Days of Decision

Episode Six chronicles LBJ's decisions to bomb the north and send US combat troops into the south. South Vietnam is given weapons and the most advanced equipment available and American personnel to operate it. 1964, the US Airforce starts flying secret bombing missions out of Laos and Cambodia. For six weeks secret CIA naval missions were being run into North Vietnam in the lead up to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. North Vietnamese gunboats had attacked a US Navy destroyer operating in the gulf of Tonkin, the next day, two destroyers entered the gulf and it was reported that they were both under attack. (we now know this was a false report) in retaliation LBJ orders a huge expansion of the bombing campaign against the north and Congress approves unanimously the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving LBJ a blank check in using military force in Vietnam. As LBJ is reelected, the war escalates.