Times of Change: A Dubious Crusade, History, and The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

A Dubious Crusade - 1. Dubious is an adjective. It means fraught with uncertainty or doubt; undecided. Crusade is a noun. It means 1. A holy war undertaken with papal sanction. 2. A vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against abuse.


2. Warren is saying that the US was not sure of its path no longer, and they weren't sure whether they had "answers to all the important questions". I think this will relate to the rest of our studies of Vietnam because we might start talking about the domestic issues of America, and how it affected how they were doing in Vietnam.

History - The overall theme of Riddick's poem is death, because the poem shows how all these nations kept on trying to rule Vietnam, and there was almost always a battle or a war going on.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - 1. The main thesis of the essay is that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution could have been based on a lie by President Lyndon Johnson.

2. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was made to 'defend United States interests in the area [Gulf of Tonkin]'. A US Navy destroyer (Maddox) was attacked in the summer of 1964 by the North Vietnamese PT boats. That was pretty much the reason of the president asking approval from Congress, which he got.

3. The author's evidence for his thesis was that William Fulbright thought that Congress had 'been steamrollered into supporting the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution', which would lead to the Vietnam War.

4. It links to the first reading because America found out that the President had lied, and they weren't so sure about what was really going on at the moment, and what would happen. The war still went on, but in America, there was tension between the public and the government because of President Lyndon Johnson.