Deck 12: 1968

Question 1

_______, a Democratic senator, announced his willingness to challenge Johnson for the presidential nomination on an antiwar platform.

A) Robert Kennedy
B) Eugene McCarthy
C) Richard Nixon
D) George McGovern

Answer 1

B

Question 2

-This image illustrates a major difference between the Vietnam War and earlier wars

A) The role of government propaganda
B) Incompetent leadership
C) A free press
D) Television, which brought the war right into people's homes nightly

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The _______ created increasing doubt about the administration's rhetoric regarding the Vietnam War in early 1968.

A) Tet Offensive
B) My Lai massacre
C) Gulf of Tonkin incident
D) Massacre at Dien Bien Phu

Answer 3

A

Question 4

By the end of February 1968 the most respected American journalists had turned in opposition to the administration's Vietnam policy, which had the effect of

A) Turning the American public against journalism
B) Creating a space for legitimate dissent to the war in the public mind
C) Turning many in the administration who had previously supported the war against it
D) Changing Johnson's mind about pursuing the war

Question 5

Robert Kennedy declined at first to run against Lyndon Johnson on an antiwar platform because

A) He still believed the war could be won
B) He agreed with Johnson's Vietnam policies
C) He felt the decision would be portrayed in the press as the result of a personal feud
D) He had become disinterested in politics since JFK's death

Question 6

Kennedy believed that the way to head off communist victories worldwide was to

A) Help the poor in underdeveloped countries achieve economic equality
B) Support any leader who was anticommunist, no matter how autocratic their policies were
C) Focus on America first, and stop spending money and troops abroad
D) Increase US commitment to military intervention overseas

Question 7

Kennedy identified with and supported César Chávez, the leader of striking Chicano farmworkers in California, who believed in

A) Nonviolent protest
B) The righteousness of the struggle for economic justice
C) The conviction that Americans must be made to confront the exploitation that existed in their midst
D) All of the above

Question 8

Kennedy wavered over running for president in 1968 largely because of

A) Loyalty to Johnson
B) Fear of splitting the antiwar vote with McCarthy
C) Political pragmatism
D) Fear of taking the office his brother had died in

Question 9

Antiwar members of the Johnson administration believed that the new secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, could be the person to convince the president to de-escalate in Vietnam because Clifford

A) Was secretly antiwar himself
B) Was dedicated to searching for the facts about the war
C) Was not all that loyal to Johnson
D) Harbored political ambitions and wanted to make a name for himself

Question 10

Johnson's immediate response to the Tet Offensive was

A) To begin negotiations with the North Vietnamese
B) To waver and ask for advice about the best course
C) To entirely withdraw from Vietnam
D) To continue to seek total victory in Vietnam

Question 11

By mid-March 1968, _______ of Americans believed it was wrong for the US to have become involved in the Vietnam War

A) 12%
B) 32%
C) 49%
D) 67%

Question 12

Johnson later listed _______ as one of the reasons that he decided not to seek a second term as president.

A) Vietnam
B) Inflation
C) Robert Kennedy's intent to seek the Democratic nomination
D) All of the above

Question 13

What do Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Eugene McCarthy have in common?

A) They were all preachers
B) They were all running for president in 1968
C) They were all political outsiders
D) They all wanted to change the basic structure of American society

Question 14

J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, seemed to have a personal vendetta against Martin Luther King, Jr. because

A) King had openly communist leanings
B) King had openly communist advisors
C) King had criticized southern FBI agents as sharing the mores of their community
D) Hoover wanted to undercut the civil rights movement

Question 15

Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed while in Memphis for a

A) Voting rights march
B) Garbage workers' strike for union recognition
C) Peaceful protest against racist policing
D) Demonstration against the Vietnam War

Question 16

Unlike Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy primarily appealed to

A) Academics and the middle class
B) Poor, urban white people
C) People of color
D) Women

Question 17

The Democratic nominee for president in 1968 was

A) Robert Kennedy
B) Eugene McCarthy
C) Hubert Humphrey
D) Lyndon Johnson

Question 18

The youth organization which organized protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention was the

A) Students for a Democratic Society
B) Weathermen
C) Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee
D) Youth International Party

Question 19

Nixon won the presidency by capitalizing on

A) Democratic divisions
B) The country's uneasiness over issues of race, urban violence, and protest
C) The outrage of the middle class
D) All of the above

Question 20

Alabama governor George Wallace, who ran as a third-party candidate in 1968, was famous as a

A) Segregationist
B) Civil rights protestor
C) Former Communist
D) Union supporter