While the movie carries the same name as the book Thirteen Days by former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, it is in fact based on a different book, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow. It is the second docudrama made about the crisis, the first being 1974's The Missiles of October, which was based on Kennedy's book. The 2000 film contains some newly declassified information not available to the earlier production, but takes greater dramatic license, particularly in its choice of Kenneth O'Donnell as protagonist.
In October of 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union became embroiled in a confrontation that could easily have escalated into nuclear war. Many of the details of that confrontation, which is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, are brilliantly dramatized by the gripping docudrama Thirteen Days. The movie tells the tale solely from the point of view of the White House; the Soviet side of the story is completely omitted. But what I like best about the film is the way it shows how a group of highly intelligent men grapple with a complex and monumentally important problem.
I don’t care what your political orientation is, if you want an awesome two hour lesson in leadership watch the movie Thirteen Days.m It’s the story of the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis based on the book by May and Zelikow titled The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
And then – after sleeping most of the day – I watched Thirteen Days.g As I was immersed in it, I kept thinking about examples from Brad’s post as well as my experience dealing with web services that are powerful governments.t When I think about those examples, Thirteen Days is a movie that every CEO and every member of the management team in these companies (or any company for that matter) should watch.
