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Low-Key. In Washington it was after dawn on Sunday— before the Pentagon had compiled a complete report on the distant sea action. Lyndon Johnson was informed as he dressed for church. To the White House he summoned his top advisers: Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Under Secretary George Ball, Deputy Defense Secretary Cy Vance and General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, weekending in Newport, R.I., got a hurry-up call and rushed back to the capital. For 45 minutes the President and his aides discussed the attack, decided to play the whole affair as low-key as possible in the hope that it was all some sort of misunderstanding on the part of the Communist Viet Minh government at Hanoi. Accordingly, the Pentagon issued a dry statement: The Maddox, "while on routine patrol in international waters," had undergone an "unprovoked attack by three PT-type boats." The White House declined comment. A State Department staffer said that the best possible answer to the attack had been delivered by the Maddox and the U.S. jets. Arriving in New York later for a speech, Dean Rusk said only: "The other side got a sting out of this. If they do it again, they'll get another sting."
Even in private, Washington officials could not offer an intelligent reason that might explain why the puny Hanoi mosquito fleet challenged the 125-ship U.S. Seventh Fleet. Some speculated that Hanoi had somehow connected the Maddox with recent South Vietnamese raids on Hon Me and the neighboring island of Hon Ngu. Yet the Maddox was at least 30 miles from either island at the time of those attacks. And her presence in the gulf was hardly a new provocation, since U.S. destroyers had been patrolling the area frequently over the past two years and are well known to North Vietnamese seafarers.
But lest the North Vietnamese, and by indirection the Red Chinese, misread the U.S. stance, the President ordered the U.S. fleet to pursue and destroy any attacking vessel. "Pursuit," in this case, meant that an enemy could be chased to wherever it might flee, even into the sanctuary of its own territorial waters. To back up the public denunciation of North Viet Nam's attack, moreover, the State Department issued a fiery protest to the Hanoi government.
Lusty Liberty. By Monday, most Americans, leaders and populace alike, were ready to accept the notion that Sunday's attack—incredible as it was—would stand as an isolated incident. The Maddox and the Joy sailed serenely through the Gulf of Tonkin without challenge. Their crews stayed sharp-eyed, but once again began counting the days until their tedium would end, perhaps with lusty liberty in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Manila.
Tuesday dawned. The weather in the gulf turned bad. Thunder rumbled across the water. Sporadic storms churned waves, and the two U.S. destroyers pitched and rolled. Despite the rough going, Maddox radar late in the afternoon again detected the presence of distant company: several tiny blips moved across the scope in tracks paralleling those of the Maddox and Joy.