page_title: 1964 in the Vietnam War
section_title: July
hierarchical_section_title: 1964 in the Vietnam War / July
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Army General Maxwell D. Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
context_page_description: South Vietnam was in political chaos during much of the year, as generals competed for power and Buddhists protested against the government. The Viet Cong communist guerrillas expanded their operations and defeated the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam in many battles. North Vietnam made a definitive judgement in January to assist the VC insurgency with men and material. In November, North Vietnam ordered the People's Army of Vietnam to infiltrate units into South Vietnam and undertake joint military operations with the VC.
  The new President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, and his civilian and military advisers wrestled with the problem of a failing government in South Vietnam and military gains by the VC. In August, an attack on United States Navy vessels caused Johnson to seek and gain U.S. congressional approval of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized him to use military force if necessary to defend South Vietnam. Throughout the year, there were calls from many quarters—American, foreign, and South Vietnamese—for the United States to negotiate an agreement for the neutralization of South Vietnam, which they refused to consider.
context_section_description: 1 July
  General Maxwell Taylor was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, replacing Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
  3 July
  MACV sent a request to Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp Jr., Commander-in-Chief, Pacific for authorization of a patrol of the Gulf of Tonkin to get information about North Vietnam's coastal defense. Admiral Sharp would dispatch the destroyer USS Maddox to the area.
  4 July
  The VC attacked Polei Krong Camp, in an action apparently timed to coincide with the American 4 July holiday.
  5-6 July
  The Battle of Nam Dong was fought when the VC attacked the Nam Dong Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) camp in an attempt to overrun it. The VC lost 62 killed, the ARVN 57 killed, the U.S. two killed and Australian Warrant Officer Class Two Kevin Conway was killed, the first Australian battle casualty of the war.
  8 July
  U Thant, Secretary General of the United Nations said at a press conference that "the only sensible solution" to the war in South Vietnam was to reconvene the Geneva Conference of 1954 to negotiate peace in Southeast Asia. The U.S. rejected his proposal. President Johnson later said, "We do not believe in conferences called to ratify terror."
  The U.S. Department of Defense announced that American casualties in South Vietnam had risen to 1387 "since American forces became fully involved in the jungle war in 1961", a number broken down as "152 killed in action, 96 deaths not related to combat, 971 wounded in action, 151 non-battle injuries and 17 missing in action."
  11 July
  The New York Times published a petition signed by more than 5,000 American academics urging that the U.S. government work toward the neutralization of South Vietnam. The spokesman for the group Hans J. Morgenthau said that escalation of the war was not the answer.
  19 July
  At a rally in Saigon, Prime Minister Khánh called for expanding the war into North Vietnam. Before a crowd of 100,000 people, General Khanh led the rallying cry "Bac thien!" ("To the North!") and called on volunteers to not only defend South Vietnam, but to liberate North Vietnam.
  23 July
  In a speech in the Senate, Senator Frank Church said he could not understand how "25,000 hardcore Viet Cong" could "thwart the American-backed South Vietnamese government." The VC were being supplied by men with packs on their back traversing jungle trails, while the U.S. was sending shiploads of equipment and hundreds of millions of dollars to South Vietnam every year. Church also opposed widening the war by bombing North Vietnam. "Expanding the war is not getting out... It is getting further in." This was Church's first public  declaration of concern about the trajectory of the war.
  24-9 July
  Operation Triangle was conducted by the Royal Lao Army and Forces Armées Neutralistes to capture the intersection of Routes 7 and 13, trap a Pathet Lao force and gain access to the Plain of Jars. The operation was a partial success with large amounts of material captured, but the Pathet Lao successfully evacuated and still controlled access to the Plain.
  25 July
  Hanoi Radio charged in a broadcast that U.S. Navy ships had fired upon North Vietnamese fishing craft, making the first assertion of United States aggression against North Vietnam.
  30 July
  Prime Minister Khánh advocated an attack on North Vietnam by the U.S. and South Vietnam. The British Embassy in Saigon reported that if Khánh's demands for an attack were not met, he might resign the premiership or attempt to make a peace agreement with the VC. The Saigon Daily News said that, without an attack on the North, neutralism for South Vietnam would become a reality.
  Nasty' patrol boats of the Republic of Vietnam Navy moved into the Gulf of Tonkin on an Operation 34A mission, and attacked a North Vietnamese radar station on Hòn Mê island.
caption: Ambassador Maxwell Taylor
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