View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What concern does Isaacson claim motivated Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson to encourage America's financial support for Greece?

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

3. Who does Issacson report to have written a telegram that claimed fear that war could come, "with dramatic suddenness"?

4. What does Isaacson cite as "...perhaps the most dramatic and significant (conversion) of any postwar American statesman"?

5. Who does Isaacson report to be the last of the "Six Wise Men" whom President-Elect Kennedy called before he made his choice for Secretary of State?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. What affect did the Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia have on Truman's effort to win Congressional approval of the Marshall Plan, according to Isaacson?

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

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

5. What was the focus of George Kennan's "Long Telegram" according to Isaacson?

6. What does Isaacson report to be the entry into the logbook of the Enola Gay to record the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima?

7. What was Dean Acheson's view regarding America's involvement in Vietnam, according to Isaacson?

8. 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?

9. What does Isaacson claim made President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, attractive to the eastern foreign policy Establishment?

10. How did President Truman respond to the North Korean invasion of South Korea on June 24, 1950, according to Isaacson?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout WWII Joseph Stalin was depicted in The Wise Men as an unreliable ally and he was considered a threat to American interests after the war. Yet when the destructiveness of the atom bomb was exposed, members of the Truman Administration considered making the Soviet Union part of a system of regulating the use of the weapon and even considered sharing the technology with the Soviets. What were the reasons for inviting the Soviets to share strategic information regarding atomic weapons with the U.S.? Are these reasons contradictory to the distrust that the six "Wise Men" had for Stalin and the Soviets? How so or how not? Did the eventual development of nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union act to preserve peace or lead to justifications for more military build-up? Explain your answers with information from the book.

Essay Topic 2

George Kennan and Chip Bohlen used their very different personalities and skills to climb the ranks of the foreign service to eventually enter the inner circles of the Roosevelt Administration. Compare and contrast the diverse personalities and skills of Kennan and Bohlen and detail how they complemented each other to become major influences on policies concerning the Soviet Union.

Essay Topic 3

Much of what the "Wise Men" helped to develop during the Cold War (NATO, the CIA, foreign aid spending, the military industrial complex) still exists today despite the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 and China has abandoned communism as an economic and governing model. Consider how these institutions and strategies are being used in the "War on Terror," and the reasons current leaders say this is a necessary global war and compare them to claims of the "Wise Men" for confronting the global threat of communism. Use evidence in the book and from outside sources in this comparison give your opinion on one of three options:

a. The efforts of the "Wise Men" to develop the tools to protect America's interests around the world were for the sake of the people of the U.S. and they are still being used for the same today.

b. The intentions of the "Wise Men" were to protect the U.S. but they have recently been used to expand the power of people in the government over the lives of American citizens.

c. The "Wise Men" used their access to the foreign policy bureaucracy to draw power to themselves and the foreign policy establishment and they continue to be so used today.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,221 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample