Just before midnight he appeared on television and announced that retaliatory air strikes were underway against North Vietnamese naval and port facilities. Neither Congress nor the American people learned the whole story about the events in the Gulf of Tonkin until the publication of the "Pentagon Papers" in 1969. It was on the basis of the administration's assertions that the attacks were "unprovoked aggression" on the part of North Vietnam, that the United States Congress approved the Southeast Asia Resolution (also known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on August 7. The law gave the President broad powers to conduct military operations without an actual declaration of war. The resolution passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and was opposed in the Senate by only two members.