40 pages • 1 hour read
Robert F. KennedyThirteen Days
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Threat of Nuclear War
Robert Kennedy describes the missile crisis as “a confrontation between the two giant atomic nations, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., which brought the world to the abyss of nuclear destruction and the end of mankind” (20). The threat of nuclear war looms throughout the book, from the discovery of the Russian missiles in Cuba until the crisis is resolved. President Kennedy understood that “once an attack began our adversaries could respond with a missile barrage from which many millions of Americans would be killed” (43). All the members of his advisory committee are acutely aware of the potential consequences of their proposals as “each one of us was being asked to make a recommendation which, if wrong and if accepted, could mean the destruction of the human race” (35).
They feel the weight of the enormous burden they carry for the future of the world, “the responsibility we had to people around the globe who had never heard of our country or the men sitting in that room determining their fate, making a decision which would influence whether they would live or die” (76). President Kennedy is particularly concerned about the fate of children and young people, and deeply troubled by “the specter of the death of the children of this country and all the world–the young people who had no role, who had no say, who knew nothing even of the confrontation, but whose lives would be snuffed out like everyone else’s” (81). Chairman Khrushchev, too, expresses his fears that if a war began, neither country would be able to contain it, and “reciprocal extermination would begin” (68).
A Blockade versus Military Action
Whether to respond to the Soviets with military action or a blockade is the central conflict of Thirteen Days. This choice consumes the committee’s initial meetings and is the subject of much deliberation as the crisis continues, “and so we argued, and so we disagreed–all dedicated, intelligent men, disagreeing and fighting about the future of their country, and of mankind” (28).
The debate is intensified by the lack of a clear and obvious solution. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are among the strongest advocates for a military strike because they “felt the blockade to be too weak a course and that military steps were the only ones the Soviets would understand” (73). Robert McNamara argued that a blockade was “limited pressure, which could be increased as the circumstances warranted” (27). Robert Kennedy supported a blockade because it offered “more flexibility and fewer liabilities than a military attack” (29). Each recommendation was problematic and flawed, and the ethical issue of killing innocent civilians was “a question that deeply troubled us all” (31). President Kennedy’s most compelling objection to American military action in Cuba “was that a surprise attack would erode if not destroy the moral position of the United States throughout the world” (39). The President decides in favor of a blockade, while simultaneously ordering military preparations in the event the blockade does not succeed.
The Importance of Understanding the Other Side’s Position
President Kennedy devotes considerable effort to understanding Chairman Krushchev’s perspective: “the President believed from the start that the Soviet Chairman was a rational, intelligent man who, if given sufficient time and shown our determination, would alter his position” (97). President Kennedy understands that the Soviet Chairman is operating under many of the same political and military constraints and pressures that Kennedy himself is.
The President is continually urging the committee to imagine their recommendations from the Russian’s point of view, reminding them of their “responsibility to consider the effect our actions would have on others” (74). In several key decisions, the President maneuvers to grant Khrushchev additional time to review his options, cautioning his advisors not “to put him in a corner from which he cannot escape,” and thereby forcing the Soviets into a military response (59). Robert Kennedy devoted an entire section to “[t]he importance of placing ourselves in the other country’s shoes,” when writing of the lessons learned from the missile crisis and credited this tactic for influencing Krushchev’s decision to accept the American proposal to end the crisis (95).
The Lessons of History
Throughout his management of the crisis, President Kennedy is very mindful of the lessons of history. Influenced by reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, which examines the causes of World War One, President Kennedy notes that European powers “somehow seemed to tumble into war…through stupidity, individual idiosyncrasies, misunderstandings, and personal complexes of inferiority and grandeur” (49). He was steadfastly determined not to inadvertently start a war through his own actions. Drawing parallels between the missile crisis and pre-war Europe he noted, “the great danger and risk in all of this…is a miscalculation, a mistake in judgment” (49). President Kennedy is sensitive to the fact that no one, including the Soviets, sets out to start a devastating war, but understood that “miscalculation and misunderstanding an escalation on one side bring a counter response…[f]or that is how wars begin–wars that no one wants, no one intends, and no one wins” (96). The influence of history also extends to President Kennedy’s sense of how his actions will be judged in the future. He wanted to make it clear that that he did everything in his power to prevent a war, “if anybody is around to write after this, they are going to understand that we made every effort to find peace” (98).
