Days that Shook the World

Rating: 8/10 (2 September 2004)

In 1961, an inexperienced President Kennedy backed an illegal (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to depose Castro. A year later, Castro struck a deal with Krushchev to deploy Russian nuclear weapons in Cuba. It seems that Krushchev was determined to push the theory of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) to its limits: the theory said that both superpowers had to behave sensibly, as neither would survive a war: Krushchev, however, took an outrageous gamble for strategic advantage, on the assumption that the U.S. would still be unable to survive a war, and so would have to concede anyway. For Kennedy, it was a tough call: he resolved not to tolerate the missiles, but through his actions had to appear both resolute enough to make it clear to the Russians that it was they had to back down, but also conciliatory, avoiding provocations that could have forced his enemy's hand the wrong way. This balancing act was rendered all the harder by the presence of more gung-ho (or simply pessimistic) elements within the U.S. government, and the need to prepare for war, in case diplomacy failed. After two tense weeks, the missiles were withdrawn and although Kennedy's golden image has since tarnished, his handling of the crisis is still widely praised.
'Thirteen Days' is a dramatic reconstruction of these events. The story is told entirely from the American side, and takes the standard, patriotic liberal, pro-Kennedy line, so we get a lot of square-shouldered men striving manfully to do their best for their country; and a surprisingly aged Kevin Costner is unsurprisingly annoying in the central role of Kennedy's political adviser (Kennedy was a notorious philanderer, which may be why the drama focuses on another character, who can drearily be shown to love his family without invoking ridicule in the audience). For all these flaws, it's still a gripping, blow-by-blow account of the military and diplomatic moves that constituted arguably the gravest moments humanity has faced. The world, and Castro, survive to this day; Kennedy, of course, did not, and whether you believe Oswald or the C.I.A. did for him, opposition to his Cuban policy was undoubtedly (and ironically) a central motive in his assassination. 'Thirteen Days' convinces one how unjust that fate was.