- Kenny O'Donnell: If the sun comes up tomorrow, it is only because of men of good will. And that's - that's all there is between us and the devil.
- President Kennedy: Well, who the hell authorized this missile test?
- Robert Kennedy: Who do you think? God knows what this is gonna communicate to the Soviets!
- Kenny O'Donnell: Communicate with the Soviets? We can't communicate with the Pentagon - and it's just across the goddamn river!
- Robert McNamara: This is not a blockade. This is language. A new vocabulary, the likes of which the world has never seen! This is President Kennedy communicating with Secretary Khrushchev!
- Dobrynin: [to RFK] You're a good man; your brother is a good man. I assure you there are other good men. Let us hope the will of good men is enough to counter the terrible strength of this thing that was put in motion.
- President Kennedy: You know, last summer I read a book, The Guns of August. I wish every man on that blockade line had read that book. It's World War One; there's thirteen million killed; it was all because the militaries of both alliances believed they were so highly attuned to one another's movements and dispositions, they could predict one another's intentions, but all their theories were based on the last war. And the world and technology had changed, and those lessons were no longer valid, but it was all they knew, so the orders went out, couldn't be rescinded. And your man in the field, his family at home, they couldn't even tell you the reasons why their lives were being destroyed.
- [pause]
- President Kennedy: But why couldn't they stop it? What could they have done? Here we are, fifty years later. Think if one of their ships resists the inspection, and we shoot out its rudder, and board. They shoot down one of our planes, in response, so we bomb their anti-aircraft sites in response to that, and they attack Berlin, so we invade Cuba.
- [pause]
- President Kennedy: And they fire their missiles... And we fire ours.
- President Kennedy: [last lines]
- President Kennedy: What kind of peace do we seek? am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living. Not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. Our problems are manmade - therefore, they can be solved by man. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
- President Kennedy: Goddamn it! How the goddamn hell could this happen? I'm gonna have Powell's head on a platter - next to LeMay's. Kenny, you hear me give the order to go to DEFCON 2? 'Cause I remember giving the order to go to DEFCON 3 but, y'know I must be suffering from amnesia! I've just been informed our nuclear forces are at DEFCON 2.
- Gen. Max Taylor: They were limited, Mr. President. The orders were limited to our strategic forces...
- President Kennedy: Max!
- Gen. Max Taylor: ...in the continental United States. General LeMay is correct. Technically, SAC has the statutory authority...
- President Kennedy: [slams fist] *I* have the authority! I am the commander in chief of the United States, and I say when we go to war!
- Kenny O'Donnell: Commander, my name is Ken O'Donnell, special assistant to the President.
- Commander William B. Ecker: Yes sir.
- Kenny O'Donnell: The President has instructed me to pass along an order to you. You are not to get shot down.
- Commander William B. Ecker: Uh, we'll do our best sir.
- Kenny O'Donnell: I don't think you understand me, Commander. You are not to get shot down, under any circumstances. Whatever happens up there, you were not shot at. Mechanical failures are fine. Crashing into mountains, fine. But you and your men are not to be shot at, fired at, or launched upon.
- Commander William B. Ecker: Excuse me sir, what the hell is going on here?
- Kenny O'Donnell: Commander, if you are fired upon, the President will be forced to attack the sites that fire on you. He doesn't want to have to do that. It's very important that he doesn't, or things can go very badly out of control.
- Commander William B. Ecker: What about my men? We don't have anyone to protect us, I don't want to be writing letters home to parents.
- Kenny O'Donnell: If the President protects you, Commander, he may have to do it with the bomb. Now I've known the man for fifteen years. The problem is... he will protect you. So I'm asking you, don't make him protect you. Don't get shot at.
- Commander William B. Ecker: Okay Mister O'Donnell, we'll do what we can.
- Kenny O'Donnell: I know you will.
- Lt. Bruce Wilhemy: Oh man! Shit! Did you see it?
- [Examining bullet holes in Cmdr. Ecker's wing]
- Lt. Bruce Wilhemy: You were lucky skipper.
- Commander William B. Ecker: Damn sparrows! Must have been migrating.
- Petty Officer: Sparrows?
- Commander William B. Ecker: I probably hit a couple of hundred of them. How many did you hit Bruce?
- Lt. Bruce Wilhemy: Sparrows? A few I guess.
- Petty Officer: Are these twenty millimeter or forty millimeter sparrows, sir?
- Commander William B. Ecker: Those are bird strikes. Sparrows to be precise. That's the way it is, guys.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Adlai! It's Ken; how you doin'?
- Adlai Stevenson: Busy, Ken. What do you need?
- Kenny O'Donnell: The president told me to pass the word to you: Stick it to them!
- Adlai Stevenson: I hear you. I'm glad it's you calling; I thought it would be Bobby.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Adlai, the world has to know we're right. If we're gonna have a chance at a political solution we need international pressure... You gotta be tough, Adlai. You need to find it, buddy.
- Adlai Stevenson: If they're still sticking to their stonewalling stategy, I'll get them. I'm an old political cat, Kenny, but I've got one life left.
- Kenny O'Donnell: I know you do.
- Robert Kennedy: We gave up so much to get here... I don't know; sometimes I think, "What the hell did we do it for?"
- Kenny O'Donnell: Well, I don't know about you, but... I'm in it for the money.
- Kenny O'Donnell: That's going to be tough - you know how these guys are about their chains of command.
- President Kennedy: Listen, you tell 'em those chains of command end at one place: *me*.
- President Kennedy: What do you want, Kenny?
- Kenny O'Donnell: I want you to sit down.
- President Kennedy: Well, I'm not gonna sit down!
- Kenny O'Donnell: I want you to sit down, loosen your tie, take a minute...
- President Kennedy: I haven't got a a minute!
- Kenny O'Donnell: You're the President of the United States. They can wait for you.
- President Kennedy: Bobby, you gotta go in there and you gotta make them understand... that we have to have an answer tomorrow... because Monday, we go to war.
- Robert Kennedy: By the way, China invaded India today.
- Kenny O'Donnell: You're kidding, aren't you?
- Robert Kennedy: Yeah, I wish I were. Galbraith is handling it in New Delhi. Makes you wonder what's coming next.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Geez. What is it about the free world that pisses the rest of the world off?
- Robert Kennedy: I don't know. We have Tupperware parties.
- President Kennedy: Acheson's scenario is just, it's unacceptable, and he's got more experience than anybody.
- Kenny O'Donnell: There is no expert on the subject; I mean, there is no wise old man. There's - shit, there's just us.
- President Kennedy: The thing is that Acheson's right, 'cause talk alone's not gonna accomplish anything.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Well, let's bomb the shit out of 'em! Everybody wants to. I mean, even you, I mean, even me, right? It sure would feel good.
- Kenny O'Donnell: They look warlike? Jesus Christ, we're lighting off nuclear weapons like its our own private Fourth of July!
- Journalist: So... tell me about this military exercise that's going on down in Puerto Rico.
- Kenny O'Donnell: [sharply] What?
- Journalist: It's called "ORTSAC", I believe. "Castro" spelled backwards.
- Kenny O'Donnell: "ORTSAC"? I... I don't know what you're talking about.
- Robert F. Kennedy: Me either. Why?
- Journalist: Because maybe the President and Gromyko are gonna talk about it.
- Kenny O'Donnell: If you're trying to drum something up, Johnny, forget it. This meeting's been on the books for months. Far as I know, it's just a friendly talk on U.S.-Soviet relations.
- [Johnny the Journalist nods and walks away. On a pad, Bobby writes the word "ORTSAC"]
- Kenny O'Donnell: ... Does it?
- Robert F. Kennedy: [writes "CASTRO" underneath it] Mm-hm.
- Kenny O'Donnell: I'll be damned.
- [scoffs]
- Kenny O'Donnell: Kind of simple for the Pentagon.
- President Kennedy: [Kenny eats a piece of the president's breakfast as the president reads the newspaper] I was eating that.
- Kenny O'Donnell: No, you weren't.
- President Kennedy: I was.
- Kenny O'Donnell: No, you weren't.
- President Kennedy: I was... I was... Bastard.
- General Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix, Mr. President.
- President Kennedy: What did you say?
- General Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix.
- President Kennedy: Well, maybe you haven't noticed: You're in it with me.
- President Kennedy: Have you canceled Chicago and the rest of the weekend yet?
- Kenny O'Donnell: You don't show for Chicago, everyone'll know there's something going on.
- President Kennedy: I don't care! Just cancel...
- Kenny O'Donnell: Forget it!
- [Kennedy glares at him]
- Kenny O'Donnell: I'm not calling and canceling on Daley!
- [Kennedy glares again]
- Kenny O'Donnell: You call and cancel on Daley!
- President Kennedy: You're scared to cancel on Daley?
- Kenny O'Donnell: You're damn right I'm scared.
- President Kennedy: Well I'm not.
- Kenny O'Donnell: [to Bobby] Watch this.
- [cut to Kennedy's arrival in Chicago]
- President Kennedy: Well, things can't get much worse.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Oh, I don't know; we could have to go down to Lyndon's ranch again, dressed up as cowboys, shoot deer out of the back of his convertible.
- President Kennedy: That *was* a bad day... Hell, I thought there'd be... more good days.
- Robert McNamara: A blockade is technically an act of war; therefore we recommend calling the action a quarantine.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Let's hope that translates into Russian the way we want it to.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Adlai can handle Zorin. He knows the inning; he knows the score.
- Robert Kennedy: He better, because nobody believes he's up to this - nobody.
- [about the Joint Chiefs of Staff]
- Kenny O'Donnell: They want a war, Jack, and they're arranging things to get one.
- General Curtis LeMay: Those goddamn Kennedys are gonna destroy this country if we don't do something about this!
- Adlai Stevenson: [asking the Russian ambassador if there are any Soviet missile bases in Cuba] Sir, I am prepared to wait for your answer till Hell freezes over, if that's your decision.
- General Curtis LeMay: The 'big Red dog' is diggin' in our backyard, and we are justified in shooting him!
- Dean Acheson: Gentlemen, for the last fifteen years, I've fought at this table alongside your predecessors in the struggle against the Soviet. Now I do not wish to seem melodramatic, but I do wish to impress upon you a lesson I learned with bitter tears and great sacrifice. The Soviet understands only one language: action. Respects only one word: force.
- President Kennedy: Dean, how does this all play out?
- Dean Acheson: Your first step sir, will be to demand that the Soviet withdraw the missiles within 12 to 24 hours. They will refuse. When they do you will order the strikes, followed by the invasion. They will resist and be overrun. They will retaliate against another target somewhere else in the world, most likely Berlin. We will honor our treaty commitments and resist them there, defeating them per our plans.
- President Kennedy: Those plans call for the use of nuclear weapons. So what is the next step?
- Dean Acheson: Hopefully cooler heads will prevail before we reach the next step.
- [Soviet ships turn away from the U.S. blockade of Cuba]
- Dean Rusk: We were eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fella just blinked.
- Robert F. Kennedy: We've got a bunch of smart guys. We lock 'em in a room and kick 'em in the ass until they come up with some solutions... I'll do it.
- Helen O'Donnell: And while you're under a rock somewhere with the President, what am I supposed to do with our five children, Kenny?
- Kenny O'Donnell: Honey, we're not going to let it come to that, I promise. Jack and Bobby, they're smart guys.
- Helen O'Donnell: You're smart, too.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Not like them.
- President Kennedy: I'll tell you one thing, Kenny. Those brass hats have one big advantage. That is, if we do what they want us to do, there's none of us gonna be alive to tell them they were wrong.
- Robert F. Kennedy: You know, I - I hate being called the brilliant one, the ruthless one, the guy everybody's afraid of. I hate it. I'm not so smart, you know? I'm not so ruthless.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Well you're right... about the smart part.
- Kenny O'Donnell: You sleeping?
- President Kennedy: No, not much. I slept last night, though, you know, and, geez, when I woke up, I just, somehow I'd forgotten that all this had happened, you know? You know, then, of course, I remembered, and I just wished for a second that somebody else was president.
- Kenny O'Donnell: You mean that?
- President Kennedy: I said for a *second*.
- President Kennedy: Say one of those ships resists inspection, and we shoot out its rudder, and board... they shoot down one of our planes, in response. So we bomb their anti-aircraft sites, and in response to that... they attack Berlin. So we invade Cuba.
- [pause]
- President Kennedy: So they fire their missiles... and we fire ours.
- Kenny O'Donnell: I got a bad feeling about what's going on in there!
- President Kennedy: In the morning I'm taking charge of the blockade from the situation room and Macnamara is gonna set up shop at the flagpot at the Pentagon and keep an eye on things there.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Good. Because you've got armed boarders climbing onto Soviet ships, and shots being fired across bows!
- President Kennedy: I know. I know.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Well, what about these low level flights?
- President Kennedy: We need the flights.
- Kenny O'Donnell: They're starting them when?
- President Kennedy: An hour.
- Kenny O'Donnell: An hour. You realize what you're letting yourself in for?
- President Kennedy: Kenny, no, we need the flights, because the minute that first missile becomes operational we gotta go in there and destroy it.
- Kenny O'Donnell: Fair enough. But Castro's on alert and we're flying attack planes over their sites, on the deck! There's no way for them to know we're carrying cameras, not bombs.
- President Kennedy: God damn it!
- Kenny O'Donnell: They're gonna be shot at, plain and simple.
- Robert Kennedy: No, no, no! Now, there is more than one option here - and if one isn't occurring to us, it's because we haven't thought hard enough!
- John McCone, CIA Director: Bobby, sometimes there is only one right choice, and you thank God when it's so clear.
- Robert Kennedy: You're talking about a sneak attack. How will that make us look? A big country blasting a little one into the stone age. Yeah, we'll be everyone's favorites.
- Dean Acheson: Come on Bobby, that's naive. This is the real world. You know that better than anybody.
- John McCone, CIA Director: And you weren't so ethically particular when we were talking about options for removing Castro over at CIA.
- President Kennedy: [addressing the NPIC photograph analyst] Okay - let's have it.
- NPIC Photo Interpreter: Gentlemen, as most of you now know, a U-2 over Cuba Sunday morning took a series of disturbing photographs. Our analysis at NPIC indicates that the Soviet Union has followed up its conventional weapons build-up in Cuba with the introduction of surface-to-surface, medium-range ballistic missiles, or MRBMs. Our official estimate at this time is that the missile system is the SS-4 'Sandal'. We do not believe that the missiles are as yet operational. Iron Bark reports that the SS-4 can deliver a 3-megaton nuclear weapon 1,000 miles. So far we've identified 32 missiles serviced by about 3400 men, undoubtedly all Soviet personnel. Our cities and military installations in the southeast as far north as Washington, D.C., are in range of these weapons, and in the evnt of a launch would have only five minutes of warning.
- General Marshall Carter: Five minutes, gentlemen.
- Gen. Max Taylor: In those five minutes, they could kill 80 million Americans - and destroy a significant percentage of our bomber bases, degrading our retaliatory options. The Joint Chiefs' consensus, Mr. President, is that this signals a major doctrinal shift in Soviet thinking - to a first-strike policy. It is a massively destabilizing move.
- Robert Kennedy: How long until they're operational?
- NPIC Photo Interpreter: General Taylor can answer that question better than I can.
- Gen. Max Taylor: GMAC - Guided Missiles Intelligence Committee - estimates 10-14 days. A crash program could limit that time. However, I must stress that there may be more missiles - that we don't know about. We need more U-2 coverage.
- President Kennedy: Gentlemen, I want first reactions here. Assuming for the moment that Khruschev has not gone off the deep end - and intends to start World War III - what are we looking at?
- Dean Rusk: Mr. President, I believe my team is in agreement. If we permit the introduction of nuclear missiles to a Soviet satellite nation in our hemisphere, the diplomatic consequnces will be too terrible to contemplate. The Russians are trying to show the world they can do whatever they want, wherever they want, and we're powerless to stop them. If they succeed...
- Robert Kennedy: It'll be Munich all over again.
- Dean Rusk: Yes. Appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive. And the Soviets will be emboldened to push us even harder. Now we must remove the missiles one way or another. Now it seems to me the options are either some combination of international pressure & action on our part, til they give in - or - we hit them. An air strike.
- Robert Kennedy: At this moment the president is accepting the terms of Secretary Khrushchev's letter of Friday night: If the Soviet Union halts construction immediately, removes the missiles, and submits to UN inspection, the United States will pledge to never invade Cuba, or aid others in that enterprise.
- Dobrynin: If your Jupiter missiles in Turkey were removed also, such an accommodation could be reached.
- Robert Kennedy: That's not possible. The United States cannot agree to such terms under threat. Any belief to the contrary was in error.
- Dobrynin: You want war?
- Adlai Stevenson: [to Ambassador Zorin] I want to ask you one simple question Mr Ambassador. Do you deny that the Soviet Union has placed and is placing missiles in Cuba? Don't wait for the translation, yes or no?
- Operator Margaret: [Quickly connecting calls with three other operators] White House Operator. Yeah, Mr. O'Donnell please for Secretary McNamara, go ahead please. Yeah. I've got the President for the Attorney General, go ahead please. What the crap is going on today?
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