Thirteen Days Sparknotes

Following the Second World War, the US was engaged in the Cold War primarily against the Soviet Union, with many American presidents adopting the policy of containment to prevent the spread of Communism around the world. There was an active arms race afoot between the two superpowers with both of them focusing on nuclear capabilities. President John F. Kennedy pursued one of the largest peacetime expansions of the US military arsenal and capabilities. That expansion included the placement of Jupiter missiles in Turkey, at the very doorstep of the USSR.Under his administration, the CIA designed a plan to invade Cuba in the hopes that this would led to an uprising amongst the Cuban people to overthrow Castro. In April 1961, the CIA lead counter-revolutionaries
The movie follows the Cuban missile crisis day by day and shows us what transpired in the White House, the Pentagon, in Cuba and America during those critical 13 days. One of the movie’s departures from history comes with its portrayal of Kenny O’Donnell, Kennedy’s special assistant and appointments secretary. In the movie, he is depicted as a crucial political and strategic advisor to President Kennedy during the crisis and who guides and prods the President to take action. He warns the President of the military undermining him and takes action to warn pilots flying missions into Cuba not to get shot down so that the President is not forced into a military confrontation in Cuba. The audio recordings that President Kennedy ordered of all of the meetings he held with military personnel and cabinet secretaries during these thirteen days, doesn’t support O’Donnell’s larger than life role in the crisis. O’Donnell is heard only twice in these tapes and there is nothing else historically to support the fact that he was more than an appointments