Deck 35: American Zenith

Question 1

The new militancy and restlessness among many members of the African-American community after 1945 was especially generated by

A) the growing moral criticism of segregation by white church leaders.
B) blacks' increasing awareness during and after the war of the gap between American democratic ideals and racial practices.
C) the appointment of Thurgood Marshall, chief legal counsel of the NAACP, to the Supreme Court.
D) Dwight Eisenhower's commitment to civil rights.
E) the agitation of A. Philip Randolph.

Answer 1

blacks' increasing awareness during and after the war of the gap between American democratic ideals and racial practices.

Question 2

Identify and state the historical significance of Adlai Stevenson.

Answer 2

Idealistic governor of Illinois who ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic presidential candidate against Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election.

Question 3

Identify and state the historical significance of Oral Roberts.

Answer 3

Celebrity Christian preacher who built an audience on the radio.

Question 4

The record would seem to indicate that President Eisenhower's strongest commitment during his presidency was to

A) social justice.
B) social harmony.
C) party loyalty.
D) racial desegregation.
E) political reform.

Question 5

During the 1952 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower declared that he would help to end the Korean War by

A) using atomic weapons.
B) blockading the China coast and bomb Manchuria.
C) opening negotiations with Mao Zedong.
D) ordering United Nations troops to invade North Korea.
E) personally going to Korea.

Question 6

Swedish writer Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma essentially argued that

A) altering racial segregation would create great problems for America's neighborhoods and schools.
B) the divisions over race might well lead to a new North-South conflict.
C) the Civil Rights movement was bound to overturn segregation.
D) the United States would become a more and more racist society.
E) America's racial segregation was a hypocritical contradiction of its democratic ideals.

Question 7

Identify and state the historical significance of Rosa Parks.

Question 8

Richard Nixon was selected as Dwight Eisenhower's vice-presidential running mate in 1952 as a concession to the

A) corporate interests.
B) liberal Republicans.
C) hard-line anti-communists.
D) moderate Republicans.
E) Southern Republicans.

Question 9

Identify and state the historical significance of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Question 10

Dwight Eisenhower's greatest asset as president was his

A) vast military experience.
B) willingness to take a partisan stand.
C) commitment to social justice.
D) willingness to involve himself in rough campaigning.
E) enjoyment of the affection and respect of the American people.

Question 11

Identify and state the historical significance of Betty Friedan.

Question 12

Identify and state the historical significance of Elvis Presley.

Question 13

In an effort to overturn Jim Crow laws and the segregated system that the South had created, African Americans used all of the following methods EXCEPT

A) economic boycotts.
B) legal attacks on the underpinnings of segregation in the courts.
C) appeals to foreign governments to pressure the United States to establish racial justice.
D) mobilization of black churches on behalf of black rights.
E) use of the nonviolent tactics of Mohandas Gandhi.

Question 14

Identify and state the historical significance of John Kenneth Galbraith.

Question 15

In terms of politics, television did all of the following EXCEPT

A) threaten the traditional role of political parties.
B) apply the standards of show business and commercialism to political messages.
C) enable political parties to continue their role of educating and mobilizing the electorate.
D) allow politicians to address voters directly.
E) encourage reliance on short slogans and sound bites.

Question 16

The Supreme Court began to advance the cause of civil rights in the 1950s because

A) the Court was the only branch of government with the constitutional authority to do so.
B) the courts were dominated by New Deal liberals.
C) President Eisenhower had requested the Court's assistance.
D) Congress and the presidency had largely abdicated their responsibilities by keeping hands off the issue.
E) the Constitution clearly prohibited any segregation.

Question 17

Identify and state the historical significance of Dwight Eisenhower.

Question 18

Identify and state the historical significance of Marilyn Monroe.

Question 19

Richard Nixon's "Checkers" speech, during the 1952 presidential campaign

A) was an eloquent, sincere appeal that demonstrated Nixon's ethical seriousness.
B) demonstrated the new power of television and kept him on the Republican ticket with Dwight Eisenhower.
C) demonstrated the limitations of the power of television to save the ethically challenged and maudlin Richard Nixon from being cast into political oblivion.
D) led Dwight Eisenhower to tone down Nixon's attacks on Democrats for being soft on communism.
E) proved that Nixon had the political skills and leadership to become president if necessary.

Question 20

Identify and state the historical significance of Billy Graham.

Question 21

In 1956, when Hungary revolted against continued domination by the Soviet Union, the United States under Dwight Eisenhower

A) sent money to the rebels.
B) quickly recognized the new Hungarian government.
C) refused to admit any Hungarian refugees and declined to provide military assistance to the anticommunist Hungarian rebels.
D) gave only outdated military equipment to the Hungarian freedom fighters.
E) did nothing to help to defeat the communists.

Question 22

The Eisenhower-promoted public works project that was far larger and more expensive than anything in Roosevelt's New Deal was the

A) interstate highway system.
B) Grand Coulee dam project.
C) urban public subway and light rail project.
D) airport construction program.
E) public housing system.

Question 23

The leader of the nationalist movement in Vietnam since World War I was

A) Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung).
B) Ngo Dinh Diem.
C) Dienbienphu.
D) Ho Chi Minh.
E) Nguyen Cao Ky.

Question 24

During his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower accepted the principle and extended the benefits of

A) federal health care programs.
B) the Tennessee Valley Authority.
C) deficit spending.
D) racial equality.
E) the Social Security system.

Question 25

_____ were condemned by the United States in 1956 as the aggressors in the Suez Canal crisis.

A) Egypt and Jordan
B) The Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact members
C) Israel and Turkey
D) Lebanon and Syria
E) Britain and France

Question 26

As the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu was about to fall to Ho Chi Minh's communist forces in 1954, President Eisenhower

A) agreed to send small military units to aid the French.
B) relied on the advice of Vice President Nixon and Secretary of State Dulles.
C) sought a compromise settlement at Geneva.
D) refused to permit any American military involvement.
E) threatened nuclear attack on the Vietnamese communists.

Question 27

As a part of his New Look foreign policy, President Eisenhower

A) sought an alliance with China.
B) refused to talk with leaders of the Soviet Union.
C) called for an "open skies" mutual inspection program over both the United States and the Soviet Union.
D) sent help to the Hungarian freedom fighters.
E) allied with Israel against the Arab states.

Question 28

President Eisenhower defined the domestic philosophy of his administration as

A) the Fair Deal.
B) the silent majority.
C) dynamic conservatism.
D) two cars in every garage.
E) compassionate conservatism.

Question 29

The 1955 Geneva Conference

A) failed to reach an agreement on the political future of Vietnam.
B) made Ngo Dinh Diem president of Vietnam.
C) called for the two Vietnams to hold national unification elections within two years.
D) created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.
E) established a permanent division of Vietnam into a communist North Vietnam and a pro-Western anti-communist South Vietnam.

Question 30

The Suez crisis marked the last time in history that the United States could

A) use the threat of nuclear war to win concessions.
B) criticize Israel's foreign policy.
C) condemn its allies for their actions in the Middle East.
D) invoke the Eisenhower Doctrine.
E) use its oil weapon to make foreign policy demands.

Question 31

President Eisenhower's vehemently anti-communist Secretary of State, through most of his two administrations, was

A) John Bricker.
B) John Foster Dulles.
C) Allen Dulles.
D) Dean Acheson.
E) George C. Marshall.

Question 32

As the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu was about to fall to Ho Chi Minh's communist forces in 1954, President Eisenhower

A) agreed to send small military units to aid the French.
B) relied on the advice of Vice President Nixon and Secretary of State Dulles.
C) sought a compromise settlement at Geneva.
D) refused to permit any American military involvement.
E) threatened nuclear attack on the Vietnamese communists.

Question 33

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was an outgrowth of the

A) antiwar movement of the 1960s.
B) black power movement of the 1960s.
C) ban-the-bomb movement of the 1950s.
D) Civil Rights Act of 1957.
E) sit-in movement launched by young Southern blacks.

Question 34

During the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency engineered pro-American political coups in both

A) Iran and Guatemala.
B) Iraq and Nicaragua.
C) Lebanon and El Salvador.
D) Libya and Costa Rica.
E) Egypt and Cuba.

Question 35

Dwight Eisenhower's policies toward Native Americans included

A) efforts at tribal preservation.
B) the establishment of tribes as legal entities.
C) incentives for tribes to hold onto their land.
D) a return to the assimilation goals of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887.
E) an emphasis on education and job training.

Question 36

In the epochal 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court

A) declared that the concept of "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites was unconstitutional.
B) upheld its earlier decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
C) rejected desegregation.
D) declined to rule on whether segregated facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional.
E) ordered immediate and total integration of all American schools.

Question 37

In response to a supposed Soviet threat to Middle Eastern oil, the American Central Intelligence Agency in 1953

A) began seeking alternative sources of energy.
B) staged a coup to overthrow the Iranian government and install Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi as dictator-like monarch.
C) engaged in sabotage against pro-Soviet governments in the region.
D) developed close cooperation with Israeli intelligence agencies.
E) gathered conclusive evidence of the Soviets' plans to control Egypt.

Question 38

The 1954 Supreme Court case that ruled racially segregated school systems inherently unequal was

A) Roe v. Wade.
B) Plessy v. Ferguson.
C) Sweatt v. Painter.
D) Johnson v. Little Rock School District.
E) Brown v. Board of Education.

Question 39

On the subject of racial justice, President Eisenhower

A) had demanded the integration of the armed forces as early as 1948.
B) publicly endorsed the 1954 Supreme Court school-desegregation decision.
C) vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
D) had advised against integrating the armed forces.
E) admired the Christian philosophy of Martin Luther King.

Question 40

As president, Dwight Eisenhower supported

A) putting the brakes on military spending.
B) the abolition of the Social Security system.
C) the dismissal of his secretary of health, education, and welfare for condemning free distribution on the Salk polio vaccine as socialized medicine.
D) the continuation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
E) a stronger voice for organized labor.

Question 41

How did the new American affluence and the Cold War shape American domestic life in the 1950s?

Question 42

When the Soviet Union attempted to install nuclear weapons in Cuba, President Kennedy ordered

A) the installation of nuclear weapons in Turkey.
B) surgical air strikes against the missile sites.
C) a ground invasion of Cuba naval landing at Guantanamo Bay.
D) an aerial bombing of all of Cuba.
E) a naval quarantine of that island.

Question 43

In response to the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957

A) Harry Truman condemned the Republicans for allowing a scientific gap to occur.
B) the federal government began spending billions of dollars to improve American science, math, and foreign language education through the National Defense Education Act (NDEA).
C) the United States spent nearly a decade trying to equal this achievement.
D) the Republican party took responsibility for the fact that the United States had fallen behind the Soviets in this area of scientific discovery.
E) scientists blamed America's slowness on poor math and science education in the schools.

Question 44

By the end of the 1950s, Latin American anger toward the United States had intensified because Washington had done all of the following EXCEPT

A) extend massive aid to Europe and little to Latin America.
B) continue to intervene in Latin-American affairs.
C) support bloody dictators who claimed to be fighting communism.
D) provide encouragement to Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba.
E) sponsored the CIA-directed coup in Guatemala.

Question 45

The factor that may well have tipped the electoral scales for John F. Kennedy in the presidential election of 1960 was

A) his age.
B) his religion.
C) his televised debates with Richard M. Nixon.
D) President Eisenhower's heavy loss of popularity in his last two years in office.
E) his family.

Question 46

The Alliance for Progress, which intended to improve economic growth and democratic reforms in Latin America, was

A) effectively implemented by American Peace Corps volunteers.
B) effective economically but ineffective in developing pro-American sentiment in the region.
C) generally disappointing in its development and implementation.
D) weakened by the Kennedy administration's harsh policies toward Cuba.
E) an incentive for growing Soviet intervention in the region.

Question 47

The Cuban missile crisis resulted in all of the following EXCEPT

A) U.S. agreement to abandon the American base at Guantanamo.
B) the removal of Nikita Khrushchev from power in the Soviet Union.
C) a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba.
D) an ambitious program of military expansion by the Soviet Union.
E) withdrawal of U.S. missiles in Turkey.

Question 48

Two postwar American fiction writers who explored the problems and anxieties of affluence were

A) John Updike and John Cheever.
B) Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut.
C) Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller.
D) Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin.
E) Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor.

Question 49

When Dwight Eisenhower left the presidency in 1961

A) it was noted that his second term had produced little of value, since he was a "lame duck."
B) Congress was firmly in the hands of the Republicans.
C) he was unhappy with Vice President Nixon's unbending anticommunism.
D) he had clearly lost control of the Democratic-dominated Congress.
E) he remained an extraordinarily popular figure.

Question 50

The title of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man refers to a(n)

A) anti-communist agent who is forced to live underground.
B) World War II bomber pilot who is ignored upon his return home.
C) victim of nuclear testing who is dying of radiation.
D) father who is disrespected by his family.
E) African American whose supposed supporters are unable to see him as a real man.

Question 51

John F. Kennedy's strategy of flexible response

A) was an updated version of John Foster Dulles's doctrine of massive retaliation.
B) was used in his battle with the leadership of the steel industry.
C) called for a variety of military options that could be matched to the scope and importance of a crisis.
D) required increased spending on a variety of nuclear weapons systems to be deployed around the world.
E) cut back nuclear weapons in favor of guerrilla forces.

Question 52

American military forces entered Vietnam in order to

A) try to drive the communists out of North Vietnam.
B) help to stage a coup against Ngo Dinh Diem.
C) prevent Ngo Dinh Diem's regime from falling to the communists.
D) establish defensive perimeters around Saigon and other Vietnamese cities.
E) promote democratic reforms in South Vietnam.

Question 53

The Paris summit conference, scheduled for 1960, collapsed because of the

A) Suez crisis.
B) Bay of Pigs.
C) Quemoy episode.
D) launching of Sputnik.
E) U-2 incident.

Question 54

The essential purpose of President Kennedy's promise to land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s was to

A) restore American prestige in the space race damaged by the Soviets' Sputnik.
B) develop the possibility of deploying American weapons in outer space.
C) engage in scientific and astronomical study of the moon and the solar system.
D) provide investments and jobs in the key states of Texas and Florida.
E) use the space program to develop new technologies in electronics and other areas.

Question 55

During his second term, President Eisenhower

A) no longer trusted his vice president, Richard Nixon, to lend assistance.
B) hoped that he would be able to win a third term.
C) took a more active personal role in governing.
D) believed that the civil rights movement needed his personal involvement if it were to succeed.
E) recognized that only he had the experience to deal with the Soviets.

Question 56

The Bay of Pigs invasion failed when

A) the Cuban rebel forces lost the Battle of Havana.
B) the anti-Castro exiles were defeated by the Cuban military.
C) the Soviet Union intervened to protect the Castro government.
D) President Kennedy's use of U.S. air power led to the capture of American pilots.
E) anti-Castro Cubans in Florida refused to support the effort.

Question 57

When he became attorney general, Robert Kennedy sought to refocus the attention of the FBI on

A) organized crime and civil rights.
B) communist spies and terrorism.
C) political corruption and campaign law violations.
D) illegal immigration and drug trading.
E) automobile theft and illegal weapons.

Question 58

The Beat Generation can be described in all of the following ways EXCEPT

A) they formed the protest culture of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
B) they promoted interest in bebop jazz and Eastern religious mysticism.
C) in founding their own movement, the hippies later rejected many of the Beat notions.
D) they embraced sexual liberation.
E) their name came from the term "beatnik," meant as a Cold War insult.

Question 59

When he took office in 1961, President Kennedy chose to try to stimulate the sluggish economy through

A) a massive foreign-aid program.
B) large-scale government spending programs.
C) an income tax cut.
D) reducing expenditures on the space program.
E) a tighter monetary policy.

Question 60

President Kennedy's most bitter confrontation with big business occurred when he

A) raised taxes on corporate business profits.
B) refused to support compensation for American businesses' lost investments in Cuba.
C) demanded that the American oil industry stop driving up the price of gasoline.
D) forced steel industry leaders to roll back steel price increases.
E) lowered tariff rates to permit more European imports into the United States.

Question 61

What made Eisenhower such a popular and successful president in the 1950s? How would you assess the relative importance of his personality, his policies, and the climate of the times?

Question 62

How did television affect American religion, sports, and politics in the 1950s? Were the changes wrought by television to American religion, sports, and religion in the 1950s healthy or unhealthy ones for our values, our democracy, and our popular culture?

Question 63

During the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "I Have A Dream Speech," in which he proclaimed

A) that blacks would become more militant if their rights were not secured.
B) that a black man would one day be president
C) that his children would one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin.
D) that blacks would return to Africa if they were not granted their civil rights by the U.S. government.
E) All of these choices are correct.

Question 64

President John Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy began to join hands with the Civil Rights movement when they

A) sent federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders.
B) ordered the FBI to remove the wiretap from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s phone.
C) secured passage of the Voting Rights Act.
D) issued executive orders prohibiting all racial discrimination in federal employment.
E) ordered the immediate desegregation of schools.

Question 65

At the time of his death, President John Kennedy's Civil Rights bill

A) had been passed, much to the satisfaction of African Americans.
B) had been passed, but greatly weakened by amendments.
C) was still bogged down in Congress.
D) was on the desk waiting to be signed into law.
E) was locked in a filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

Question 66

President Kennedy's alleged assassin was

A) Jack Ruby.
B) Lee Harvey Oswald.
C) Medgar Evers.
D) James Earl Ray.
E) an agent of Fidel Castro.

Question 67

How did the global reach and influence of American mass popular culture affect the cultural trends and developments in rest of the world in the 1950s and afterwards?

Question 68

Describe and evaluate the content and conduct of Eisenhower's vice-presidential running mate Richard Nixon in his political attacks on and assertions about the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson? How did Nixon's political background make him an apt choice to make the type of hyperbolic and fiercely ideological political attacks on Stevenson that ultimately weakened the Democratic presidential candidate in the general election?

Question 69

What explains the widespread affluence of the 1950s? What was the specific impact of television and mass advertising on American values and lifestyles during the 1950s?

Question 70

The Freedom Riders

A) protested segregation by torching buses on segregated routes.
B) sought to end segregation in facilities serving interstate bus passengers.
C) were involved in the sit-ins across the South to end segregation.
D) were African Americans who sought to integrate public school buses.
E) None of these choices are correct.

Question 71

Why was there such strong popular domestic political support initially for Senator Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist crusade in the early 1950s?

Question 72

The consequences of the Cuban missile crisis included

A) a nuclear test-ban treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.
B) a Vienna summit meeting between President Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev.
C) the installation of a Moscow-Washington hot line for crisis communication.
D) a massive military arms-building program in the Soviet Union.
E) the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

Question 73

Why were women especially affected by the "cult of domesticity," as well as the changing economic patterns involving "white-collar" employment and "blue-collar" employment of the 1950s? What were some of the cultural and literary reactions to these developments concerning women during the 1950s?

Question 74

American and world public opinion turned strongly in favor of the Civil Rights movement when

A) Senator Barry Goldwater came out in favor of the Civil Rights bill.
B) Martin Luther King led a successful nonviolent march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
C) J. Edgar Hoover's wiretaps on Martin Luther King were exposed.
D) Martin Luther King's peaceful demonstrators were viciously attacked in Birmingham.
E) Martin Luther King met with President Kennedy at the White House.

Question 75

How did American popular culture reflect the affluence of the 1950s? Why did so many contemporary observers see figures like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe as a threat to American moral values?

Question 76

President Kennedy ordered hundreds of federal marshals and thousands of federal troops to force the racial integration of

A) Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
B) Louisiana State University.
C) the lunch counters of Greensboro, North Carolina.
D) the bus stations in Birmingham, Alabama.
E) the University of Mississippi.

Question 77

Do you agree with critics of the time that the 1950s was "an age of conformity"? Why or why not?

Question 78

The 1963 March on Washington led by Martin Luther King, Jr., provided critical support for

A) the War on Poverty.
B) the Democratic party.
C) the Voting Rights bill.
D) the Civil Rights bill to protect black citizens and to prohibit segregation in public accommodations.
E) jobs and Medicare.

Question 79

How was the increasingly open expression of sexuality in popular culture and music a reflection of American affluence? In what ways did overt sexuality and mass production mutually enhance one another?

Question 80

Which of the following developments helped propel the civil rights movement in the 1950s and early 1960s?

A) The unanimous holding in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
B) The federal government forcefully ensuring the integration of Little Rock's Central High School, despite the determined opposition of Arkansas governor Orval Faubus and his segregationist supporters.
C) The "sit-in" movement of young African Americans which sought to compel equal treatment of blacks and whites in restaurants, transportation, employment, housing, and voter registration.
D) The formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to mobilize black churches on behalf of black civil rights.
E) The enthusiastic endorsement of President Eisenhower of the enactment of a strong Civil Rights bill.