Scary Days, but Good Days

The movie "Thirteen Days" is the real story of the so called "Cuban Missile Crisis." Some may think that the movie is so dramatic that Hollywood must have shaped it for dramatic purposes. However, within the constraints of two hours and 20 minutes, the film is an astonishingly accurate account of what happened during those terrifying days. The military wanted a war. So did many of President Kennedy's cold war advisers (John McCone, Dean Acheson, McGeorge Bundy). John Kennedy, and no one else, stopped them from bombing the Russian missile sites and invading Cuba.

Many Congressional leaders refused to support his strategy of restraint. We're going to have to fight the Russians anyway, they said, let's get it over with. The fact that many of "us," perhaps most of "us," would have been killed in the process didn't seem to dissuade anyone.

I've always been fascinated by the sociology of decision making. Since Kennedy's decision was the most important in the history of the country, perhaps in the history of the world, I have studied it closely--reading all the literature and the transcripts of the tapes from the Oval Office. Each time I read the story (and all through the film), I am convinced that there is going to be a war. The pressure on the president to risk nuclear annihilation was enormous. Yet cool, aloof, ironic man that he was, John Kennedy prevented war and finessed a Russian withdrawal of atomic weapons from Cuba.

This achievement alone qualifies him for a high ranking in the list of great American presidents. Perhaps because those 13 days were so scary, they have disappeared from our collective memory. After the crisis was over, Kennedy's critics on the right said he'd been too weak. Those on the left said he should have let the Russians keep their weapons in Cuba. The people supported him, however. Perhaps they realized that many other men who occupied the Oval Office would have given the signal to start a nuclear war.

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