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Thirteen Days Decision Process

Decent Essays

Thirteen Days” by Antony Gumi
The “Thirteen Days” movie describes how the 35th president of United States of America (USA), John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis during the period of October 14-28, 1963. It shows how JFK’s leadership saved the world from having World War III (WWIII), or worse, Nuclear War. JFK’s crisis management and decision-making skills was tested during this period. He was under an extreme pressure, having the Cuban missiles were about to be ready to become operational and most of his Generals suggested him to launch a military strike, while he didn’t want to start a war and prefer to avoid one. To make things worse, the Joint Chiefs, who most of them were older than JFK, pressurized …show more content…

Regarding informational processing roles, monitoring role was hold by JFK as he indirectly scanned for information (i.e. in the reality, the U-2 spy plane pilots were the ones who do the dangerous photo-taking mission) about the existence of Cuban Missiles and about how to remove those Missiles out of Cuba, including the investigation on Alexander Fomin’s background that he delegated to Kenny and FBI’s Walter Sheridan. To disseminate the information, JFK trusted Kenny to pass his message to the subordinates (e.g. JFK told Kenny to tell the Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, the truth about the crisis issue). In addition to monitor and disseminator roles, the movie also showed how Robert McNamara, The USA Secretary of Defence, act as JFK’s spokesperson in Pentagon, making sure that no action was taken without JFK’s approval. Adlai Stevenson also got his share as a spokesperson as he represented and spoke for USA in the United Nation (UN). Personally, I think Adlai is the coolest character in this movie since he was the one who propose the idea of political negotiation (i.e. trading American’s missiles in Turkey with Soviet’s missiles in Cuba) which what in the end became the final solution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I also love the part of the movie where he gave his counter-argument to Soviet’s Zorin at the UN Security Council meeting.
Regarding decision-making roles, the cabinet and

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