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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Isaacson suggest that President Kennedy hoped to avoid war in Laos?
(a) Through back channel negotiations with leaders of the Soviet Union.
(b) With help from the British in reviving the International Control Commission.
(c) By calling on the support of allies in the area to come to America's aid for the war that was rapidly developing.
(d) By supporting economic development throughout South East Asia.

2. Who eventually took the position of Ambassador to Vietnam, according to Isaacson?
(a) Dean Acheson.
(b) Robert Lovett.
(c) McGeorge Bundy.
(d) General Maxwell Taylor.

3. How does Isaacson detail how the last of the "Six Wise Men" whom President-Elect Kennedy called affected Kennedy's decision for Secretary of State?
(a) He suggested that President-Elect Kennedy read an article in Foreign Affairs that one of the candidates for Secretary of State wrote.
(b) He rejected Kennedy's offer for the position.
(c) He wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times expressing the qualities of Kennedy's eventual nominee.
(d) He detailed how each of his candidates had helped to direct the policies that were made to confront the Soviet menace in the immediate period following WWII.

4. What did Gen. MacArthur recommend, according to Isaacson, to stem the flow of Chinese soldiers into North Korea?
(a) Opening relations with China to negotiate a settlement.
(b) Bombing out bridges over the Yalu River.
(c) Using nuclear weapons to wipe out China and Russia.
(d) Avoiding a mainland war with the communists.

5. What does Isaacson claim that Averell Harriman and his Wall Street contemporaries believed to be the best guarantee for American security?
(a) Providing financial support to allies that were targets for Soviet expansionism.
(b) Increased defense spending to force the Soviet Union to enter an unsustainable arms race.
(c) The establishment of democratic and representative governments everywhere.
(d) Withdrawing from international affairs and focusing on building up American markets.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the organization that eventually replaced the Office of Strategic Services, according to Isaacson?

2. Why does Isaacson suggest Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union and Mao Tse Tung of China gave support to North Korea's invasion of South Korea?

3. What does Isaacson report to be the entry in the Enola Gay log book by co-pilot Robert Lewis after the explosion of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima?

4. What event does Isaacson claim one of the "Six Wise Men" used to encourage President Johnson to get tougher in Vietnam?

5. What does Isaacson report that members of the Truman Administration suggested caused the political opposition to the Truman Doctrine to confront Soviet Communism wherever it was asserted?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Isaacson report England was affected by the end of WWII?

2. Who were the first two of the "Six Wise Men" to remove themselves from advising President Johnson because they could no longer support America's involvement in Vietnam, according to Isaacson?

3. What does Isaacson report to have been General Douglas MacArthur's proposal to stop the flow of Chinese Soldiers into the war between North and South Korea?

4. What scandal does Isaacson report to have come to the Truman Administration's state department in January 1950?

5. What does Isaacson claim to be the North Vietnamese offensive that made the Johnson Administration realize America needed to get out of the Vietnam War?

6. Why does Isaacson suggest that Dean Acheson recommended Dean Rusk to President-Elect Kennedy for Secretary of State?

7. What was the suggestion that Dean Acheson made regarding the future of freedom if Turkey and Greece fell into the influence of Soviet Communism, according to Isaacson?

8. Who did President Kennedy choose to act as his chief negotiator at the International Control Commission talks on Laos, according to Isaacson?

9. According to Isaacson, what caused President Truman to remove General Douglas MacArthur from his command over the conduct of South Korean forces in the Korean War?

10. What organization did John McCloy help to form that became the precursor to the European Common Market, according to Isaacson?

(see the answer keys)

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