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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. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, what role did Congress play?
(a) They helped formulate ideas.
(b) Some were members of Ex Comm.
(c) They were informed.
(d) They declared war.

2. Where did JFK say, "Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to the choice of either a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war" (97)?
(a) Harvard University.
(b) American University.
(c) Princeton University.
(d) Cornell University.

3. What does Robert believe had a "major psychological and practical effect on the Russians and changed our position . . . into a country acting in accordance with twenty allies legally protecting their position" (92)?
(a) The African countries voicing support.
(b) Congressional approval.
(c) A declaration of war.
(d) Support from the OAS.

4. Who said, " You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no. You have denied that they exist, and I want to know whether or I have understood you correctly" (58)?
(a) Don Wilson.
(b) Pierre Salinger.
(c) Adlai Stevenson.
(d) V. A. Zorin.

5. Who urged the President to release photos of missiles to the UN for publication?
(a) Dovid Ormsby Gore.
(b) Pierre Salinger
(c) Ted Sorensen.
(d) Adlai Stevenson.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which country does Robert identify that originally doubted the U.S.'s position regarding Cuba?

2. What did Dobrynin say the Cubans resented when Robert meets with him after the U-2 was shot down?

3. Who wrote, "there is just no foreseeable route by which the United States and Soviet Union could become involved in a major nuclear war" (104)?

4. Whose plane was shot down while flying reconnaissance over Cuba?

5. Who said "I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time, The Missiles of October" (98)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did RFK believe was wrong with the letter drafted by the State Department that was written in response to the letter received October 27th, and what did he suggest they write instead?

2. Why did JFK choose the Marucla for the first vessel to be boarded?

3. Analyze the simile "the leaders who lived through the crisis felt what it was like to peer over the precipice" (104)?

4. How did Africa play a role in the Cuban Missile Crisis?

5. What is one example Robert provides of a devil's advocate working?

6. Khrushchev uses several metaphors in his letter to JFK. What is one metaphor and what does it mean?

7. How does JFK view the military advisers recommending war? Why does he feel this way?

8. What does Robert mean when he says "that with respect to nuclear war there is an awesome crack between unlikelihood and impossibility" (105)?

9. What is JFK referencing when he says that "we are now in an entirely new ball game" (74)? What has changed?

10. When the crisis was over, why did Kennedy not make a statement assigning credit for the success? And why did he instruct all involved not to provide one either?

(see the answer keys)

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