“Thirteen Days,” a new film about the Cuban Missile Crisis, will soon be showing in many countries. Everyone should see it; not only for its dramatization of the past, but for insights into current events, especially the controversy surrounding America’s plans to establish National Missile Defense and the various regional disputes – India and Pakistan, Taiwan and China, North and South Korea – that may one day escalate into nuclear conflict.
On 16 October, 1962 President John F. Kennedy called together his closest advisors in the White House. Aerial photographs had revealed nuclear missile sites under construction in Cuba. The decisions taken and not taken over the following 13 days could have led to nuclear war. The film depicts what happened in the White House during those days. Audio tapes from Kennedy's presidency aided in making the film.
After the film’s debut in America, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard arranged for a panel to discuss the film and the crisis at its heart. Participants included: Robert McNamara, President Kennedy's Secretary of Defense; Theodore Sorensen, his close aid and speech writer; Ernest R. May, a professor of history at Harvard who has written a book about “The Kennedy Tapes"; and Graham Allison, a professor of political science at Harvard who, 30 years ago, wrote the classic study of the missile crisis “Essence of Decision.” Peter A. Almond, the film's producer also participated. Although the dramatization was criticized in some ways, the panel agreed that it portrayed the problems and pressures faced by President Kennedy exactly as they were.
What conclusions can be drawn today from the Cuban Missile Crisis? Theodore Sorensen summarized them in this way:
- Advisors have roles to play in a crisis, but only the President has ultimate responsibility. A majority of Kennedy's advisors – civil and military – wanted to attack Cuba. Kennedy’s sober analysis and penetrating questions brought to light alternatives and risks that were fundamental to determining the outcome;
- It is essential to understand how your opponent thinks and to keep lines of communication open. Cornering an opponent without keeping open diplomatic channels that allow you to understand his situation may prove fatal;
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- America needs friends. Kennedy acted as he did because NATO, other allies, and world opinion supported him;
- Good decisions need time. When life and death issues are at stake, a leader can never let the media rush him into acting. The fact that a week passed in which to scrutinize and reflect upon all the factors involved was critical to the outcome. But would such time for reflection exist with today’s mass media?
Robert McNamara emphasized the necessity of putting yourself in your opponent’s position. In one of the film's many charged sequences, McNamara explains to a trigger-happy admiral that the naval blockade Kennedy had imposed on Cuba was primarily intended as a signal to Chairman Khrushchev of Kennedy’s resolve, not as a means to stop specific Soviet ships.
Could Kennedy have acted even more coolly? After all, the US had installed nuclear missiles near the USSR. Khrushchev’s actions in sending missiles to Cuba mirrored that policy. But Kennedy was anxious about the consequences of having Soviet missiles in Cuba on Berlin. Nuclear pressures from Cuba would have made defense of Berlin more difficult, which was part of Khrushchev's strategy. In the end, “the Berlin Crisis was solved through the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis," the historian Ernest May argued.
“It will soon be too late,” was a common argument presented to Kennedy by his advisors. They wanted to attack Cuba while the missiles were, as they believed, at sea and on their way to Cuba. Around 180,000 US troops were prepared to invade; plans existed for a bombing blitz bigger than that over Kosovo thirty six years later. “It took thirty years before I found out,” McNamara said, “that there were already nuclear arms on Cuba: 162 charges, of which 90 were tactical nuclear weapons.”
McNamara received this information at a meeting with Fidel Castro. He asked Castro three questions: 1) Did you know? 2) If so, what did you recommend? 3) What would the consequences for Cuba have been? Castro answered: “I knew. I strongly recommended that nuclear weapons be used. I knew it would lead to Cuba's annihilation.” Castro, and to a stronger degree, his comrade Che Guevara, were willing to let Cuba go up in smoke in order to make their country a martyr in the world revolutionary struggle!
So an invasion might have led to the death of 80 million Americans and the obliteration of Cuba simply because Kennedy’s government did not have the facts right (which is often more common than not when the executive must take a solitary decision.) McNamara believes an invasion would “certainly” have triggered a Soviet nuclear attack against the US. For Khrushchev’s control over the Soviet military in Cuba was limited; U2 planes flying over Cuba were shot at despite Khrushchev’s explicit orders to the contrary.
One difficult question not raised during those discussions at Harvard is this: what would have happened if the opponent had not been Khrushchev, who behaved rather rationally throughout the crisis, but had been an irresponsible Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il or a fundamentalist? With nuclear proliferation, that risk may one day become real. Today’s discussions about a limited missile shield and the threat of nuclear blackmail from rogue states should be analyzed in the light of this terrible but realistic thought.
Harvard has now put up a new web-site where vital documents about the Missile Crisis and today’s nuclear threats can be found: www.cubanmissilecrisis.org .
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“Thirteen Days,” a new film about the Cuban Missile Crisis, will soon be showing in many countries. Everyone should see it; not only for its dramatization of the past, but for insights into current events, especially the controversy surrounding America’s plans to establish National Missile Defense and the various regional disputes – India and Pakistan, Taiwan and China, North and South Korea – that may one day escalate into nuclear conflict.
On 16 October, 1962 President John F. Kennedy called together his closest advisors in the White House. Aerial photographs had revealed nuclear missile sites under construction in Cuba. The decisions taken and not taken over the following 13 days could have led to nuclear war. The film depicts what happened in the White House during those days. Audio tapes from Kennedy's presidency aided in making the film.
After the film’s debut in America, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard arranged for a panel to discuss the film and the crisis at its heart. Participants included: Robert McNamara, President Kennedy's Secretary of Defense; Theodore Sorensen, his close aid and speech writer; Ernest R. May, a professor of history at Harvard who has written a book about “The Kennedy Tapes"; and Graham Allison, a professor of political science at Harvard who, 30 years ago, wrote the classic study of the missile crisis “Essence of Decision.” Peter A. Almond, the film's producer also participated. Although the dramatization was criticized in some ways, the panel agreed that it portrayed the problems and pressures faced by President Kennedy exactly as they were.
What conclusions can be drawn today from the Cuban Missile Crisis? Theodore Sorensen summarized them in this way:
- Advisors have roles to play in a crisis, but only the President has ultimate responsibility. A majority of Kennedy's advisors – civil and military – wanted to attack Cuba. Kennedy’s sober analysis and penetrating questions brought to light alternatives and risks that were fundamental to determining the outcome;
- It is essential to understand how your opponent thinks and to keep lines of communication open. Cornering an opponent without keeping open diplomatic channels that allow you to understand his situation may prove fatal;
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At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
Subscribe to Digital or Digital Plus now to secure your discount.
Subscribe Now
- America needs friends. Kennedy acted as he did because NATO, other allies, and world opinion supported him;
- Good decisions need time. When life and death issues are at stake, a leader can never let the media rush him into acting. The fact that a week passed in which to scrutinize and reflect upon all the factors involved was critical to the outcome. But would such time for reflection exist with today’s mass media?
Robert McNamara emphasized the necessity of putting yourself in your opponent’s position. In one of the film's many charged sequences, McNamara explains to a trigger-happy admiral that the naval blockade Kennedy had imposed on Cuba was primarily intended as a signal to Chairman Khrushchev of Kennedy’s resolve, not as a means to stop specific Soviet ships.
Could Kennedy have acted even more coolly? After all, the US had installed nuclear missiles near the USSR. Khrushchev’s actions in sending missiles to Cuba mirrored that policy. But Kennedy was anxious about the consequences of having Soviet missiles in Cuba on Berlin. Nuclear pressures from Cuba would have made defense of Berlin more difficult, which was part of Khrushchev's strategy. In the end, “the Berlin Crisis was solved through the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis," the historian Ernest May argued.
“It will soon be too late,” was a common argument presented to Kennedy by his advisors. They wanted to attack Cuba while the missiles were, as they believed, at sea and on their way to Cuba. Around 180,000 US troops were prepared to invade; plans existed for a bombing blitz bigger than that over Kosovo thirty six years later. “It took thirty years before I found out,” McNamara said, “that there were already nuclear arms on Cuba: 162 charges, of which 90 were tactical nuclear weapons.”
McNamara received this information at a meeting with Fidel Castro. He asked Castro three questions: 1) Did you know? 2) If so, what did you recommend? 3) What would the consequences for Cuba have been? Castro answered: “I knew. I strongly recommended that nuclear weapons be used. I knew it would lead to Cuba's annihilation.” Castro, and to a stronger degree, his comrade Che Guevara, were willing to let Cuba go up in smoke in order to make their country a martyr in the world revolutionary struggle!
So an invasion might have led to the death of 80 million Americans and the obliteration of Cuba simply because Kennedy’s government did not have the facts right (which is often more common than not when the executive must take a solitary decision.) McNamara believes an invasion would “certainly” have triggered a Soviet nuclear attack against the US. For Khrushchev’s control over the Soviet military in Cuba was limited; U2 planes flying over Cuba were shot at despite Khrushchev’s explicit orders to the contrary.
One difficult question not raised during those discussions at Harvard is this: what would have happened if the opponent had not been Khrushchev, who behaved rather rationally throughout the crisis, but had been an irresponsible Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il or a fundamentalist? With nuclear proliferation, that risk may one day become real. Today’s discussions about a limited missile shield and the threat of nuclear blackmail from rogue states should be analyzed in the light of this terrible but realistic thought.
Harvard has now put up a new web-site where vital documents about the Missile Crisis and today’s nuclear threats can be found: www.cubanmissilecrisis.org .