Question

What was the effect of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution?

Answer 1

Hint: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by Congress on August 7, 1964, authorising President Lyndon B. Johnson to take any actions he deemed appropriate in retaliation and to encourage the preservation of international peace and stability in Southeast Asia.

Complete answer:
Tonkin Gulf Resolution resolution served as the legal foundation for the Vietnam War prosecution by the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Lyndon B. Johnson carte blanche to intensify American military intervention in Vietnam. It was essentially a free pass because he didn't have to declare war and thereby avoided the need for Congressional approval.

The incident in the Gulf of Tonkin and the subsequent Gulf of Tonkin resolution provided justification for further US escalation of the Vietnam conflict. On the assumption that increased bombing raids would weaken Hanoi, Johnson and his advisers ordered the US military to launch Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign against the North. On February 13, 1965, Operation Rolling Thunder began and lasted until the spring of 1967. The first of several deployments of regular ground combat troops to Vietnam to battle the Viet Cong in the countryside was also approved by Johnson.

Note: Senators Wayne Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK) were the only ones in the Senate who opposed it. Senator Gruening expressed his opposition to "sending our American boys into battle in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, and which is slowly escalating."