How Gaylord Nelson Almost Stopped the Vietnam War
“History may have taken a different turn if the Senate had done what was right rather than what was expedient ..."
http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/08/187807/how-gaylord-nelson-almost-stopped-vietnam-war
What really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964 remains murky 50 years later, despite a number of books and inquiries into a naval skirmish off the coast of North Vietnam. But it became Lyndon Johnson’s justification for widening the war, and Congress quickly gave him the authority he wanted. An amendment to the Gulf of Tokin resolution, drafted by Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson but never introduced, might have changed history.
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The resolution (LBJ) sent to Congress was simple. “That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” A second section said the peace and security of Southeast Asia were vital to the U.S. national interest.
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Nelson said he intended to vote for the resolution. “I do not think, however, that Congress should leave the impression that it consents to a radical change in our mission or objective in South Vietnam,” Nelson said. The mission, he said, was to help establish “a viable, independent regime, which can manage its own affairs, so that ultimately we can withdraw from South Vietnam.” Fulbright agreed, and said the resolution was “quite consistent with our existing mission and what has been our understanding of what we have been doing in South Vietnam for the last ten years.”
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Johnson believed he had all the authorization he needed for escalation, in the form of the Tonkin Gulf resolution. “He carried that thing around in his pocket,” Nelson said. “I was at a meeting with him at the White House when he pulled it out and said, ‘You guys authorized this.’” LBJ called it the “504 to 2” resolution. Sen. Mike Mansfield, later recalling Nelson’s questions on the resolution, said: “History may have taken a different turn if the Senate had done what was right rather than what was expedient, and had followed the advice of (Nelson).”
