usk famously said, "We went eyeball to eyeball, and I think the various other other simply blinked." One of the most questionable assertion of Roger Donaldson's Thirteen Days
The 1962 Cuban missile dilemma was the closest we've come to a nuclear globe battle. Nikita Khrushchev installed Soviet missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida and within striking range of 80 million Americans. Kennedy informed him to remove them, otherwise. As Soviet ships with more missiles removaled towards Cuba, a U.S. marine blockade was set up to quit them. The globe waited.
At the College of Illinois, I remember courses being put on hold or disregarded as we crowded about TV sets and the ships attracted better in the Atlantic. There was a genuine opportunity that nuclear bombs might fall in the next hr. And after that Walter Cronkite had fortunately: The Soviets had transformed back. Secretary of Specify Dean R. A smart new political thriller, is that the men that blinked weren't just the Soviets, but also America's own military commanders--who backed down not from Soviet ships but from the White House. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay are depicted as rabid hawks craving a battle. It is up to governmental adviser Kenny O'Donnell (Kevin Costner) and Protection Secretary Robert McNamara (Dylan Baker) to face down the top brass, that are depicted as boys excited to have fun with nuclear playthings. "This is a configuration," O'Donnell cautions Head of state John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood). If combating damages out at a reduced degree, say with Castro contending an American snoop airaircraft, "the chiefs will force us to begin shooting." This variation of occasions, the viewer should understand, may owe more to the auto technicians of screenwriting compared to to the annals of background. In a movie where the opponent (Khrushchev) is never ever seen, living and taking a breath antagonists are a benefit on the screen, when McNamara and a trigger-happy admiral enter into a yelling suit, it is feasible to forget they're both supposed to be heros. Yet the Chilly Battle mindset did engender military fear, generals such as LeMay were excited to blast the commies, and Kennedy was seen by his detractors as a bit soft.
"Kennedy's dad was among the architects of Munich," grumbles Dean Acheson, Truman's secretary of specify and an architect of the Chilly Battle. "Let's hope appeasement does not run in the family." My own feeling is that major trainees of the missile dilemma will not most likely to this movie for additional scholarship, which for the public it will play--like Oliver Stone's "JFK"--as a parable: Points might not have happened exactly such as this, but it certain did seem like they did. I am not also a lot troubled by the choice to inform the tale through the eyes of O'Donnell, that inning accordance with Kennedy scholars can hardly be listened to on White House tapes made throughout the dilemma, and does not number significantly in most backgrounds of the occasion. He functions in the movie as a useful fly on the wall surface, a guy free to be where the head of state isn't and think ideas the head of state can't. (Complete disclosure: O'Donnell's child Kevin, the Earthlink millionaire, is an investor in the company of "Thirteen Days" producer Armyan Bernstein.) Costner plays O'Donnell as a White House jack-of-all-trades, a shut adviser whose workplace adjoins the Oblong Workplace. He has deep origins with the Kennedys. He was Bobby's roommate at Harvard and Jack's project supervisor, he is an absolutely faithful confidante, and in the movie he assists in saving civilization by sometimes taking issues right into his own hands. When the Joint Chiefs are craving a reason to combat, he advises one pilot to "check out this point to the various other side"--code for asking him to exist to his superiors instead compared to trigger a battle.
The movie's tight, level design is appropriate for a tale that's more about facts and conjecture compared to about activity. Kennedy and his advisors study high-altitude pictures and knowledge records, and wonder if Khrushchev's word can be relied on. Everything depends on what they decide. The movie shows guys in unknotted ties and shirt-sleeves, grasping coffee mugs or scotch glasses and attempting to sound logical while they go to some degree terrified. What the Kennedy group recognizes, and wishes the various other side recognizes, is that the real risk is that someone will strike first from fear of striking second.
The movie reduces to military scenes--air bases, ships at sea--but just for information, except scenes that will settle the plot. In the White House, operatives such as O'Donnell make peaceful phone telephone calls to their families, aware they may be biding farewell forever, that the "evacuation plans" are meaningless other than as morale-boosters. As Kennedy, Bruce Greenwood is slightly a look-alike and sound-alike, but such as Anthony Hopkins in "Nixon," he slowly handles the persona of the personality, and our company believe him. Steven Culp makes a great Bobby Kennedy, sharp-edged and safety of his sibling, and Dylan Baker's similarity to McNamara is extraordinary.