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Tonkin Gulf resolution

Tonkin Gulf resolution, in U.S. history, Congressional resolution passed in 1964 that authorized military action in Southeast Asia. On Aug. 4, 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin were alleged to have attacked without provocation U.S. destroyers that were reporting intelligence information to South Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers decided upon immediate air attacks on North Vietnam in retaliation; he also asked Congress for a mandate for future military action. On Aug. 7, Congress passed a resolution drafted by the administration authorizing all necessary measures to repel attacks against U.S. forces and all steps necessary for the defense of U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. Although there was disagreement in Congress over the precise meaning of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, Presidents Johnson and Richard M. Nixon used it to justify later military action in Southeast Asia. The measure was repealed by Congress in 1970. In 1995 retired Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, in a meeting with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, categorically denied that the North Vietnamese had attacked the U.S. destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964.

The Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park opened on June 30, 1979. It is home to the only guided missile cruiser open to the public, USS Little Rock, CLG-4, the destroyer USS The Sullivans (DD-537) and the submarine USS Croaker (SSK-246).

USS The Sullivans History
USS The Sullivans was launched in San Francisco on 4 April 1943. The ships namesake, the five Sullivan brothers, enlisted in the Navy and served together aboard the light cruiser USS Juneau. On 13 November, 1942 while fighting off Guadalcanal, the five brothers died along with 700 other sailors when the USS Juneau was sunk by a Japanese submarine. President Roosevelt directed that one of the new Fletcher class destroyers then under construction be named after the five brothers. She was sponsored by their parents Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Sullivan. She is the only Navy destroyer ever named after more than one person.

The Sullivans was designated a National Historical Landmark by the Department of the Interior in 1986. More than 55,000 people annually come to Buffalo to tour the Naval Park