In-Class Write

Alexander Grelier
5/14/19

In-Class Write

1. 

       In the film Thirteen Days, the viewer is taken behind the scenes at the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. A person watching this movie can learn lots about the time period, and what happened during the crisis. For example, in the movie, you get to see how the US was able to obtain pictures of the missiles, through photos taken by a U-2 reconnaissance plane. This is important because the plane was shot down, and caused the only casualty in the Cold War. If the plane hadn't flown over Cuba, the US would have never known that there was Soviet missiles in Cuba just 90 miles from US shores, and if the plane hadn't been shot down, different action would have been taken by the US that would have changed the course of the Cold War.

       Another thing that is seen in the film Thirteen Days is the disagreements within leaders in the White House. For example, in the movie you are able to see that the Air Force urged President Kennedy to launch an airstrike on Cuba, and many leaders didn't agree including the president himself. Something that was constant throughout my research and the movie is the challenge Kennedy was facing to remove the missiles in Cuba without initiating conflict. It is important for someone watching the movie to see the struggle he had with choosing a naval blockade, because if he had chosen something violent such as launching an airstrike, heavy conflict would have started and most likely would have lead to a nuclear war.

2. 

       The most important details that were left out of the movie was the relationship of the US and Cuba before the crisis. As I started watching the movie, I was confused on why the Soviets had set up missiles in Cuba, and I had no prior knowledge of the relationship between Soviet Russia, Cuba, and the US. According to history.com, the US already had a hostile relationship with Cuba, prior to having knowledge of the missiles, which were installed by Castro and Khrushchev to hinder US aggression on Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro overthrew Batista, the leader of Cuba, and declared a revolution. In January 1961, the United States announced it would support "wars of national liberation," meaning that if there were revolutions anywhere in the world, the US would help with maintaining that countries freedom. Because of the Castro's revolution, President Kennedy launched soldiers to the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, but unfortunately was completely unprepared and the soldiers were wiped out. This fiasco is what truly started tension between the US and Cuba.

       Another thing that wasn't seen much in the movie is the relationship between the US and Soviet Russia before the crisis. According to the America's History textbook, in June of 1961, the US-Soviet relationship had become very deteriorated. During this time, Soviet leader Khrushchev had stopped movement between West Berlin and the communist-controlled East Berlin. Because of this, Kennedy dispatched 40,000 troops to Europe. In mid-August, the communists of East Berlin constructed the Berlin Wall stationed with border guards under shoot to kill orders, to keep East Germans from fleeing to the West. Kennedy publicly denounced the wall, which furthered the Soviet's bad relationship with the US.

3.

        Thirteen Days starts out from the point of view of President Kennedy's assistant and long-time friend Kenneth O'Donnell. As seen in many movies, I think that the beginning of the movie should start earlier in time showing flashbacks or giving a basic background on what is going on in the world at that time to give the viewer context. The information I would put in is the research I have for the answer to question 2, just because it was hard for me to completely understand what was going on when I first watched the movie. I feel that this information would be very useful for a viewer that didn't have much background knowledge on the situation. Some scenes I envision would be a mixture of real television broadcasts from the time and some staged "flashbacks" of war scenes. For example, I think it would be very helpful to see the uprising of Fidel Castro, using videos of him speaking from that time. I think it would then be helpful to see a flashback of the Invasion of Bay of Pigs, showing the previous tension between the US and Cuba, and I think it would be helpful to see the video of President Kennedy denouncing the Berlin Wall. These things would help put the Cuban Missile Crisis into context for the viewer.