Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, granting LBJ broad war powers

Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Lyndon Johnson to use military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war. The resolution passes 88-2 in the Senate and unanimously in the House after Johnson reports North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels — attacks that subsequent investigation reveals were exaggerated or fabricated. The resolution becomes the legal basis for full-scale U.S. involvement in Vietnam, a war that kills more than 58,000 Americans. The episode demonstrates the asymmetry between presidential power to present national security crises and congressional capacity to independently verify them — a structural vulnerability the War Powers Resolution of 1973 attempts to address but does not solve.