USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia.

Detailed explanation-2: -Passed nearly unanimously by Congress on 7 August and signed into law three days later, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution-or Southeast Asia Resolution, as it was officially known-was a pivotal moment in the war and gave the Johnson administration a broad mandate to escalate U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

Detailed explanation-3: -Johnson believed that if he permitted South Vietnam to fall through a conventional North Vietnamese invasion, the whole containment edifice so carefully constructed since World War II to stop the spread of communism (and the influence of the Soviet Union) would crumble.

Detailed explanation-4: -A joint resolution “To promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia.” It is of historic significance because it gave U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, to use conventional military force in Southeast Asia.