States.

Empires active in August 1964 – March 1965

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Solomonic dynasty
  1270 CE – 1974 CE
• Dutch Empire
  1581 CE – 1975 CE

Related military & conflict events

• Fall of Saigon and reunification of Vietnam
  30 April 1975 (reunified 1976)
• Tet Offensive
  30 January 1968
• Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords
  1954
• First Indochina War and the fall of Dien Bien Phu
  1946–1954
• Cuban Missile Crisis
  16–28 October 1962
• Khmer Rouge Seize Cambodia and Declare Year Zero
  1975

Further reading

A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads

The wider story

A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads

Anthony Reid

Authoritative yet readable history of the whole region, mainland and maritime.

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