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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 does Isaacson record that Mao claimed to be the source of Chinese soldiers in North Korean combat units?

2. What did the Johnson Administration offer to Vietnamese communists if they pulled back on their invasion of South Vietnam in the summer of 1965, according to Isaacson?

3. What event at the end of 1967 does Isaacson suggest influenced the Johnson Administration that America had to withdraw from Vietnam?

4. How does Isaacson suggest that President Kennedy hoped to avoid war in Laos?

5. What did Gen. MacArthur recommend, according to Isaacson, to stem the flow of Chinese soldiers into North Korea?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. 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?

3. Who does Isaacson claim that Dean Acheson supported for the 1960 Democrat Presidential nomination over John F. Kennedy?

4. 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?

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

6. Why did Truman's most trusted foreign advisers, including Robert Lovett, George Kennan, Chip Bohlen, and Dean Acheson, oppose the formation of a Jewish State in Palestine, according to Isaacson?

7. To what event did President Truman compare the Soviet clampdown on Czechoslavakia in 1948, 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 Winston Churchill offered as a suggestion for a solution to Soviet expansionism in his "Iron Curtain" speech in Missouri?

10. How does Isaacson explain the changes in the military policy of the Truman Administration once it became clear the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

Joseph Stalin is very prominent in the development of American foreign policy regarding the Soviet Union. Was American foreign policy developed with regard to American interests or as reactions to Stalin's personality, demands, and aggression against domestic political enemies and satellite states to the Soviet Union? If you choose the answer that policy regarding Stalin's Soviet Union was made in defense of American interests, support your position with evidence from the book and outside sources. If you consider that foreign policy was made as a reaction to Stalin, support your position with evidence and suggest how the government could have acted more for the benefit of the nation.

Essay Topic 3

Franklin Roosevelt chose Harry Truman as his running mate for his final election in 1944 when his health was failing and it appeared he would not survive his final term. Vice President Truman was not included in decisions regarding the end of the war or agreements with allies. Do you believe this was an oversight or by design? How did the "Wise Men" benefit from the exclusion of Truman from important policy decisions? How did this exclusion affect the future of foreign policy? Support your position with evidence from the book and other reliable sources.

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