|
The human face of Kennedy
in Thirteen Days
It is not like John F. Kennedy and the 1962 Cuban
missile crisis that nearly led the world into
nuclear war have not been picked over countless
times in news stories, magazines, books, movies
and television programs.
And it is not like Kevin Costner has never starred
in a film about President Kennedy. He has, in
JFK, Oliver Stone’s 1991 film about conspiracy
theories on Kennedy’s assassination.
So why is Costner producing and starring in Thirteen
Days, which opens in U.S. theaters this weekend
with an insider’s look at decisions by Kennedy,
brother Robert and White House officials that
steered the world away from a possible nuclear
war?
He swears it is not just a ‘star turn’,
Hollywood jargon for a chance to headline marquees
in a high-profile project. Costner told reporters
that doing Thirteen Days was a chance to show
how men found a way to navigate their way out
of a deadly confrontation rather than marching
headlong into one.
“This was a proud moment for us all”,
he said. “The fact is that in those 13 days
their decisions were made based on conscience,
not on the next election, not on the polls.”
Thirteen Days is a fictional story culled by screenwriter
David Self from months of research, White House
tapes, CIA documents, personal interviews and
memoirs.
While all of the events are not true, because
they recount conversations only the Kennedys and
their aides heard, the filmmakers say the dramatizations
adhere to the facts as they know them, and the
private talks between the two brothers attempt
to put a human face on men who have become legends.
“It’s impossible to tell a true story
on film, to satisfy everyone who is involved in
any one event”, producer Armyan Bernstein
said. “That’s all anybody can do with
these types of films.”
Costner added, “We can’t be 100 percent,
and we don’t claim to be.”
The unfolding events of Thirteen Days are told
through the eyes of presidential aide Kenneth
O’Donnell (played by Costner), a Second World
War veteran and a classmate of Robert Kennedy.
The two played together on the Yale University
football team, and when they graduated O’Donnell
went to work on John Kennedy’s U.S. Senate
and presidential campaigns.
Ultimately, O’Donnell wound up as a top Kennedy
insider and political strategist and he was part
of their trusted inner circle as the Cuban missile
crisis unfolded in October of 1962.
At that time, the Kennedy White House was in turmoil.
The president’s self-confidence had been
shaken by the Bay of Pigs debacle the previous
year and he trusted very few of the generals and
cabinet officials around him.
Many Americans shared a growing distrust of the
young president, who had been elected over Vice
President Richard Nixon by a razor-thin margin
in 1960.
With that backdrop, the Soviet Union under Nikita
Khrushchev was building launching pads and installing
nuclear missiles aimed at the United States in
Cuba, just 90 miles (145 km) from Florida and
minutes away from striking U.S. cities.
Kennedy could not allow that to happen. The film
takes moviegoers from the initial reports of the
missiles and photographs from U-2 spy planes shown
to the president and into military and political
strategy sessions and cabinet meetings.
When the U.S. Navy blockades Cuba, audiences go
into the Pentagon war rooms where Kennedy evaluates
all his moves, and when jet fighters fly low-level
reconnaissance missions over the missile sites
audiences go there too.
Their interaction puts a complex story that is
difficult to understand on a human scale. In a
pivotal scene in which Bobby Kennedy negotiates
the Soviet withdrawal, he comes across as genuinely
frightened that he will not be able to seal a
deal. It is as if he is keeping a stiff upper
lip while two fingers are crossed behind his back
at all times.
“There is lightning in a bottle when you
can take a story as complicated as the Cuban missile
crisis and make it understandable, but as heroic
and humane as this one is”, Costner said.
“In those 13 days they flew in the face of
the most awesome pressure any of us could imagine
and kept saying, “No, No”, to nuclear
war.
More
Stories...
Spiderman
look out!
Stone,
Time, seek ways to end case
Stage
company launched by McGregor aand Law
Briefly...
|
