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Some lawmakers remember Gulf of Tonkin resolution

By STEVE GERSTEL

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 1991 (UPI) - They are a small band of aging men, the survivors of the Congress that in 1964 adopted the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which was used as an authorization to send thousands of Americans to their deaths in Vietnam.

Now, a quarter of a century later, they face a similar choice in the Persian Gulf crisis.

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So few remain, in fact, that they are outnumbered by the men they consigned to Vietnam and, in an ironic twist, those who served during the Vietnam War must share the decision whether the generation that succeeded them will have to undergo their fate in Kuwait or Iraq.

Although Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had committed more and more men to bolster South Vietnam since the 1950s, a crucial turning point came in 1964 when a Navy ship reportedly was attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats outside the territorial limit.

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Johnson used this incident to extract from Congress the now-reviled Gulf of Tonkin resolution that he then used as an open-ended authorization for the massive buildup of U.S forces.

That resolution passed the House 414-0 and the Senate 88-2, with only Sens. Wayne Morse, D-Ore., and Ernest Gruening, D-Alaska voting no. A few others, such as Sen. William Fulbright, D-Ark., subjugated their concerns and voted for Johnson.

Today, there remain six senators and 20 members of the House who voted for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

The senators still serving who voted for that resolution are Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Quentin Burdick, D-N.D., Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Senate Republican leader Robert Dole of Kansas, then a member of the House.

Most of them were not strangers to war. Dole and Inouye were grievously wounded in World War II. Thurmond parachuted behind the lines in the invasion of Europe.

The House members who voted for the resolution were Reps. Jamie Whitten, D-Miss., Charles Bennett, D-Fla., Sidney Yates, D-Ill., Jack Brooks, D-Texas, William Natcher, D-Ky., John Dingell, D-Mich., Dante Fascell, D-Fla., William Broomfield, R-Mich., House Republican leader Robert Michel, R-Ill., Silvio Conte, R-Mass., Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., Neal Smith, D-Iowa, Henry Gonzales, D-Texas, Morris Udall, D-Ariz., Don Edwards, D-Calif., Sam Gibbons, D-Fla., Frank Horton, R-N.Y., Joseph McDade, R-Pa., James Quillen, R-Tenn., and Edward Roybal, D-California.

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Now, President Bush is asking Congress to do, in effect, for him in the Persian Gulf what it did for Johnson in Vietnam.

He has asked Congress to endorse the U.N. resolution that allows the use of military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, beginning Jan. 15.

But the times are different and the views of some who voted for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution are not going to vote for a ''blank check'' for Bush and the 400,000 soldiers poised on the borders of Kuwait.

The specter of the Cold War, the fear of the communists setting off the domino effect that would reach and swallow the Philippines, does not exist in the Persian Gulf. In fact, in this venture, the United States and the Soviet Union are allies.

Nor is the Congress as complaisant in foreign and military affairs as it was in 1964 -- not since it forced the end of the Vietnam War by cutting off money and enacted the War Powers resolution.

Among the voices raised in the debate are some of those who were burned in 1964.

Gibbons said Wednesday, ''I want to support the president of the United States ... but I will not vote for a blank check as a declaration of war as was done here in 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

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''It would be a mistake for the Congress to vote that kind of resolution through here again,'' Gibbons said. ''All of us know the sad history of what happened there.''

Dole, along with almost all Republicans, supports Bush's request for a resolution giving him authority to use offensive military action in the Persian Gulf.

''No doubt about it, Congress should have already joined the president in sending a tough message of unity to Baghdad, the kind of united front that gives us our best hope for a peaceful resolution in the gulf.''

One of the first resolutions introduced in the House, by Florida's Bennett with 51 co-sponsors, demands congressional approval of military action.

Two other veterans of '64, Kennedy and Pell, oppose the use of military force at this time, calling on Bush to let the sanctions run on to see if they can force Iraq out of Kuwait.

With congressional leaders promising votes on some form of resolution before Jan 15, the issue will be resolved one way or another. But it is certain that Congress will not adopt a Gulf of Tonkin-type resolution with anything even close to the unanimity of 1964.

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