President Johnson put destroyers in harm's way in the Tonkin Gulf not only once, but several times, with the, with a lot of his people hoping that it would lead to a confrontation and claiming that it had. And could have resulted in the lost of many lives in the course of it.
“Fame is a delicate and dangerous creature; I saw people who didn't honor it, who refused to take responsibility for it, get destroyed by it. I also saw that stardom in and of itself was empty.”