the 27 January meeting mattered greatly because Johnson now moved to implement the policy he had agreed to in principle back in December. “We will move strongly,” he had now decided, “stable government or no stable government.” (Given the chaos in Saigon, this phrase really meant “government or no government.”) And he did not stop there. Understanding that the administration needed a pretext to “move strongly,” Johnson on this day also authorized the resumption of destroyer patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin, the first since September 1964, in the hope of provoking a North Vietnamese attack.33
