Congress should remember lessons of Tonkin

WASHINGTON -- If the late Democratic Sens. Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon could somehow read President Bush's proposed war resolution against Iraq, they'd undoubtedly spin in their graves.
Mr. Morse and Mr. Gruening were the only two senators who voted in August 1964 against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson a blank check to wage war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in Indochina in the midst of LBJ's re-election campaign. They spent the rest of their political careers saying "I told you so" as President Johnson pulled out all the military stops and matters in Vietnam went from bad to worse.

While the language of Mr. Bush's resolution and the circumstances of the present situation are not identical, there are enough similarities to warrant comparison. Mr. Bush's resolution pushes Congress to authorize him "to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force," to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions and "defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq."

LBJ also got Congress to authorize "all necessary measures" he might take "to repel any armed attack" against American forces and "to prevent any further aggression." The difference in that case was that there was at least a reported armed attack on U.S. forces, though the accuracy of the report was questioned long after.

When reports reached President Johnson that torpedo-armed North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, American aircraft struck back at North Vietnamese naval bases. He swiftly asked for and got the open-ended congressional authorization.