Analysis Of The Movie ' The Fog Of War '

President Kennedy came to office with warnings of a missile gap. The Soviets had achieved or were achieving a significant advantage in strategic nuclear weapons. Though tensions ran even higher, "Eisenhower’s strategy of massive retaliation made little sense and did not account for the rapidly growing Soviet nuclear arsenal4. Kennedy's nuclear strategy became known as flexible response. The idea was to acquire the military forces that could deal flexibility with varying levels of Soviet Aggression3. The most serious confrontation between Russia and the US was the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Link to Stephanie's page) Soviet leader Khrushchev attempted to place intermediate range missiles in Cuba. Kennedy responded by imposing a quarantine on Cuba. This resulted in the removal of the Soviet missiles and led to Kennedy making the decision to dismantle U.S. missiles based in Turkey. Some analysts argue that the successful outcome was due to the United States’ nuclear superiority, which proved that strategic superiority offered important political advantages5.

On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy “informed the world” that the Soviets were building secretive missile bases in Cuba, very close to Florida. President Kennedy decided to take the peaceful route in handling is major crisis. As

The film, The Fog of War, is about a life experience of Robert McNamara who is a former Secretary of Defense, President of Ford Motor Company, and President of World Bank. McNamara reflects back on his life and shares 11 lessons he had learned as he lived and served during one of the darkest times of human history. In the film, he aims to show that although war is inevitable, goal of spreading democracy by empathizing with the enemy to understand their situation and their motive of war, re-examining own reason to declare war, and questioning the morality of rational decision to eliminate unnecessary killing is good in itself and worth the evil that the states sometimes have to engage in.

“Do everything in such a way that the U.S. public opinion will not be aware of this until November 4th or after November 4th…The Americans are going to have to swallow this the same way we have had to swallow the pill of missiles in Turkey,” stated Premier Nikita Khrushchev. He wanted to keep this a secret until the missiles would be operational. The Soviet Union eventually brought 45,000 troops, 80 missiles, some bombers, and several SAM sites to Cuba by sea, which were meant to shoot down U-2 planes that routinely flew over Cuba, so they would not discover the offensive missiles (Eubank 20-24). On October 15, a U-2 plane discovered offensive missiles and this was reported to President Kennedy the next morning at 9:00 AM. Kennedy didn’t seem too shocked. He simply discussed plans with his advisors, also known as the ExComm, about solutions including an invasion, air strikes, withdrawing missiles from Turkey, and blockades (Eubank 36-41). Kennedy finally came to a decision and decided to reveal it to the public through a speech on television. Kennedy’s speech on October 22, 1962 addressed the fact that he wanted Khrushchev to remove the missiles from Cuba and that Khrushchev claimed that there were no offensive missiles in Cuba. Kennedy further explained the fact that there was evidence from photographs that U-2 spy planes took over the island of Cuba. Additionally, Kennedy announced that a naval quarantine or blockade would take place on Cuba to stop ships from bringing in any offensive weapons (“Presidents Grave”). Everyone rushed to the supermarkets and stocked up on food in panic (Cullough). Soviet ships continued towards Cuba even after the speech. One of the members in the ExComm, McCone, stated, “Mr. President, we have a preliminary report which seems to indicate that some of the

Filmmaker Errol Morris lays down the story of the United States as seen through the eyes of former business executive and eighth U.S. secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara. He gives the viewers an inside look of the controversial events that occur during the Vietnam War and other incidents in the 20th century. McNamara highlights his twenty-five years of service and opens up into his eleven lessons of war. To prevent future unnecessary death and conflict.

The Missile Crisis developed in 1962 because Fidel Castro believed that America would soon try again to invade his country. He asked the Soviet Union for help in defending his island nation. The Soviet Union replied by sending small arms, tanks, and infantry units to Cuba, as well as secretly transferring nuclear missiles to missile silos that were under construction in Cuba. The Americans were shocked when one of their U-2 spy planes discovered the nuclear silos under construction in Cuba because it meant that for the first time the Soviet missiles were within range of most major U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C. This created a very difficult problem for American President John F. Kennedy for which he needed to find a solution. He could not allow the missile silos to finish being constructed because that would place the United States in danger. That meant that either he would have to try diplomatic means to attempt to negotiate the removal of the weapons, or he would have to use the might of the American military to remove the weapons by force. Neither option looked particularly favourable. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (the President's military advisors) urged a swift and strong military invasion to destroy the silos before the Soviets could react. Kennedy was concerned, however, of the possibility of Soviet nuclear retaliation for the invasion because invasion was clearly an act of war. Up until that point, neither side had been willing to risk direct

“Any military commander who is honest with himself, or with those he's speaking to, will admit that he has made mistakes in the application of military power. He's killed people unnecessarily — his own troops or other troops — through mistakes, through errors of judgment. A hundred, or thousands, or tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand.” This quote which is the opener of Errol Morris's “The Fog of War” is a statement that is emblematic of the choices and decisions Robert S. McNamara had to make during his time serving in World War II, as Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War and as president of The World Bank.

President Kennedy asked General Walter C. Sweeney, Commander in Chief of the Tactical Air Command if they could destroy all other missile sites and nuclear weapons in Cuba with an invasion. General Sweeney said they could take out all of the missiles they knew about but there may be one - five they would miss. President Kennedy knew that even one missile could kill millions of Americans and he could not accept the risk of that happening. Because of that he endorsed the naval quarantine. Following the blatant lie by Gromyko and newly acquired information from recent surveillance film confirming the shipment of missiles and the building of bases in Cuba, President Kennedy felt it was necessary to make this information available to the people of the United States and world on Monday, October 22, 1961 (14 days in October, Day 6 & 7).

From the beginning of the movie, The President John F. Kennedy had to declare what his vision of the future was when dealing with The Unite States’ outlook on the problem. With this issue having multi-level complexities John F. Kennedy did not take his responsibility lightly. When it came to deciding how The United States should act John F. Kennedy used the authoritarian approach but strongly relied upon his political cabinet to provided their counsel on how The Cuban Missile Crisis should be handled moving forward

In the film Fog of War, former U.S Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara discusses and illustrates his observation of human nature of modern warfare base on his experience during the times of Cold War as well as the Vietnam War. Based on watching and looking at the film as historical movie reviewer, I feel that McNamara did a good job in telling the historical accuracies of the Cold War and Vietnam War. Additionally, I feel that McNamara perspective gives another telling in the way to look at these historical events in a different type of view which I believe the points made in the film came across the audience very well.

In an effort to keep his knowledge of the missile sites a secret, President Kennedy convened the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Excomm) including his top military and diplomatic advisors to resolve how the United States should react to the missile sites. Soon after, President Kennedy proposed a naval blockade, which would ultimately lead to the prevention of the Soviets from bringing in more military supplies. A cautious president who was all too familiar of the results from an aggressive invasion or attack made this notion. President Kennedy then wrote to Chairman Nikita Khrushchev, demanding the destruction and removal of the missiles and sites. In President Kennedy’s letter he declared, “I have not assumed that you or any other sane man would, in this nuclear age, deliberately plunge the world into war which it is crystal clear no country could win and which could only result in catastrophic consequences to the whole world, including the aggressor.”5 In a letter written back to President Kennedy from Khrushchev, on October 26, 1960, Khrushchev express the same idea of reaching an agreement and ultimately reaching peace. Khrushchev begins the letter with commending President Kennedy’s noble and cautious attitude towards the situation and using the prior situation, The Bay of Pigs, as the reason. In his letter chairman Khrushchev advocates for peace among all peoples, both communists and capitalists, but he is not hesitant to include that he would accept a challenge of war if it were to be put into place. To conclude his letter, Chairman Khrushchev affirms “If there is no intention to tighten that knot and thereby to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that

Upon being notified, President Kennedy called together a meeting of his executive committee; a group of special advisors that were tasked with determining how to deal with this forming crisis. The stage was set as the United States had a communist country who knew America had tried to assassinate its leader, aligned with an American enemy in the Soviet Union and was now armed with Soviet missiles thought to be used as a “first strike” weapon. Initial plans of diplomatic contact between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed futile as the failed assassination of Fidel Castro made America appear weak, and Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschuv had openly made remarks against the Kennedy administration. (LaGrone,

It was in October of 1962 that a U.S. spy plane discovered that the Soviet Union had nuclear equipped missiles placed in the country of Cuba. This was a serious threat to the United States because Cuba was just 90 miles from our shores and Cuba was a close ally of the Soviet Union. President Kennedy was shocked and started right away to secretly meet with his advisors to discuss this big problem. Nuclear equipped missiles could easily reach America being that we were so close to Cuba. He didn’t want the soviet union or cuba to know that he discovered the missiles.There were already tensions between the U.S and Soviets due to the ongoing cold war with the Soviet

Daniel Lee Stephen Dyson Introduction to Political Science 14 November 2014 Fog Of War Documentary In this grimly compelling film, The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (McNamara) documentary filmmaker Errol Morris shows one of the most perplexing subjects in the United States of America. Robert McNamara is the former defense secretary in the United States of America. McNamara is well known as the chief architect of the Vietnam War.

Kennedy was informed the the missiles that very same day and his advisors told him that they wanted an air strike followed by an invasion put up in Cuba. Kennedy knew that if the US invaded the Soviets would use their missiles.