Word: tonkin
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...Fulbright's longest and fiercest fight was against the Viet Nam War ("an endless, futile war ... debilitating and indecent"), which he saw as an exercise in stark imperialism. He began badly, agreeing in 1964 to sponsor the Tonkin Gulf resolution at the request of Johnson, an old friend. Ostensibly designed to allow U.S. forces to hit back when attacked, the resolution was interpreted by Johnson as justifying full-scale land combat-the very last thing that Fulbright had in mind. Later he admitted: "I was derelict there...
Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When Robinson was transferred out in 1971 (he later was killed in the Gulf of Tonkin), the order was reiterated, Radford maintained, by Robinson's successor, Rear Admiral Robert O. Welander...
Before the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, Reston opposed further U.S. involvement in Vietnam because he was unconvinced that the future of South Vietnam was vital to American security. When President Johnson began to claim that that was the case, Reston was satisfied--but only briefly. By 1965 he saw that the war could not continue without a massive U.S. ground troop commitment, and he knew that although Americans were unwilling to give up the end of halting communism, they were equally unwilling to use the means of such a large commitment...
Aside from the question of the raids' effectiveness, there was also considerable debate as to whether the bombing violated U.S. law. In contrast to Viet Nam, Cambodia is not a member of SEATO and has no defense treaty with the U.S. Lyndon Johnson used to cite the Tonkin Gulf Resolution as his authority to wage war in Indochina, but Congress repealed that resolution in 1971. Indeed, after the "incursion" of 1970, Congress specifically barred the use of U.S. combat forces in Cambodia. The final justification-that U.S. air raids defended American troops in Viet Nam-vanished when the last...
...silence? The Commander-in-Chief perceives no affront in this arrogant demand from the sidelines. He gives his word, and we delay our report for a day. No such bargain was ever struck again ... The essential ingredient was trust, and that was lost somewhere between Dallas and Tonkin...