Thirteen Days

[Bob]

I just watched the movie Thirteen Days again last night. To me, those 13 days of leadership during the Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962 was the No. 1 reason JFK will go down as a great President. We are just a few days away from the 54th anniversary of that event that took almost two weeks to resolve.Anyway, ALL of the Joint Chiefs wanted JFK to invade Cuba that year. In March of '62, the Joint Chiefs presented JFK with Operation Northwoods. The only difference in March was that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was Lyman Lemnizter, instead of Max Taylor who became the new Chairman On October 1. Operation Northwoods was a 9/11 type of plan that would have led to the invasion of Cuba. JFK thankfully refused to implement Operation Northwoods. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHAR ... ds.htmlHad JFK listened to the military and CIA during the missile crisis, World War III would have started and there would have been a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. That would have made the Cold War a VERY Hot War. JFK knew that Lemnitzer and Allen Dulles of the CIA had screwed him over with their intelligence briefings in the Bay of Pigs debacle. He wasn't going to go down that road again. In a scene in the movie, JFK talks about that scenario with RFK and Kenny O'Donnell shortly after they were briefed by Max Taylor, Dean Acheson and others about what needed to happen once the missiles were discovered. Taylor and Acheson endorsed an air strike and then an invasion on Cuba."Tonight, listening to Taylor and Acheson, I kept seeing Lemnizter and Dulles, telling me all I had to do was sign and the dotted line and the invasion (Bay of Pigs) would succeed, Castro would be gone and it would be easy just like that," JFK said. "You know, there is something immoral about abandoning your own judgement."JFK definitely trusted his own judgement and did not abandon it. He and his brother Bobby came up with a different plan and the world was spared another world war and multiple mushroom clouds. Bottom line, JFK's leadership in those 13 days is a big reason why a lot of us are still here. But just a little over a year later, JFK was assassinated. The reasons were many. For one, his refusal to invade Cuba. Not to mention his plan to withdraw all troops and advisors (only 16,000 at the time of JFK's death) out of Vietnam. JFK also brokered for peace with Cuba and the Soviet Union through backchannel negotiations. Plus you had JFK implementing big changes with the Federal Reserve, as well as wanting to reduce the oil depletion allowance by 15 percent.Those policies pissed off a lot of rich and powerful people. And that is what led to the event which occurred on November 22, 1963.Just look at Big War, Big Banking and Big Oil now. Those three industries have become much more rich and powerful than they ever were in November of '63. JFK certainly saw the future and tried to change it. Unfortunately, he died for that cause. And to make matters worse, the entities which were involved in the assassination of JFK, still are in charge of policy for the United States.

[JDThomas]

Bob, I have Robert Kennedy's book Thirteen Days, which is his personal recollection, minus the 'Top Secret' details that he was not allowed to talk about if he wanted to have the book published. It' still the most fascinating account of the crisis, particularly when the military people appear to have gained the upper hand in the debate and due to lobbying on the hill, JFK was comming in for a lot of heat for his handling of the crisis The soviet ships were still heading towards the exclusion zone, in defiance of the blockade order and showed no change in course and speed - if they continued - it was war - at the very least JFK was finished politically and at worst, Armageddon. There was no going back and all JFK could do was sit there, suffer and sweat to wait to see if they tried to breach the exlusion zone. I don't think the film adequately portrays this tension in the crisis nearly as well, but it's difficult in a film to show waiting, suffering in silence as it is dead time on the screen.A problem with the public view of the whole crisis is that the official review into it was filed as secret until 2007 - with the Kennedy brothers both dead, many of their oponents wrote their scewed and biased memoirs of the crisis, still crucifying the man's reputation after his death, while the official record, which would have defended him, was hidden away. This score has yet to be adequately settled in my opinion.

[Bob]

Excellent feedback, JD. Although I have read excerpts from the book Thirteen Days by Robert Kennedy, I have never read the entire book. Based on your valued opinion, I will be ordering the book now.https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Days-Me ... 393318346I know the movie of the same name wasn't as much based on RFK's book, as it was based more on the book The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis, by Ernest May and Phillip Zelikow.RFK's book was used as the basis for The Missiles of October, which was a made-for-TV movie (1974), starring William Devane as JFK and Martin Sheen as RFK.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmtp8Xo ... dHIFinally, I found some great quotes from RFK's book. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2 ... ile-crisis

[JDThomas]

One thing to note about RFK's book is that the second half is written by someone else and is a lot 'drier' than RFK's first person witness account. This second part is a pretty good analysis looking back, but is still missing some of the material redacted until the 2007 release.In retrospect I also think that McNamara's role needs to be upgraded - although he is a constant figure throughout the crisis , he is rarely seen as a leading figure in the decision making. He did however act as a very strong buffer between the President and the military hawks, particularly as tensions rose and tempers became frayed - he took the heat down a notch. One has to wonder how close the generals came to 'taking charge' during this crisis otherwise. The phrase goes 'to get to Kennedy you have to get to McNamara first' - I don't think that they were wrong about that.

[kenmurray]

Robert McNamara reflects on the Cuban Missile Crisis:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0suadZ6AmM