No Gulf of Tonkin?

Kaze

Banned
Since 1953 there were US soldiers and "advisers" fighting in Vietnam, Tonkin was an excuse to make the illegal war a legal one.
 
The US finds another fig leaf.

I agree. LBJ would simply find another excuse, exaggerate whatever real threat there actually was and make it look like a Second Pearl Harbor, and get war authorization with bipartisan support. The Vietnam War still happens and not much changes.
 
Once it was clear in 1965 that the South Vietnamese regime would fall without a massive increase in US involvement, LBJ would simply invoke the SEATO treaty itself (the "Manila Pact") as sufficient justification for sending more US troops and bombing North Vietnam even without any additional congressional authorization. (Though he might seek and receive such authorization after the decision had already been made.)

LBJ doesn't even need another incident, real or exaggerated or fabricated. Arguing that North Vietnam's infiltration of South Vietnam and aid to/domination of the NLF constituted "aggression by means of armed attack" under Article Four of the Manila Pact http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/usmu003.asp would actually be less of a stretch than the legal justifications the US has used for some wars...
 
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