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It was an election year and Johnson resisted more aggressive suggestions from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, such as actual bombing of the North and US combat troops in the South. He did not feel there was enough public support for the actions. He did, though, ask his aide William Bundy to draft a congressional resolution to authorize more involvement in the war if the time was reached when Johnson felt he had sufficient political capital.

On July 30th of 1964, one of the most controversial episodes of the Vietnam War began. South Vietnamese ships were shelling North Vietnamese islands under US direction in the Gulf of Tonkin. The North Vietnamese Navy went on alert. On the afternoon of August 2nd, the destroyer USS Maddox was moving through international waters gathering intelligence to support further South Vietnamese attacks. The commander of a North Vietnamese torpedo squadron moved his boats in position to attack. The Maddox opened fire and missed, the North Vietnamese torpedos also missed. Carrier-based US planes, however, damaged two North Vietnamese boats and left a third dead in the water.

Ho Chi Minh was shocked to hear his navy actually attacked the Americans. The officer on duty was officially reprimanded for impulsiveness. But no one knows who actually gave the order to attack. To this day, even the Vietnamese can't agree on who gave the order. Some point the finger at Le Duan.

In Washington, the Joint Chiefs wanted immediate retaliation against North Vietnam. Johnson refused and issued a severe warning to North Vietnam. On August 4th, US radio operators mistranslated a North Vietnamese command and felt a new operation was imminent. The actual message was for North Vietnamese torpedo boats to be ready for a new South Vietnamese raid.

The Maddox and another destroyer, the Turner Joy, got ready for an attack. No actual attack happened, but sonar operators on the Maddox and the Turner Joy convinced themselves that one had happened. They deemed the phantom North Vietnamese attack "probable but not certain." Since the attack "probably" happened, Johnson felt compelled to follow through with the consequences of his warning. Johnson ordered airstrikes against North Vietnamese targets.

Johnson sent the resolution he had drafted to Congress. The Tonkin Gulf resolution is passed on August 7th, 1964 by a vote of 88-2 in the Senate. Not one congressman in the House opposed it. Johnson had the authorization for force that he wanted and his approval for his handling of Vietnam jumped from 42% to 72% a few months before the election.

Le Duan wanted to escalate before Johnson got US combat troops into the South. He began, for the first time, sending North Vietnamese Army regulars down to the South. On November 1st, the Vietcong shelled Bien Hoa airbase. Five Americans were killed and five US planes were destroyed while 15 more were damaged.

Johnson decisively won re-election to the presidency. He then began what was called a "graduated response." This included limited air attacks on North Vietnamese troops on the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and retaliatory airstrikes upon North Vietnamese targets for attacks in the South. He refused sustained bombing of the North until a stable government.existed in the South.

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