Revisiting the Gulf of Tonkin Crisis: An Analysis of the Private Communication of President Johnson and his Advisers

This essay explains how the rhetorical response of President Johnson and his advisers to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964 provides a paradigm case of how a confusing set of events can be given interpretation and structure by means of dramatizing communication. Although the Tonkin events were largely unsubstantiated, narratives were shared in which a hostile enemy had deliberately attacked American vessels on routine patrols. Consequently, American prestige and power were being tested before the world.

The confusing events, therefore, were lined up into a more familiar story which then became the justification for further action. The dramatizations swept through private decision-making groups and into the legislative and administrative branches of government resulting in the passage of a congressional resolution. This resolution was the legal weapon needed to expand greatly American involvement in the Vietnam War.