Exhibit 381

Joint Resolution to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia (Tonkin Gulf Resolution, H.J. Res. 1145, Public Law 88-408)

Exhibit 381 · Joint resolution

Joint Resolution to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia (Tonkin Gulf Resolution, H.J. Res. 1145, Public Law 88-408)

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.

Text of the resolution approving the President's determination to take all necessary measures to repel armed attack, with Section 2 on use of armed force to assist Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty states. The Senate passed it with two dissenting votes (Hanyok p. 46-47).

Source: U.S. Congress
Date: 7 August 1964
Quoted from: Section 1
Grade: Primary record
Document: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/tonkin-g.asp
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.