Cuban Missile Crisis: Thirteen Days

THIRTEEN DAYS
The reason Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had a dispute with Admiral Anderson when the “Groznyi” took place was because the Admiral told the people on the destroyer to “fire,” this caused McNamara to get angry because this could be seen as an attack on the ship and in which case could have started a war. McNamara said that only the President had the authority to attack the ship. McNamara said that this whole thing is a new way Kennedy and Khrushchev are communicating with each other.

In real life O’ Donnell was a political consigliere to the Kennedy brothers. He served as White House appointments secretary and political adviser after Kennedy became president in 1961. He tried to make sure that the president didn’t seem like he was hiding something, thus making him go to Chicago as originally scheduled. However he did not play that big of a role in real life as he did in “Thirteen Days.” O'Donnell's character provides a useful dramatic vant...