Word: tonkin
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...Tonkin Gulf incident in 1964 illustrates flaws not only in intelligence but also in Johnson's use of it. When challenged by headquarters, the commander of a two-destroyer U.S. naval patrol that was supposedly attacked at night by North Vietnamese torpedo boats replied hesitantly: "Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects and overeager sonarman may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings." Washington insisted that it had independent confirmation of the attack, but it was a skinny reed on which Lyndon Johnson based the first U.S. air strikes...
...growing antiwar factions on Capitol Hill began searching for legislative leverage to exert on the President. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has reported Charles Mathias' resolution to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and is bringing it to the Senate floor this week. Oregon's Mark Hatfield and South Dakota's George McGovern are pushing for an amendment that would cut off military authorizations for Cambodia immediately, and for South Viet Nam by the end of 1970. Chances for that measure seem slim. More likely to pass next week is an amendment that would cut off funds for the Cambodian...
...President's power to wage war in Southeast Asia. He said he believed the Sherman-Cooper bill that would cut off expenditures for any military activity in Cambodia would surely pass, and that he supported it. Likewise, he said, he might be favorable to repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. "However," he said, "the one move I'm most reluctant to take is the one the students mostly want-the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment [which would bar appropriations for any military operations in Southeast Asia except withdrawal of troops]. I share your concern about the constitutionality of that method...
Electoral politics are impossible this month- the McGovern forces may repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, they may filibuster military appropriations for Indochina, they may even attempt to censure the President for exceeding his constitutional authority. But they can scarcely force the Nixon government to resign and face general elections. U.S. politics are designed for the slow boil, not the blow-up. Political organizing (which, for simplicity, we may define as canvassing) feeds on election momentum. Organizing now requires a format like general elections to expend itself successfully...
...Congress, both Republican and Democratic anti-war senators introduced legislation that would require the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Cambodia in 30 days and from all of Southeast Asia in eight months. At the same time, efforts are being made in the Senate to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution...