Word: tonkin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...begin a conflict by a declaration of war, and then sustain it by voting whatever appropriations the President requests to carry on the fighting. The U.S., of course, has not declared war in Viet Nam. Nonetheless, in 1964 Congress did pass, with only two dissenting votes, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, affirming its readiness "to approve and support the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression...
Fulbright himself sponsored the Tonkin resolution, a fact he now loudly regrets, claiming that the President has taken the measure as a blank check to wage unlimited war without any further consultation with Congress. For his part, President Johnson argued at his last press conference that Congress could vote to rescind the Tonkin resolution-but that also was legalistic legerdemain, since the President insisted at the same time that he had had no constitutional need for the Tonkin resolution in the first place...
Even Fulbright does not believe that the Tonkin resolution should be rescinded. "I don't advocate its being brought up," he said. "An overwhelming defeat of such a move would be interpreted as an affirmation." Still, Illinois' Charles Percy, as a voluntary witness before the committee, suggested that the President should annually "itemize for the Congress our national commitments as he sees them, detailing the nature of each commitment, its limitations, and the justification for it in terms of national interest." In fact-if informally-Johnson has consulted more closely with Congress on foreign policy than...
...propaganda." To his critics on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is holding hearings to prove its contention that congressional authority in foreign affairs is being trampled upon, Johnson insisted he was within his constitutional rights to conduct undeclared war in Viet Nam. He reminded them of the broad Tonkin Gulf resolution, passed three years ago, in which Congress approved "all necessary steps, including the use of armed force...
Twice in the same day, the clang of fire bells sounded over the Gulf of Tonkin, and the cry of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" issued from the loudspeaker of the U.S.S. Forrestal, the Navy's third largest aircraft carrier (after the Enterprise and America). Each time the blaze was doused in minutes, but an uneasy calm settled over the 76,000-ton ship. Only the day before, the Forrestal had arrived off the North Vietnamese coast for her first combat duty, and her 4,500-man crew grimly recalled that a fire had killed 44 men aboard the carrier Oriskany...