The Lacuna Project

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Exhibit 379

Radio and Television Report to the American People Following Renewed Aggression in the Gulf of Tonkin

Exhibit 379 ยท Presidential address

Radio and Television Report to the American People Following Renewed Aggression in the Gulf of Tonkin

The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S. destroyers with torpedoes.

Johnson's 11:36 p.m. EDT address announcing that U.S. destroyers had been attacked again and that air action was under way; announces a request for a congressional resolution.

Source
Lyndon B. Johnson (President)
Date
4 August 1964
Quoted from
opening paragraph (Public Papers of the Presidents 1963-64, Book II, pp. 927-928)
Grade
Primary record
Document
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/radio-and-television-report-the-american-people-following-renewed-aggression-the-gulf
Accessed
2026-11-09
Cited by
Findings citing this exhibit

Cited by

Finding DEF-2.1
Primary record The NSA historian Robert Hanyok concluded in a study published in 2001 that no attack on U.S. destroyers occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin on the night of 4 August 1964, and his study confirms the 2 August 1964 engagement with the Maddox. He wrote that the mishandling of the signals intelligence was "not done in a manner that can be construed as conspiratorial" and that NSA personnel believed the attack had happened.