The Missiles of October
(2 hrs & 35 min, color, 1974)
Wars of wits between
hostile nations are nothing new on the face of the earth. They have been in play since Day One of
recorded history. Most of them barely
attract the attention of the general populace of those nations. We the citizenry are not told much of what
goes on in the Intelligence field; cloak and dagger maneuverings take place
behind closed doors or in the streets of remote cities or in the board rooms of
the Pentagon and the CIA. Trade-offs of
one kind or another are employed to resolve tensions and keep the world safe
from imbalances of power. Only in rare
instances do these shadow games trigger open and armed combat. Relatively few people know how close the
civilized world ever comes to such a tipping point.
But in October of 1962 just
about everybody on the planet knew that a zero hour on a grand scale was
imminent and that the stakes were astronomically high – too high for the
ordinary swap deals of diplomacy. The
United States and the Soviet Union engaged in more than a backyard tussle; they
came eyeball to eyeball over nuclear arms on the world stage.
This month marks the
fiftieth anniversary of what has come to be called the Cuban Missile Crisis,
the nearest the world has ever approached an all-out nuclear war. My children had not even been born, but all
of us who were alive at the time can surely remember at least some of what we
were doing when for thirteen frightening days the world held its breath as
President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev traded deathly ultimatums. Never was there a fortnight in which an
American president worked harder to earn his salary.
If any of you under fifty
years of age want to get the lowdown on this chapter in your nation’s history,
I could not recommend anything more informative and dramatically absorbing than
“The Missiles of October,” a TV movie that aired twelve years after the events
it portrays. And those of you over fifty
who do remember it would also do well to watch the film, not only to get
refreshed on the blow-by-blow details behind the scenes but to absorb into your
consciousness the courage and the wisdom that finally averted the unthinkable,
not only on the part of Kennedy and his Cabinet but Khrushchev and his
Presidium as well. (There are no good
guys and bad guys portrayed in this scenario.)
And it might increase the value of the stock you take in your mortal
existence many times over.
A quick review of the
circumstances: Aerial photographs by
U.S. planes detected the presence of Soviet missile bases being built on Cuban
soil despite continued assurances from the Russians that they had no intention
of doing any such thing. Kennedy had to
call an emergency meeting of his entire cabinet to determine what to do about this
development. Dean Acheson, Maxwell
Taylor, Robert McNamara , Dean Rusk, MacGeorge Bundy, C. Douglas Dillon, George
Ball and Bobby Kennedy the President’s
brother, then Attorney General, are names that most of us old timers should
quickly recognize. Some favor immediate
bombing of the missile bases, others want to blockade the island, a few prefer
diplomacy. Tempers flare; nerves are
rubbed raw again and again. The deliberations
get quite hot. All kinds of bends and
twists occur before a consensus is reached.
The clandestine Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by American mercenaries two
years before, one that failed, made the Russians very uneasy. Khrushchev felt impelled by this fiasco to
protect the Cuban people from alleged U.S. aggression and sought to do so by
the establishing of these bases.
Many other political
figures eventually become involved in the crisis before it is resolved. That it was resolved is something everyone
knows. How close the two major powers came
to disaster might surprise many who were living in 1962. Until I saw the film for the first time
shortly after its premier, I myself had no real grasp of how NEAR- TO-
ALL-OUT WAR- WE- WERE-
TAKEN. I still tremble every time
I think of it.
Many of the players in this
huge all-male cast, all of them monumentally at the top of their form, too
numerous to list completely, are dead now, but seeing them in this celluloid
time capsule gives me fond memories of much of their other work. Kennedy is portrayed by William Devane, and
his command of the New Englander’s drawling manner of speech is astoundingly
accurate, as well as his body language.
It might be hard to believe that he was not a member of the Kennedy
family himself. What extensive coaching
and voice training he must have had to go through preparing for this most
difficult role! And Martin Sheen is a
lively, appropriately intense and fast talking Bobby. Howard Da Silva, well known stage and screen
personality in many memorable character parts including the psychiatrist in
“David and Lisa” and Ben Franklin in “1776,” does not have the voice of
Khrushchev but he commands every moment in which the Soviet Premier is
seen. Ralph Bellamy turns in a worthy
portrayal of Adlai Stevenson, ambassador to the U.N. and former Presidential
nominee. Nehemiah Persoff fits very
nicely into the shoes of Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister who pays
Kennedy a visit right during those thirteen days and pretends that nothing is
going on in Cuba that the U.S. should be worried about. Everybody shines; there is not a wooden
portrayal anywhere.
The color processing of the
images seems a tad anemic by today’s digital standards and some of the panning
of the camera from face to face feels a bit awkward to me. And we have to put up with periodic pauses
for the station identifications and commercials which we mercifully do not have
to sit through, just the bothersome hiatus complete with a repeated and
needless fanfare. But the script is not
allowed in any way to suffer on account of these factors. The movie was produced by Herbert Brodkin and
Robert Berger and directed by Anthony Page.
It can be rented from Netflix and is available in many public libraries.
What pleases me is the
non-partisan treatment the material is given by screenwriter Stanley R.
Greenberg. I picked up no political
party sympathy from any of the dialogue.
The president under siege just happened to be a Democrat. But the drama transcends party politics and
all other lines of social or bureaucratic division, and no digressions into
anyone’s private life or places of residence or reputation or ideology ever
take place. All the scenes occur in
official surroundings, punctuated a half dozen or so times by newsreel footage
of atom bomb testings and military deployments.
Jackie Kennedy never puts in an appearance, her name only once
mentioned. Lots of close-ups are used –
men staring into each other’s faces behind closed doors, reading each other’s
expressions, picking up each other’s dynamics.
The tightly constructed screenplay gets down to the business of the
missiles right from the start and stays that way until the last pulse pounding
moment. I promise, whatever your
political orientation, you will not be bored or disinterested. Some of you might want to watch it with your
grown children and afterward give them a hug and thank God they were permitted
to enter this world.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com
I welcome feedback. Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net
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