Preparing a Response
Preparing a Response
Roughly two days after a North Vietnamese attack on the U.S.S. Maddox off the Gulf of Tonkin, President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara consider their options for responding to a second such attack.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson, thirty-sixth President of the United States, 1963-1969.
Biographical sketch from American President.
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Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense, 1961-1968.
Biographical sketch from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
LBJ Daily Diary, August 4, 1964.
New York Times, front page, August 5, 1964.
Telegram from the Commander in Chief, Pacific (Sharp) to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Wheeler), August 4, 1964 | Source: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
Telephone Conversation Tapes WH6408.04.4658, Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum. Raw audio file available at the Miller Center's Scripps Library.
Track of USS Maddox, July 31 - August 2, 1964. Source: Department of the Navy | Naval Historical Center.
Bibliographies
Bibliography - Vietnam Conflict, Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Bibliography of the Vietnam War, Prof. Edward E. Moise, Clemson University.
Vietnam War Bibliography, Richard Jensen, University of Illinois-Chicago.
Tonkin Gulf Incidents, August 1964: A Selected Bibliography, Naval Historical Center.
Scholarship
David Barrett, Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and his Vietnam Advisers (Lawrence, Kansas: 1994).
Frederik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (Berkeley: 1999).
Robert Mann, A Grand Delusion: America's Descent into Vietnam (New York: 2001).
Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: 1995).
Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: 1996).
Brian VanDeMark, Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (New York: 1991).
Archives
Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, TX.
Virtual Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.
U.S. Department of State: Office of the Historian, U.S. Reactions to the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1-10.
Documents Relating to the Vietnam War, Mt. Holyoke College.
Websites
The Wars for Viet Nam, Vassar College.
Vietnam Online, American Experience, pbs.org.
Gulf of Tonkin, 1964: Perspectives from Lyndon Johnson and National Military Command Center Tapes, Whitehousetapes.net exhibit available from Miller Center.
August 3, 1964, WH6408.03, LBJL.
Following an attack on the U.S.S. Maddox in the Tonkin Gulf, President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara strategize on how best to inform Congress of the circumstances surrounding the attack.
August 4, 1964, NMCC Tapes, VN01.10, Whitehousetapes.org.
As real-time information flowed into the Pentagon from the Maddox and the Turner Joy, the story became more and more confusing. Admiral U.S. Grant "Oley" Sharp, commander of the Pacific Fleet, fed reports to Washington as soon as he recieved them. In this phone call, Sharp briefed Air Force General David Burchinal, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the latest information. This telephone call was recorded at the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon.
August 6, 1964, WH6408.09, LBJL.
While keeping tabs on an impending congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in Southeast Asia, President Johnson also had to manage the flow of information about the events precipitating the solution itself. In this conversation, Johnson asks long-time Democratic hand James Rowe to counsel Minnesota senator Hubert H. Humphrey-- Johnson's pending running-mate in the upcoming November election--about Humphrey's recent verbal indiscretions.
Preparing a Response
See Stephanie van Hover, Marc J. Selverstone, and Patrice Preston-Grimes, "Window Into the White House," Social Education, vol. 72, no. 3 (April 2008), 130-135.
Teaching with the Tapes
Chester Pach, "The United States in the 1960s," Ohio Univesity.
Jeff Woods, "White House Tapes," Arkansas Tech University.