In the early morning hours of of July 31, 1964 the US Navy Destroyer, called Maddox (DD-731) began a patrol, called a DESOTO patrol, along the coast of North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. The main goal of the mission was to gather information about the coastal defense forces. It was thought that the North Viatnamese coastal defenses would be active, so it would be a perfect opportunity to observe, because a number of covert operations …
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…th, which basically gave President Johnson to use all the neccessary measures possible to deal with the on going problems in Vietnam.The Johnson administration had been wanting to get such a resolution from the Congress, and the Tonkin Gulf incidents made a good excuse to do just that; the Tonkin Gulf incidents made a good excuse. It does not appear, however, that the incidents had been deliberately concocted in order to provide the excuse.