''Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis'' is Robert F. Kennedy's account of the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

of 1962. The book was released in 1969, the year after his assassination.Haruya Anami, "'Thirteen Days' Thirty Years After: Robert Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited," ''Journal of American & Canadian Studies'' (1994) Issue 12, pp 69-88. ''Thirteen Days'' describes the meetings held by the Executive Committee (

ExComm The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (commonly referred to as simply the Executive Committee or ExComm) was a body of United States government officials that convened to advise President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Miss ...

), the team assembled by US President John F. Kennedy to handle the tense situation that developed between the United States and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

following the discovery of Soviet

nuclear missiles Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. All nine nuclear states have developed some form of medium- to long-range delivery system for their nuc ...

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

, from

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. Robert Kennedy, who was the US Attorney General at the time, describes his brother John's leadership style during the crisis as involved, but not controlling. Robert Kennedy viewed the military leaders on the council sympathetically, and recognized that their lifelong concentration on war was difficult to set aside. The book was used as the basis for the 1974 television play '' The Missiles of October''. In 2000, the theatrical film '' Thirteen Days'' was produced using the same title, but based on an entirely different book, ''The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis'' by Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow. That book contained some information that Kennedy was not able to reveal because it was classified at the time.

Notes

1969 non-fiction books 20th-century history books Political books Books about the Cold War Books published posthumously Non-fiction books about military history of the United States History books about the Soviet Union History books about Cuba Works by Robert F. Kennedy Works about the Cuban Missile Crisis W. W. Norton & Company books {{USSR-hist-book-stub