Political Courage: When Was Your Last Sighting?

The Tomkin Gulf Resolution legalizing the war in View Nam.
I nominate Wayne Morse, Democrat from Oregon, for the Badge of Political Courage. ---BBB

The Tomkin Gulf Resolution legalizing the war in View Nam.

On 5 August 1964, President Johnson sent the prepared resolution to Congress. Several members of the House of Representatives voiced reservations. Only two senators vigorously opposed it, including Wayne Morse, Democrat from Oregon, who was outspoken:

"Mr. President [the president pro tempore of the Senate], I rise to speak in opposition to the joint resolution. I do so with a very sad heart. But I consider the resolution . . . to be naught but a resolution which embodies a predated declaration of war . . .

"I am convinced that a continuation of the U.S. unilateral military action in Southeast Asia, which has now taken on the aspects of open aggressive fighting, endangers the peace of the world . . .

"What about the 21,000 American troops in South Vietnam advising the government?

"What about the American air attack, on North Vietnam naval bases?

"What about the shelling of the islands in Tonkin Bay by South Vietnamese vessels? These were all clear acts of war . . .

"I shall not support any substitute which takes the form of military action to expand the war or that encourages our puppets in Saigon to expand the war . . .

"I shall not support any substitute which takes the form of a predated declaration of war. In my judgment, that is what the pending joint resolution is . . ." (3)

Although he would later strongly criticize the U.S. war, Senator Fulbright portrayed the resolution as a moderate measure "calculated to prevent the spread of war." He succeeded, for the time, in blunting public doubts about the war (4).

When it came to a Senate vote on 10 August 1964, only Morse and Ernest Gruening, Democrat from Alaska, opposed it. The vote in the House was unanimous. Opinion polls indicated that eighty-five percent of the public supported the president's decision on Vietnam.

Two Resolutions

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was, in fact, a revision of a lengthier draft drawn up in May 1964 by presidential aide William Bundy, which said that

"if the President determines the necessity thereof, the United States is prepared, upon the request of the Government of South Viet Nam . . . to use all measures, including the commitment of armed forces to assist that government in the defense of its independence and territorial integrity against aggression or subversion supported, controlled or directed from any Communist country" (6).

Slated to be presented to Congress in the week of 22 June 1964, President Johnson held it back, feeling that the situation in Vietnam was not yet critical.

The propitious moment arrived with the events of 2 and 4 August 1964. The draft of the bill was broadened and now "authorized the President to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." When Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara testified before the Senate, Morse challenged the contention that the attack was "unprovoked." McNamara replied that the navy "played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese [patrol boat] action, if there were any" (7). At a Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 1968, McNamara admitted that the Maddox captain had known of South Vietnamese operations, but was unaware of "details."