View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who told Ambassador Dobrynin about the President's intended speech?
(a) Robert Kennedy.
(b) Dean Acheson.
(c) Secretary Rusk.
(d) Adlai Stevenson.

2. What did Robert sarcastically claim to be the advantage to being wrong in the case of military action?
(a) America's nuclear power would keep other countries from voicing disapproval.
(b) All of the enemies would be destroyed.
(c) It was favored by the American people.
(d) No one would be around to know.

3. What might have happened to the President if he had not acted?
(a) Nothing.
(b) Death.
(c) Public humiliation.
(d) Impeachment.

4. Who sent messages praising Russia and castigating the U.S.?
(a) Ted Sorensen.
(b) David Ormsby Gore.
(c) Fidel Castro.
(d) Bertrand Russell.

5. What position did Robert hold in the Kennedy administration?
(a) Press Secretary.
(b) Secretary of Defense.
(c) Attorney General.
(d) Senator.

Short Answer Questions

1. How far was the original line of interception for the blockade?

2. Robert describes the conflict in Cuba as one between two atomic nations. What are the two atomic nations he refers to?

3. Who presented the United States case to the United Nations?

4. What did JFK ask in a letter to Khrushchev after ordering the blockade?

5. What type of non-fiction is Thirteen Days?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Adlai Stevenson suggest was a third option for the President to consider? Why was it rejected?

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

3. What was one argument for a blockade?

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

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

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

7. Why does RFK slip the President a note saying "I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor" (25)? How do the situations compare?

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

9. What was ironic about JFK's meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrea Gromyko?

10. Why does RFK defend Adlai Stevenson's suggestion?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,242 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample