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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 did the members of Ex Comm avoid arousing suspicion when visiting the White House at 9:15 at night?
(a) They all rode with Robert.
(b) They took the secret entrance.
(c) They arrived at different times.
(d) Not all went to the meeting.

2. While Ex Comm was making final decisions regarding their recommendations, JFK was where?
(a) New York.
(b) Russia.
(c) Chicago.
(d) Washington D.C.

3. Before the announcement could be made that there was a Cuban Missile Crisis, what did the press report on instead of the crisis?
(a) The normal news.
(b) The secret meetings of Ex Comm.
(c) The OAS meeting.
(d) The President would make a speech.

4. Who unanimously pushed for immediate military action on Thursday October 18th?
(a) The Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(b) Americans.
(c) Ex Comm.
(d) Congress.

5. Who wrote the note saying, "I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor" (24)?
(a) John F. Kennedy.
(b) John McCone.
(c) Lyndon B. Johnson.
(d) Robert F. Kennedy.

Short Answer Questions

1. Against what strategy was the following argument used: It would be like "closing the door after the horse has left the barn" (28)?

2. Who said, "they, no more than we, can let these things go by without doing something. They can't after all their statements, permit us to take out their missiles, kill a lot of Russians, and then do nothing. If they don't take action in Cuba, they certainly will in Berlin" (28)?

3. Who said, "It is exactly what I would have done . . . a great government such as yours does not act without evidence" (41)?

4. Who did JFK have a meeting with that was scheduled before the information about Cuba had been found?

5. In the section "Tuesday morning, October 16, 1962 . . .," why were initial reports of missiles in Cuba not passed on to the President?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Berlin factor into the decision making about the Cuban Missile Crisis?

2. Which countries immediately supported the U.S. in the decision for a blockade? Why did JFK favor a blockade over a surgical air strike?

3. Why does JFK bring up the book The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman?

4. What did the military and JFK do to respond to the submarine situation?

5. When was Congress told, and how did Congress react to the news of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

6. What was one argument against a blockade?

7. How and where did Adlai Stevenson present the photographic evidence of missiles in Cuba?

8. How did Ex Comm formulate their recommendations to the President?

9. Why is the "great danger and risk in all of this . . . a miscalculation -- a mistake in judgment" (49)?

10. What did Ambassador Dobrynin provide as evidence that USSR would not be a threat to the United States?

(see the answer keys)

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