The right answer is Gulf of Tonkin incident. Johnson told a national television audience that on August 2 and 4, North Vietnamese vessels had attacked two U.S. destroyers, the Maddox and the C. Turner Joy, in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. Johnson described the attack, called the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as unprovoked. The Tonkin Gulf resolution authorized the president to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. Only Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon and Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska voted against the resolution, which Johnson thereafter interpreted as equivalent to a congressional declaration of war. Soon after his landslide victory over Goldwater in November 1964, Johnson, while still plagued by private doubts, made the crucial decisions that committed the United States to a full-scale war in Vietnam for the next four years.
