To the editor:

It is now common knowledge that the 1964 “Gulf of Tonkin incident,” which triggered direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, never took place. Five days after the fabricated “incident,” Congress, by nearly unanimous vote, gave President Lyndon Johnson unlimited, permanent authority to wage a tragically pointless war “justified” by the ridiculous “Domino Theory” (that the “fall” of Vietnam to communist leadership would lead inevitably to a monolithic Asian communist bloc).

It should be noted that today, 25 years after U.S. forces were chased out of Saigon, Vietnamese workers, like many of their Southeast Asian neighbors, are busy stitching Nikes, for a pittance. What’s next for the “dominos” cheap coffee for Starbucks?

Today, Johnson is scorned for the weakness, if not gullibility, he showed in his now well-documented submission to a clique of now-repentant officials who sank the nation in a morass of bloodletting and worldwide condemnation. Similarly remembered are those of that majority of lawmakers who allowed themselves to be stampeded into rubber-stamping that war.

Today, the president and his inner circle beat the drums for another U.S. military attack on Iraq, which Arab leaders last week likened to opening “the Gates of Hell.” Like their predecessors in 1964, members of today’s Congress may have the opportunity to cast the proudest, or most shameful, vote of their political lives. Is it conceivable that our Kansas Congressional delegation might opt to be remembered for wisdom, patience, and common sense, instead of weakness, gullibility, and worse?

Steve Grossman,

Meriden