NTU

Individual Essay:
“Thirteen Days” Movie Review
HA201 Public Organization and Management

Cheah Shee Miin Yvonne

 The movie “Thirteen Days” begins with the United States talking about the dangers of Soviet

missiles in Cuba – reaching the US in 5 minutes and killing 80 million. Soon, intensive discussion

begins as to how the US should respond. Various alternatives were proposed and advocated or opposed

by different members of the ExCom. Not knowing that the US had found out about the presence of

Soviet ballistic missiles on Cuban soil, the Soviet representative insists that their support to Cuba is of

defensive nature. After much consideration, a decision was made by President Kennedy as to what

should be done. The internal dispute among the ExCom did not cease as the military officials continued

thinking contrary to the President and even attempted to go against his wishes. At the United Nations

meeting, the Soviet representative accuses the US of pushing the world into a catastrophe. When the US

representative produced evidence and requested that the USSR admits to placing missiles in Cuba, the

Soviet representative refused to answer. In a second letter to the President, Chairman Khrushchev

wanted the US to remove their missiles in Turkey, though this matter was not clearly linked to the

Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet ambassador also pushed for the removal and threatened that both sides

will have to go to war. The movie finally ends with the Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba, though

the reason was unclear.

The movie has validated the following public management concepts: 1. Incremental Decision

Process Model; 2. Governmental Politics Model; 3. Organizational Process Model.

Firstly, the Incremental Decision Process Model was vivid in the movie wherein the decision

maker in planning for a United States response to the presence of ballistic missiles in Cuba was neither

an individual nor just the Congress. Rather, the National Security Council and its inner circle, the

Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExCom) was created out of individuals from

various parts of the US government. This led to the presence of competing perceptions, interests,

responsibilities, cultures and solutions possessed or proposed by the individuals. As a result, the decision

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making became a bargaining process in which persuasion, negotiation and debate occurred. Six initial

solutions were proposed: 1. Non-action; 2. Diplomatic pressures; 3. A secret approach to Castro; 4.

Invasion; 5. Air Strike; 6. Blockade. President John F. Kennedy was not for the idea of striking Cuba

straightaway as he feared retaliation from the Russia on Berlin, which in turn would lead to the use of

nuclear weapons and a subsequent war. On the other hand, General Curtis LeMay insisted that the US

had to invade Cuba for there was no other way out. Also, there were concerns that diplomatic talks

might be too slow, a sneak attack immoral and non-action inconceivable. Lastly, the idea of blockade of

Cuba was not well supported at the start either. The bargaining process continued for several days before

the ExCom finally decided that they will go ahead with a blockade on Soviet ships carrying weapons to

Cuba, coupled with a demand for removal of the missiles in Cuba and the threat of direct military action

should the Soviets fail to cooperate. The final solution was a collage of several of the initial proposed

solutions and throughout the decision making process, no one individual made the entire decision but

rather bargaining between individuals prevailed.

Secondly, the Governmental Politics Model (closely related to the Incremental Decision Process

Model) views governmental action as a political resultant, i.e. the product of compromise by the players

involved. Each player has different interests, perceptions and ways to address the same problem as

mentioned earlier. Thus, despite being the final decision maker, President Kennedy’s decision making

was shaped by the competing interests and opinions of his advisors, having to pursue consensus.

Thirdly, the Organizational Process Model and the concept of “trained incapacity” were

displayed by the failure of the Soviets to hide their nuclear missiles during transportation and

construction of the missiles sites once the weapons reached Cuba. The field personnel who were

responsible for establishing the Cuban missile sites followed pre-established procedures that were

applicable in the Soviet Union (USSR) but not in Cuba. It was the first time USSR set up nuclear missile

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bases outside of their territory and no procedures were formulated for the personnel in Cuba. Thus, the

Soviets failed to take into consideration the need for camouflaging the bases since there was no need to

do so back in USSR. Besides, the way the Soviets set up the Cuban bases were exactly the same as how

they did while in their own country, making it possible for the Americans to detect the presence of

Soviet missiles on Cuban soil. The concept of “trained incapacity” applies due to the Soviets’

inflexibility in the application of skills under changed conditions, i.e. the Soviets did not adapt to the

different situation in Cuba which rendered their usual standard operating procedures invalid and even

detrimental outside of USSR.

Furthermore, the presence of conflicting instructions to lower rank military officials by the US

President and the General reveals the prevalence of differences in organizational cultures among

different groups within the government. Under normal situation, lower rank military officials are

expected to follow higher-ranking officials within the military. However, when a decision had to be

made as to whether or not the US military would attack a Soviet ship that has passed the quarantine line

set in place for the Blockade, President Kennedy interfered with the General’s instructions and

commanded the lower rank military officials not to fire at the Soviet ship. Had it been someone else who

contradicted the General’s instructions, he probably would have followed military procedures and

punished the person accordingly. Another scenario that indicated the pervasiveness of the military’s

organizational culture would be that of the General wanting to follow the military’s “rules of

engagement” and counter attack the Soviets who had shot down a U-2 plane, despite the President

insisting that they first confirm that the Soviets had done so on purpose. Had the General been allowed

to make the final decision, the US military might have gone ahead with an air strike or an invasion

despite the objections of other members of the ExCom.

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 Besides the 3 concepts mentioned earlier, the non-linear process of decision making revealed in

the movie displays some features of the Garbage Can Model (GCM). Of the 3 defining characteristics of

the GCM, “problematic preferences” is most applicable to the Cuban missile crisis due to the ambiguity

regarding the nature of the problem that the US faces (which contradicts rational model of decision

making). Under Kingdon’s adaptation of the GCM, policy alternatives mutate and recombine into new

forms. We see this occurring when the ExCom’s final decision for responding to the Soviets was a

combination of blockade and demand for withdrawal of the missiles, coupled with the threat of direct

military attack when necessary – some alternatives were dropped while others were adopted upon

modification. “Fluid participation” is also present as different actors were involved in proposing

solutions to the same problem but at different times. Khrushchev’s second letter which added an extra

term, that of the US removing their missiles from Turkey, could be seen as his attempt at policy

entrepreneurship. Perhaps he wanted to attach the “solution” of US removal of missiles from Turkey to

the “policy window” that arose out of the crisis.

In contrast to illustrating the 4 concepts discussed above, the movie also highlighted the

insufficiency of the Rational Actor Model.

The Rational Actor Model assumes that the government is a rational unitary decision maker

whose actions are viewed as value-maximizing choices. However, as shown in the movie, the ExCom

was not clear about the actual intentions of Chairman Khrushchev in deploying Soviet missiles to Cuba,

and there was uncertainty about how the Soviets would react to US actions. Under such circumstances,

there was no way the ExCom could rationally calculate the benefits and costs of the six alternatives for

US action to achieve utility-maximization. Similarly, the imposition of US Blockade of Cuba and the

withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba cannot be adequately explained by the Rational Actor Model.

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 The withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba is as puzzling as the deployment of Soviet missiles

to Cuba. Despite knowing that the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba would definitely incur US

reaction and that the US nuclear strength was way above the Soviet’s, the USSR went ahead with the

deployment. This cannot possibly be understood as a fully rational act. The withdrawal of Soviet

missiles from Cuba raises several questions – Did the US blockade really change the mind of the

Soviets? Assuming that Chairman Khrushchev reacted rationally to the threat of US invasion/air strike

beyond the Blockade, why did not he act rationally at the beginning by not deploying missiles to Cuba

to prevent incurring the wrath of the US? Were not the Soviets afraid of appearing as giving in to the

Americans? If they were willing to withdraw the missiles, just how important was the placement in the

first place? There are no easy answers to these questions and the Rational Actor Model would surely not

suffice in explaining the Soviet withdrawal. Besides, when President Kennedy sent a representative to a

Soviet representative, insisting that the USSR agree to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba or else the

US would attack Cuba, the Soviet representative refused to oblige and even threatened that the two

nations would have to go to war. The Soviet representative knew that there were US military officials

that wanted war and he also knew that the US had greater advantages over USSR should direct conflict

occur. The rational approach should have been to agree to the US terms of resolution but the Soviet

representative did not.

Hence, from the movie we can see that no particular concept is able to fully explain any

governmental action, but rather, several models come together to complement one another in giving

different perspectives to provide a more holistic understanding.

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Reference

Allison, Graham T. and Zelikow, Philip. 1999. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile
Crisis. 2nd edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Cohen, Michael D., March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P. 1972. “A Garbage Can Model of
Organizational Choice.” Administrative Science Quarterly 17(1): 1-25.

Goodrich, Ben. 2004. The Unitary Action Assumption in International Relations. Government 2710 –
Week04 Response Paper.

Kingdon, John W. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. New York: Harper Collins.

Rainey, Hal G. 2003. Understanding and Managing Public Organizations. 3rd edition. San Francisco,
United States of America: Jossey-Bass.