The Gulf of Tonkin event happens in the summer of ’64. Johnson is decisive in his response. His already overwhelming poll numbers increase more. It took away one of the main arguments that Goldwater had. Johnson had a landslide victory that fall, and by March of ’65, he put boots on the ground. But he confided to Senator Richard Russell, his good friend, “I don’t see any daylight here.” Time and again we find, with all of the presidents from Truman on, that they and their closest associates know some hard and difficult truths, but they act as if the opposite is true.
