5. In-Class Write

Film and History In-Class Write

1. From watching Thirteen Days, someone can learn quite a lot that is historically accurate. It's set in 1962, it specifies certain events that actually happened like the creation of EXCOMM and arguments over airstrikes and invasions. The information I collected from the office of the historian proved almost everything that happened in the movie did historically happen. The movie portrays plenty of other historical events accurately, the one thing that most likely isn’t historically accurate are the conversations between the characters. Most of the dialogue in the movie is used for either exposition or character development. The historical events are not the only important things in the event portrayed by the movie.

   The movie itself is important because it shows how close the world was to destruction. The world was on the brink of nuclear war and the movie was created to show that we should remember that, and that we shouldn’t threaten each other with world ending weapons. Thirteen Days was less about the latter but it provides a powerful and accurate insight on how chaotic the innards of the White House got. Now I wasn’t smart enough to research specifically the actions of some of the military men in the White House, such as Curtis LeMay, but the movie gave me a pretty good picture of what they tried to do. The movie showed me the yearning for war the generals had, the argument for an invasion and the airstrike were both held by the generals. Anyway, the event was a miracle in itself and if it weren't for the “will of good men” there would be more than just one casualty from this almost cataclysmic event.

2. One important thing to know that was hinted at in the movie but wasn’t really talked about was the Bay of Pigs invasion. It was probably the start of the whole Cuban Missile Crisis, because the U.S. was trying to undermine the rule of Castro and Nikita Khrushchev (the current premier of the soviet union at the time) didn’t really like that. From the textbook I learned more about the Bay of Pigs and found out that it was in fact a failure, and it was started by the U.S. trying to start an anti-Castro movement by bringing in 1,400 troops to start it. Those 1,400 troops were cuban exiles, and they were not prepare at all. They were annihilated by Castro’s troops and after the whole invasion was over and done JFK took all responsibility for it, most likely influencing his decision to not invade Cuba a second time.
   There was also another topic hinted at during the movie that I managed to snag a little research on. It was the effect on Berlin if the U.S. had tried to invade Cuba again. In the movie, while the recently created EXCOMM was discussing the effects of another Invasion on Cuba they hinted at the soviets using that to push farther into Berlin. From my general information grab and source provider wikipedia I found that the U.S. were trying to provoke the soviets in Berlin through their naval “quarantine.” Also from the textbook I found that the Berlin Wall was itself a symbol for the cold war, and I completely agree. It represented a physical divide between two nations and there was a physical divide between JFK and Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis with them hardly being able to communicate with each other. Back to the Berlin Wall, troops were ordered to “Shoot-to-Kill” and JFK even spoke to Berlin in 1963. There are parts of the Berlin Wall that stand today, however most of it is gone, and it provides a stark reminder of what happened and what should never happen again.

3. If the director of Thirteen Days had 20 more minutes to provide more information on a topic of my choosing, I would definitely suggest to him to provide more on the Bay of Pigs. The Bay of Pigs was probably the whole start of the crisis because the nuclear missiles were put in Cuba to prevent another invasion. I would suggest it be put at the beginning of the movie as a way of contextualizing the catalyst for the missile crisis. If I were to envision the scenes that would be helpful for understanding the reason why it was important I would have a scene of JFK taking the blame for the attempted invasion. Another scene I would have would be the invasion itself, having that as a general reminder that another invasion isn’t ethically sound and would most likely not solve the problem of having nuclear missiles in Cuba. I believe this topic should be taught because it was most likely the start for the Cuban Missile Crisis and its a good way to understand more of the choices regarding invasions later on in the movie.