On August 7, 1964, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed. The resolution said that that the Johnson administration could do whatever they thought was best to defend Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. It passed with all of the votes in the House of Representatives, and it passed with 82 votes in support of it and only 2 votes against it in the Senate. Wayne K. Morse, a Democrat from Oregon, and Ernest Gruening, a Democrat from Alaska, were the only votes that were against this bill.
President Johnson signed the resolution into law 3 days later, on August 10. Once this bill became law, it was the legal basis for every action of President Johnson and his Johnson administration during the United States’ conduct of the war with Southeast Asia. It had very strong support during the next few years, but as President Johnson used it to increase the United States’ part in the Vietnam War, it lost its support. Then in 1970, Congress voted to have it no longer be a law.
