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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What strategy does Halberstam say evolved out of the struggle over troop strength?

2. What does Halberstam say the U.S. assured its generals during their meeting in Vietnam?

3. How did McNamara's position on bombing change over time?

4. How does Halberstam say Kennedy was feeling about the war at the beginning of Chapter 15?

5. When does Halberstam say that McNamara realized he had been misled about the conditions in Vietnam?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happened during the second Gulf of Tonkin incident?

2. What was the intelligence community's assessment of Rolling Thunder?

3. What happened to Diem and Nhu during the coup?

4. What does Halberstam say became clear to the American government after Diem's death?

5. What did the Johnson administration tell America as it committed more troops to Vietnam?

6. What does Halberstam say began to change in early 1964?

7. What program did Maxwell Taylor call for in the paper he wrote on his way back from Vietnam?

8. What issues were discussed as there started to be struggles over Vietnam strategy in mid-1965?

9. Describe what Halberstam calls 'the Bundy trip' to Vietnam.

10. What was the result of the Spring Offensive?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Using the hindsight gained by "The Best and the Brightest", would you say that the war in Vietnam was a local conflict that could have been left to resolve itself, or would you say that if left unaddressed, Vietnam would have been one of the dominoes in a string of nations the Communists took over? Put another way: would the internal tensions in Vietnam have dogged the Communists just as badly as they dogged the Americans and the American-backed South Vietnamese government, if the Vietcong had ever acquired power there?

Essay Topic 2

How did American support influence Diem and Khanh? Did it make them more or less legitimate in the eyes of the Vietnamese? If there were problems caused by overt American support, say also what roles were played by Vietnamese society and by the personalities of Diem and Khanh.

Essay Topic 3

How does the containment of the 1960s differ from the preemptive foreign policy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How has American foreign policy changed since the 1960s?

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