Members of the Kennedy administration met almost continuously for the next 12 days, during which time they struggled to find the best solution. Hawkish staffers advocated an air strike on Cuba. Others were in favor of a naval blockade, or even using U.S. missiles in Turkey as a bargaining tool. Each scenario presented troubling possibilities. The film “Thirteen Days” directed by Roger Donaldson and featuring Kevin Costner as Kennedy aide Kenny O’Donnell, revisits the Cuban missile crisis . Newsweek’s Laura Fording asked Theodore (Ted) Sorensen, special counsel to John F. Kennedy, for his impressions of the film.
NEWSWEEK: Do you think the filmmakers were accurate in their depiction of the Cuban missile crisis? Ted Sorensen: The basic story is accurate…John F. Kennedy was rightfully concerned that too strong a reaction could precipitate an attack on Berlin or the United States–and we’d be off to nuclear war–but too weak a reaction could cause the rest of the world to lose confidence in the leadership and strength of the United States, and our alliances would erode. It’s accurate in that, ultimately, the notion of using a naval blockade…emerged during the first six days of conferences and that President Kennedy guided what we called the “Ex Coms” [The Executive Committee of the National Security Council] through those deliberations. [Some] were very strongly opposed to that course because they thought it was weak and unproductive and what the country needed was a hard strike against Cuba.
Were the hawkish military leaders as unyielding as the film portrays them? The movie is a little more black and white than it truly was…[General] Max Taylor, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff (and the only one who sat in on our daily meetings), was a thoughtful, articulate and reasonable person. So I wouldn’t have painted him in the same color. But there is no doubt that the chiefs below him, so to speak, were extreme. Obviously, I was not present, but I think the clash between [Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara and the Chief of Naval Operations [Admiral George Whelan Anderson] is fairly accurate. We all heard about it. A clear lesson, in addition to all the other lessons that came out of those 13 days, was the reminder of the importance of the tradition of civilian supremacy in this country, of civilian control of the military. If the military had gotten their way, I think it’s quite clear now that there would have been a nuclear war.
It has been said that Kenny O’Donnell’s role is a bit overblown in the film. Any comment? Kenny was my colleague in the White House and he played a very useful role as Kennedy’s appointment as secretary and political adviser…but to make an important movie and still have a wider appeal, it was necessary to beef up the role for a leading Hollywood figure (Kevin Costner).
Your character didn’t say much in the movie. The producer of the movie and I appeared on a program together. And he acknowledged that many of the lines given to Kenny O’Donnell actually came from me and from others.
There were some lighter moments in the movie, when the Kennedys would stop for a moment, behind closed doors and joke around a bit. Did that really happen? Absolutely. But rather than stopping for a moment, the President’s and occasionally Bobby’s humor happened more during the meetings themselves. They’d just make a comment–gallows-type humor–because the situation was so bleak. Sometimes it was just John F. Kennedy’s wonderful way at being able to laugh at himself and at situations that were very dark.
How close, in your estimation, were we to nuclear war? When the President directed the drafting of the speech–an announcement on national television of the situation and what we were going to do about it, as well as the first public presentation to our allies and to the Soviets themselves–he emphasized to me that we must avoid panic among the American people. They had to be factually informed of the grim situation but not so alarmed that things would get out of control. I think many people were alarmed, because they recognized how grim the situation was. They prayed that Kennedy would do the right thing. But they weren’t sure what the right thing was…Everybody now knows, but did not know at the time, that in addition to nuclear missiles, the Soviets had troops [in Cuba] that were equipped with tactical nuclear weapons. The local commanders were authorized to use those weapons if there was an American attack. That’s exactly what, of course, the military leaders and some of the congressional leaders were advocating: that the United States attack Cuba. We now know that would have brought a nuclear response from the Soviet forces…and the world would have been on its way to incineration. So it was close.
In the movie, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson was criticized for being weak when he brought up the most dovish option of all the people in the meeting. Is that in fact the way he was perceived? Only in part. In fact, the President said to me afterward that he thought Stevenson made some good points in that we should beef up the [televised] speech…with what you might call the diplomatic side of the message, and not only set forth what we were going to do by the way of naval quarantine and Air Force surveillance and so forth.
Was Bobby Kennedy really so concerned that Stevenson would not hold his ground when he went before the United Nations? That was substantially oversimplified for dramatic purposes. It’s true everyone was pleasantly surprised by how strong his performance was because no one had known whether they could expect that. But I think there was general admiration and respect for Stevenson among those in Washington.
How about the phone calls from O’Donnell to the pilots, in which he tells the pilots not to get shot down, because if they do, the United States might have to resort to graver measures? To the best of my knowledge, those are fictional devices. I think that at least on one occasion the president spoke with military commanders in the area, but not with an individual pilot.
Was anything ever found out as to why Khrushchev’s second letter had such a change in tone? No. I assume that, yes, it was from Khrushchev, but what his motives were for changing positions and tone from the first letter and to what extent either the military or the hierarchy in the Kremlin had required that change in tone, no one ever knew.
Have you since learned anything more about what Khrushchev was thinking at the time? There are documents, and at least one very good history on the Soviet side, which tell us some things of importance. One is that [Khrushchev’s] motive for putting the missiles in Cuba did not relate to Berlin as we had speculated it might…It related more to his wish to demonstrate that the Soviet Union was also a superpower, and that if the West could put missiles near his shores in Turkey, then the Soviet Union could put missiles near our shores in Cuba…We also learned that the SAM (surface-to-air missile) that brought down the U-2 plane had not been authorized by Krushchev or the Kremlin. It was taken on the authority of the local commander and Khrushchev was very upset by that and very fearful that perhaps they were headed for a nuclear war…
What did you like most about the movie? I liked least a major inaccuracy which had on Saturday evening the president ordering the airstrike and invasion to begin on Monday or Tuesday of the following week. He never actually gave any such order…What I liked most was the portrayal of Kennedy’s leadership under extremely difficult circumstances–holding the line against military and congressional leaders who wanted him to take a far more aggressive action. At the time he felt it was much better to keep his options open and to take an action that kept Khrushchev’s options open and didn’t force him into nuclear attack.
Did you write Kennedy’s speech to the nation on the Cuban missile crisis? I was not the author of any of Kennedy’s speeches. But I was the one person who worked on that, yes.
What about when your character said he couldn’t even do the other version–the airstrike version–of the speech? It’s taken out of context, but the end fact is true. The original thought was that I would do drafts of both and it ended up with my doing drafts of just the one.
Do you remember any particular conversations with JFK prior to delivering the speech? Was he concerned about how the nation would perceive what he was saying? Over the weekend we had discussed the speech and its contents many, many times. One of those conversations was a decision not to show on national television the photographs of the missile site that Stevenson later showed at the United Nations Security Council (with the president’s authority). One reason for this was that the average person couldn’t tell anything from those photographs without the CIA photo interpreters…even that they were missiles. You just saw little scratches…He also felt that pictures were melodramatic and that it might only heighten the sense of panic among some of the viewers.
Would you say the Cuban missile crisis was JFK’s finest hour? Yes. Certainly it was his most important. Had he not handled it well, you and I might not be here talking about it. He had many fine hours…but it’s difficult to compare any of them to the survival of the world.
How about RFK? He played an important role, as the movie correctly demonstrates. He played a more important role in the civil rights revolution.
What did you think of the actor, Tim Kelleher, who played you? He called me up and we had lunch once. I thought he was a very nice guy. I don’t have any complaints about his portrayal of me…
Who would you cast as yourself? Warren Beatty? (Laughs) That’s my wife’s choice. I don’t think I have any.
