Topic outline
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President Johnson, Kennedy’s successor in 1963, was criticised by Republicans in Congress as being soft on communism. Johnson accepted the advice of his Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, for a policy of flexible response. Johnson, however, needed greater presidential powers to implement to such a policy. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, August 1964, when North Vietnamese troops attacked US naval vessels, gave him the excuse to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the power to wage war on Vietnam as he saw fit.
By 1964, 35 per cent of South Vietnam was in Vietcong hands. Johnson ignored negotiation and withdrawal. In 1965 he sanctioned ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’, the bombing of North Vietnam, in retaliation to Vietcong attacks on US military bases in the South. He believed that US superior technology would force North Vietnam tote negotiating table. Operation Rolling Thunder failed to make any impact on the war.