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'Thirteen Days'
It's odd to watch the Cuban missile crisis movie "Thirteen Days," a little disorienting. Three decades after the events it portrays, the Cold War is over, but the world has thousands more nuclear missiles armed and ready to launch than it did then. Thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its deteriorating military, the rise of terrorism, and the growing availability of bomb-making materials, they are even more likely to be used.
But not in the kind of nose-to-nose stand off that paralyzed the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, it seemed for a few days that the U.S. and Russia would actually go to war over the deployment of long-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. Tough lines were drawn, and armies were fully mobilized. The world actually held its breath as the young Kennedy administration grappled with one of history's most intense political crises.
The stakes were breathtakingly high, especially against the backdrop of a ruthless, hard-line Soviet government, a bitter military stand-off in Berlin as well as Cuba, and an American military filled with hubris. Yet government, years before the full blown media explosion and the rise of sophisticated satellite tracking and the Net, operated in much more secrecy than it can today. So much of the political strategizing and maneuvering involved in the pre-digital world were unknown by the general public.
(I was a kid during the stand-off, and about all I remember was our entire block gathered around a black-and-white TV in Providence, R.I., to hear Kennedy's grainy, grim speech declaring a military blockade of Cuba. Everybody was stunned and totally silent. Parents rushed off after the speech to the market to stockpile food. I'd never seen adults scared witless like that. They believed nuclear war was imminent. The next morning, we practiced running to school bomb shelters all morning, as air raid drill sirens sounded for hours.)
"Thirteen Days," dramatizes some of that process, but like a slick history lesson, it still has the aura of an educational exercise. It's certainly interesting and it does, in fact, offer a compelling, behind-the-scenes feeling as John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood), his brother Bobby (Steven Culp) and their trusted adviser Kenny O'Donnell (Kevin Costner) fend off the reliably warlike and conniving Pentagon brass. (When exactly did Hollywood come to hate generals so much? Can you remember a positive recent portrayal of one?) Costner, Greenwood and Culp are all workmanlike, but oddly flat and one-dimensional.
What's intriguing about the movie is our sense of witnessing the handling of a momentous crisis inside the White House. The menacingly interwoven shots of nuclear test explosions are gorgeous and horrifying, as they were in "Terminator 2" and other movies.
But several problems detract from our enjoyment. Some are fairly minor. The movie is too long by about a half-hour. You can see boom mikes at some theaters hovering at the top of the screen in many of the Oval Office sequences (perhaps a projectionist error at the small town New England theater where I saw the movie. Did anybody else see this?).
But then moviegoers should be aware that they aren't getting meticulous history. According to journalists who covered the crisis and historians who've studied it, the Kenneth O'Donnell character played by Costner (a Kennedy crony and special assistant to the president) wasn't nearly as pivotal in the real show-down as he was in this film.
This portrayal is especially generous to the Kennedy brothers, whose wit and sense of responsibility are credited with saving the world. The movie takes no notice of the series of subsequent revelations about both brothers that calls their nobility and even-handedness into question.
Despite that, it's interesting to see the relatively primitive spook technology that political leaders depended on -- high flying but vulnerable U2's and jet spy planes to gather data, slow-moving teletypes, and the low-tech, comparatively miniminalist mass media who weren't quite such a runaway, all encompassing hysteria-machine. They actually worried about national security concerns when they reported news.
And it's fascinating to be cinematically drawn into one of the great collisions between the horrific new technology of warfare -- weapons everybody in government seems to agree are too horrible to be used -- and to contrast that with an era when a terrorist cell or a Ukranian accident can trigger horrendous destruction -- a grim reality some scholars feel is inevitable, that negotiators and governments may be powerless to deal with, and that people seem to have grown almost comfortable with.
The Kennedys weren't. The film and history suggests that John Kennedy was determined to avoid a full-scale nuclear catastrophe, and mustered the confidence and courage to press for a political way out of a confrontation that was within hours of becoming a war. This is the kind of movie high school teachers will be showing history classes for years to come, even if it's hardly as dramatic as the near-Armageddon it seeks to portray.
Seeing a boom mike in frame is not a "projectionist error." Think about it--if the man caught the boom mike in frame, it's going to be in the shot, and the film editors either catch it and fix it, or they don't. They're just like proofreaders.
If you spent 8 figures on making a movie, would you really leave the content of each scene to the projectionist? That's like saying that because I'm viewing slashdot in 600x800, I'm not going to see your typos, but if I load it in 640x480, I'll be able to see them at the edge of the screen...
By the way, the nukes are much less likely to be used today. I work at a place that keeps track of those things, and you're as safe as you ever were from missiles. The idea that a terrorist group would (or even could!) go to the lengths required to purchase, calibrate, aim, and fire a nuclear missile, and not be noticed, is absurd. It's a lot simpler to attack assymetrically with conventinal bombs (a la USS Cole). Just because it's not on the news doesn't mean we're not keeping tabs on it. Sleep well, JonKatz--I may abhor your writing, but I'll risk my life every day for your right to keep spewing it out.
Today's graduates of the military academies appear to have taken Sherman's doctrine of "War is hell" to heart. I know a lot of retired military officers (I'm from the South, traditionally one of the heaviest sources of military personnel) and their doctrine appears to be "don't go to war, and if the politicians force you to go to war, bomb the enemy back to the stone age then send in overwhelming force. " The pre-Vietnam hubris appears to be gone. Vietnam apparently traumatized the military establishment to the point where they had to rethink many of their basic assumptions (such as the assumption that the U.S. could easily defeat any little tin-pot dictator with the use of a couple of divisions and a few B-52 strikes), much as the end of the Cold War has led to some soul searching on the part of today's up-and-coming officers as to what the proper role and composition of the military should be.
All in all, I've gotten good vibes off of the retired military officers that I've met. Yes, they're conservative. But they're conservative in the old fashioned sense of the word -- i.e., people who don't believe in hasty actions and who believe in leading a personally upright life (as vs. the hypocrisy of many so-called "conservatives" which is mere mean-spiritedness and spite). Many of them are now teachers, for example. While I'm not going to try to glorify the military, I will state that the folks in the military are as decent and love their country as much as the average American. If only the civilian leadership above them had those qualities.
(BTW, the notion of a military junta absolutely appalled the retired military I asked -- while they complained bitterly about the civilian leadership, they also pointed out that a military junta would inevitably destroy their beloved military as it turned into yet another corrupt banana republic army, just as bad as the politicians that were forced out of office, not to mention that oath they swore to uphold the Constitution...).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I've known a lot of retired military. They think this way. They're not war mongers -- they know that friends and subordinants will die if the country goes to war. They are prepared to pay that price, but not lightly, and not on a whim, and they certainly aren't going to advise going to war when there's an alternative.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
"...and well financed terrorist groups are much more likely to try and get one"
Emphasis mine. Back when the USSR and the US shared all the weapons, each player had a large arsenal at their disposal.
Now that we have two-bit dictators with missles, it would seem quite likely that we'd have a lot more. Due to our greater finances, resources, and even land mass 'mutually assured destruction' is not so mutual. We might lose New York, but they'd lose most of their country.
Yeah, it's still something to worry about. But as another poster said, biological weapons are probably far more cost effective and harder to justify return strikes against.
I'm not sure I agree with your premise that things are necessarily riskier now - we may be more likely to be attacked, but the extent of the attack will likely be far less...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- Jeff
...no man, you've got your stereotype all wrong!
The fashionable stereotype this year is that conservatives sell out to EVIL MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS, most definitely not EVIL CHILD MURDERING DEFENSE CONTRACTORS. It's best to stick with the former this year - as popularized by Ralph Nader and Al Gore - as the latter is so 80's it's not even funny.
Please do keep your stereotypes in sync with your colleagues, though. It's hard to further an agenda when your message is fragmented.
...
BTW: Rumor is that next year they'll be pawns of either BIG TOBACCO or THE LOGGING INDUSTRY. I can hardly wait!
- Jeff A. Campbell
- Jeff
Most of the interviews I 've read say O'Donnell's role in the actual crisis was much less pivotal than portrayed in the movie. And as another poster has pointed out, we have no real clues as to what Soviet or Cuban thinking or feeling was from this movie. Also some military people have said the portrayal of the generals was a bit heavy-handed..
jonkatz@slashdot.org
In RFK's book Missiles of October and other accounts I've read, Kennedy certainly did know that the Soviets had tactical nukes. That's why they did so many overflights. I'm curious as to why you think otherwise.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Actually, building a nuclear device is NOT as simple as people think.
:-(
Getting the fissile material and explosive triggers are one thing, but ASSEMBLING a nuclear bomb is quite something else--it requires an extremely high level of precision machining that very few can afford.
That's why at most a terrorist nuclear device would have a yield of at most 4-5 kT. Mind you, a 4-5 kT device detonated in front of the New York Stock Exchange will still kill many thousands of people.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
The movie acts like its the Kennedy brothers against a vast conspiracy of generals who want world destruction, when it wasn't that at all. Additionally, we never get to see or hear about some of the most important decisions of the crisis, such as Kruschev's two letters to Kennedy and the meetings of the OAS when they decide to back the US. Finally, the UN scenes are a circus, with everyone cheering on Stevenson as he yells at the Russian ambassador.
All in all, an interesting movie with some nice looks at the U2 pilots etc., but not worthwhile for serious history buffs.
Also, I'll point you to Corona with a bit that I think was a mistake to be left out. Though Anderson was mentioned, and it showed his plane being shot down (along with a bit at near the end about it), a dedication would have been appropriate:
"I am concerned because so little attention has been given to the 'only casualty' of the Cuban Missile Crisis....Maj. Rudolf Anderson, Jr....the U-2 pilot who was brought down by a Soviet SAM.
"The missile ripped through the cabin of the U-2....tearing into the spacesuit...and right arm of Maj. Anderson.
"At that altitude...there was an immediate decompression...do you know what happens to a balloon at high altitude...as his blood began to boil...I need not go on with the gory details...I believe that you get the 'picture' (no pun intended!)
"Maj.(Rudy) Anderson made the 2nd U-2 flight.... the 15th of Oct 1962...was responsible, according to his awards and citations per Gen LeMay for locating the SS-5 missile site, most advanced Soviet missiles.
"Rudy sacrificed his life for the 80,000,000 Americans as refered to in the film...as he was shot down on Sat morning, Oct 27, 1962.
"BOTTOM LINE: I would think that this film would be dedicated to our only casualty who gave his life that ALL of us would see 'another Saturday' according to Robert McNamara....Sect of Defence...
"I have been researching Rudy Anderson for over 10 years and file of research on this subject and his role in the CMC...if anyone is interested.
"Most importantly..I believe that we all owe a debt of gratitude to Maj. Anderson...perhaps this is our opportunity to repay this debt...Dedicate the film to Maj. Anderson.
"I am not interested in any monetary gain...only a means of acknowledgeing what this pilot did for all of us!
"I wonder how this story would have really ended if not for Rudy Anderson...would we all be speaking 'Russian' now?
"You wanted a 'scoop' I can only assume that you got more than you bargained for...."
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
There are many more nukes, they are much *less* powerful, and somewhat more out of control. So the danger is different.
During the 60's the standard nuke was 10-20MT. That is a seriously huge bomb. One bomb will level metropolitan New York. And during the 60's the standard targeting was cities and industrial areas. Targeting precision was poor but when one bomb is that big it matters less. The threat of war is the threat of total civil destruction.
Current ICBM nukes are in the 50-300kT range. That is roughly 1% the size. Current targeting is specific military and industrial sites, and the current targeting has very high precision. This is one reason why the warhead count is so much higher. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs flattened a roughly 1km radius, and did serious damage for about 5km radius. Current nukes are only a little bit larger.
Current tactical nukes are in the 1-100kT range. These are the ones that are really numerous. They are seriously destructive, but not an end to civilization. Think in terms of having the impact of a major tornado. We survive dozens of those each year. They cause widespread destruction, loss of life, and we recover from it.
The threat of an attack that causes huge damage is much higher than it was before. The threat of an attack that threatens the end of civilization is much lower.
The reason for concern and one motivation for missile defense is that this much lower level of destruction makes blackmail threats much more credible. Few doubt that Saddam Hussein would be willing to use a tactical nuke. The North Koreans have already made veiled threats about their willingness. The policy makers have to consider the potential of a secret threat to flatten downtown SF if some treay deal is not made.
>Ironic that nuclear bombs are much more likely to go off today than 30 years ago, but pols don't worry about it much
/. crowd seemed so gleeful when they bash them.
How do you quantify "much more likely"?
Such rhetoric is typical of a piece not well researched, but written by ear instead.
I am always amused by Katz's pieces : they resemble mega-trolls.
No wonder the
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
The Cuban Missile crisis came about as a direct result of the weakness and immaturity Krushchev perceived in JFK as a result of JFK's irresolution during the Bay of Pigs debacle and the Berlin Crisis of 1961, when what became the Berlin Wall was put up by the Communists (it was just strings of barbed-wire at the time; decisive action by JFK at the time could've prevented the USSR and the East Germans from violating the the Four-Powers Treaty and thereby consolidating their stranglehold on the freedoms of Berliners living in the Soviet Sector of the city).
Krushchev was in an odd position at the time; he'd been the one to expose the crimes of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress (it wasn't done out of a sense of humanity or decency, since Krushchev didn't do anything dramatic like, say, disbanding the KGB; it was more of a tactical maneuver designed to smash the last vestiges of 'Father Joe'-worship within the Party apparat, removing Stalin as the measuring-stick against which Krushchev would be compared by the nomenklatura), and, like Gorbachev, realized that something had to be done in order to provide for economic expansion of the USSR. Also like Gorbachev, he was still a committed socialist - he wanted to find some way of 'humanizing' socialism without allowing the populace the complete freedom of choice which is the growth-engine of free-market societies.
Indeed, we could've had glasnost and perestroika - with the inevitable crumbling of the apparatus of repression, since once people have tasted a little freedom, their hunger for it becomes insatiable - if not for the hollow blustering of the Kennedys. You must remember, JFK was a conservative Democrat who ran to the right of Richard Nixon on national-security issues and the illusory 'missile gap'. Someone with maturity and a nuanced view of the world (someone like Richard Nixon, perhaps, before the stealing of the 1960 election embittered him to the point of paranoia) might've understood this, and given Krushchev the breathing-room he needed to try and implement some kind of reform.
Instead, JFK's apocalyptic rhetoric, coupled with his inner callowness, which Krushshev had sensed, a) forced Krushchev to play the bully in order to maintain his precarious grip on power, and b) by doing so, made it impossible for Krushchev to do anything regarded as 'soft' by the Politburo and the Central Committee.
Being tough, and meaning it, is a legitimate tactic; Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan used it to great effect. Acting tough, but not meaning it, marks one as being unserious, an unworthy adversary who will crumble when push comes to shove. Thus was JFK.
Finally, you need to remember something else not hinted at in the movie - in exchange for removing the IRBMs from Cuba, the US secretly agreed to remove IRBMs pointed at the USSR from Turkey. When all was said and done, Krushchev had achieved a major geopolitical gain for the USSR by playing the game of nuclear brinksmanship during those 13 days in October.
When I got home from the movie, I immediately phoned home to let my parents know that they should go see it... good stuff. I knew my dad had been drafted into the Army and station at Ft. Hood, Texas at the same time as the missile crisis, so I figured it would be interesting to him.
He proceeded to tell me his account of the entire thing from his perspective: from the day they loaded up his entire division and shipped them to Georgia (they got to listen to JFK and LBJ speak to them), to when they were sent to Florida and told to set up camp for 2 days at a Horseracing Track, to when they were all loaded up into large beach invasion type boats to set sail. He said they were floating out there for a day or 2 (out of sight from Florida, even) and being given maps and invasion plans of their sections of beaches when they got the word that they were dismantling the missles.
Well, that happened 5 years before my parents got married, and I wasn't born until '76...
So maybe Costner's character wasn't as powerful as the movie portrayed... I'm just glad cooler heads prevailed in that one.
...Better red than dead. (Its a joke) It'll be a sad day when films get shown in class instead of real history (ie something closer to the truth). ESPECIALLY when the subject of the film is an event that was as sensitive to Amreican political sensibilities as the Cuban missile crisis. Take it as gospel at your peril, and remember that the Russian account of events is no less and no more valid than your own. jb
If the sword of Damocles hangs over you long enough, you just go about life as usual.
Maybe the sword will fall, maybe it won't. In the meantime, there's life to be lived.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Saw this movie the other night, and as a sometime history geek, I wanted to point out a few of the historiacal innacuracies in the film. 1. Use of the "Peace Symbol" in a sign. Although created in England in 1958, the "Peace Symbol" was not popularized in the United States until the Vietnam & Civil Rights Era, a few year later than 1962. 2. This is a big problem... in the movie, the Americans recieve confirmation that the Soviets had tactical nukes in Cuba (the Joint Chiefs then offer to take 'em all out). The truth of the matter is that the United States _did not know_ that the Soviets had tactical nukes until after the missle crisis was over. When Kennedy decided to not invade cuba, he didn't know that if he did, the marines on the beaches would have been vaporized by the thousands. He quite simply inadvertently saved the world that day. And if the russians had nuked the marines, it's a simple matter to escalate to city-busting nukes. This one fact alone disqualifies this film from being history class material. The problem with historical films is that invariably, most people will take the film at literal truth, without seeing that it's been dramatized in order to ENTERTAIN. Generally, films that attempt to tell it really like it is are called documentaries :)