I just watched a film about the Cuban Missile Crisis

[Cyrano]

It was titled "Thirteen Days."

What struck me most was the nature of the people in the White House. Not only John Kennedy, but those around him. Their integrity, their moral compasses, their brilliance, and their own doubts about their own brilliance, were exactly the traits needed for the world to pull back from the brink of nuclear war.

I believe that had any other group of people been running America at that time, we could well have ended up in a nuclear ashes. The last war there would ever be.

Then I thought of today, the president we have, and those who surround him. And the only emotion that strikes me is fear. Donald Trump is an ignorant, arrogant man who is leading a Know-Nothing constituency. The people with whom he has surrounded himself know little more about American and world affairs than he does.

Were the Cuban Missile to occur today, the world would be a cinder tomorrow.

The person who occupies the White House, and the people advising the president really do matter. And we deserve far better than we have now. Then again, given the fact that this horrible Trump creature is sitting in the Oval Office, might be signaling the possibility that America has gotten the president it deserves.

[burrowowl]

1. Good observations

I remember the Cuban Crisis well.

[Docreed2003]

2. The film is an incredible take on the crisis...

Mainly because it relies on the historical record and the actual WH tapes recorded during that time. Yes, JFK surrounded himself with very smart advisors, but it was RFK who, behind the scenes, helped negotiate the ultimate standdown. We can never forget that Kennedy's millitary advisors were strongly encouraging him to take preemptive action. Our circumstances today are basically inverted...we have an executive branch itching for war, while our military advisors seem to be the sane ones in the room, at least for now!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I was in 10th grade. Everybody was following the situation on the news, but at the time we didn't know the half of it. It was actually even scarier than we were aware of, and we were scared enough. There were a few people in our government, most notably Gen. Curtis LeMay (said to be the model for Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove) wanted to invade Cuba, which would have set off the whole thing, Kennedy was able to manage the crisis and here we are. (Of course, there's also Vasili Arkhipov, the Russian submarine captain who might have saved the world, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov, but that's a whole 'nother story). I shudder to think what Dolt 45 might have done.

[Cyrano]

5. Interesting anecdote about Gen. Curtis Lemay

He once lit up a cigar while flying aboard a fully armed bomber. The captain warned that smoking on board held the possibility that the plane could blow up. LeMays' response was, "It wouldn't dare."

LeMay was a perfect role model for the maniac in "Dr. Stangelove." He's also the ultimate reason that a total asshole should never be put in a position of power.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I was a freshman in high school during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I remember the sense of everything being suspended, of life on hold, during that time.

The sense that we were on the edge of nuclear war was palpable.

JFK, for all his many flaws, was both smart and well educated. Donald Trump is neither.

JFK, for all his many flaws, surrounded himself with people at least as smart and well-educated as he was. Donald Trump surrounds himself with people who only feed his vanity and his world view.

Need I say more?

[Cyrano]

8. JFK surrounded himself with the best and brightest

Trump has surrounded himself with dimmest and dumbest.

And we're going to have to live with this for another three years, and about four and a half months.

On the other hand, perhaps life on Earth will cease before then.

The day to "duck and cover," or get into your "blast" bunker, is the day Trump tells us that "I've ended the nuclear threat."

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Sigh. You are so right.

Trump has surrounded himself with dimmest and dumbest. That is so true.

Back on election day, I chose to go to bed early, in part because, like so many of us, I honestly thought Hillary would win. My radio goes off at 5:45am, Mountain time, to the BBC. It of course roused me from sleep, and for the first few minutes I could not make any sense of what the BBC announcers were saying. They seemed to be referring to Trump as the new American President. How was that possible? Was I in an alternate Universe? It certainly seemed that way.

It still does in certain fundamental ways. In other ways, I think to myself: this must be what it was like to be in Germany after Hitler came to power. If you have not read the book In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, you absolutely must. It's about the first American ambassador to Hitler's Germany, and is (as are all of Larson's books) completely mind-blowing. It details on a day to day basis the creeping horror of the Nazi regime. Really, do read it.

[raccoon]

14. Read it, and I'd give the book a strong rec too. nt

[Rhiannon12866]

6. I've seen it too, very well done and scary as hell.

And I completely agree, one of the biggest reasons there's so much fear and uncertainty now. We need experienced and intelligent diplomats in the Oval Office.

[Snackshack]

7. That is a very good movie.

Your observations are right on target. The men in the White House at that time had well grounded moral compasses when it came to well being of the world. Personally they had faults but they genuinely cared about other. The Obama administration was like this as well..the current administration would not know what a moral compass is if it ran them over. They have no compassion or empathy for others, only themselves.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Khrushchev deserves some credit for being rational.

Fidel was willing to risk nuclear war. Khrushchev thought Fidel was crazy and Fidel was upset with Khrushchev for not doing so.

[longship]

11. A good flick.

But Kevin Costner has the worst Boston accent in history. Bruce Greenwood as JFK and Robert Culp as RFK accounted themselves very well in that department. The supporting cast was good, too.

Notably, the CIA photo analyst at the beginning of the film was played by Kenny O'Donnel's son. And Peter Lawford's son, Christopher, played the low level photog pilot, another JFK connection in the film.

Kevin Conway gives an absolutely chilling performance as Curtis LeMay. And one of my favorite character actors, Elya Baskin plays Russian ambassador Dobrynin.

Altogether it is a fast moving, exciting film, even if one already knows the outcome.

Based on info released to the public only after the collapse of the USSR.

It's a good flick.

[BlueMTexpat]

12. Our political system worked remarkably well

for a LONG time. Unfortunately, we got too used to having competent statespersons in office who were more interested in long-term benefits for the country than in flamboyant short-term moments that might benefit themselves alone.

Even Nixon, much as I loathed him, had some decent moments, although several sane Republicans left the party during his administrations. Some became good Dems. But things really took a turn for the worse with the rise of the so-called "Reagan Democrats" (many who were formerly Southern Dems who had supported George Wallace in 1968) who united with the radical RW John Birchers and radical RW evangelicals to form the so-called "Christian" coalition. Our political system has gone radically downhill from there and since 1994, with Newt Gingrich and his "Contract for America," burgeoning hate radio and "deep pockets" like the Kochs and corporate lobbyists, it has become gradually so dysfunctional as not to work at all.

I had hoped for a turn-around with President Obama in 2008. But that was ultimately not to be, in part because of his own party. Shamefully. But I attribute a LOT of that to Rahm Emanuel and his literally throwing Howard Dean out of Prez O's inner circle, simply to return to the "same-old-same-old" politicking as usual. Given what Prez O inherited, however, I am still amazed at what he was still able to accomplish in the circumstances. That was not appreciated by too many - including some here.

Competence, intelligence, statesmanship and a consistent track record of working in the trenches of the Democratic Party to advance Democratic causes have counted for too little and have even been disparaged and/or sneered at - even by some who call themselves Dems. While that was shown throughout the Dem primaries, it was proven without a doubt in November in every "red" state that supported Trump, but especially in those that had been "blue" formerly.

Yes, there is every reason to fear what could very well happen with an incompetent narcissist in the WH, and particularly with THIS incompetent narcissist. I hold EVERYONE who helped that to happen responsible. You know who you are.

I LOVE the French for understanding exactly what was at stake between the two choices they had yesterday. Nearly two-thirds of the electorate voted in the only sane way possible for the long-term good of their country. If only we had done the same.

[TexasProgresive]

13. It was highlighted in last night's "Call the Midwife"

We often think about how it affected us in the U.S.. This show made me realize that the whole "free" world was sitting on tenterhooks putting their hopes in the hands of the young president of the U.S..

Of course this wasn't all this show covered. It seems the Brits can hit on lots of issues in a one hour show. Female genital mutilation, archaic mental health practices - electro shock therapy and lobotomies, fear of the destruction of the world, women standing for women and more in this one episode.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Saw It As Well

I liked it a lot, too. I was 6 when that all happened, but i remember the tension being palpable. (Not that i knew what palpable meant when i was 6.)

[roamer65]

16. Great movie.

[Vinca]

17. I remember the neighbors building a bomb shelter during that time.

Scary that people are building them again.

[sharedvalues]

18. Agree on patriots. But "best and brightest" is a pejorative

Halberstam "The Best and Brightest"
Goldstein "Lessons in Disaster"
McMaster "Dereliction of Duty" (yes that McMaster)


All those books discuss how the Kennedy and Johnson White Houses got us into Vietnam and kept us there to our great detriment. The general idea is that Bundy and McNamara were too confident in their own intelligence and believed "graded escalation' would get the North to give up, and the US generals were marginalized and ineffective contrary voices.


They did handle the Cuban Missile Crisis well, though.

I believe it is McMaster who wrote that the Cuban Missile Crisis is in some way what brought us Vietnam - in Cuba, the blockade appeared to work and made Bundy and McNamara believe such soft power would work in Vietnam too. (Yet the argument is that a real concession - removing the US missiles in Europe - is what ended the Cuban crisis.)

[zipplewrath]

19. Bingo

There were some brains in the administration, but McNamara wasn't one of them, despite how highly he thought of himself. Rusk was slightly better, but really they started off bad with the Bay of Pigs and hung around after Kennedy was gone and doubled down on Vietnam. Robert was the vast majority of the brains involved with the Missile Crisis. And yes, basically promising (unofficially) to removing the missiles from Turkey probably gave Khrushchev the cover he needed to back down.