FILM · 2000 · USA
Thirteen Days
49 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (49)
- #001
President John F. Kennedy frequently set up recording machines during meetings in the White House. Much of the dialogue in the film is taken directly from Kennedy's tapes.
- #002
The fact that John F. Kennedy agreed to secretly remove US missiles from Italy and Turkey was not made public until years later.
- #003
In Boston, Kevin Costner's attempt at a Boston accent is so famous that "Kevin Costner accent" is accepted slang for a non-Bostonian's failed attempt at a Boston accent.
- #004
The RF-8 Crusader pilots filmed by the Cubans were played by actors connected to the real people involved in the incident: David O'Donnell, who plays Lieutenant Bruce Wilhemy, is Kenny O'Donnell's real-life grandson, and Christopher Lawford appears in the role of the Commander. William B. Ecker is the real-life nephew of President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.
- #005
Nikita Khrushchev later wrote: "In the end we got exactly what we wanted: the security of Fidel Castro's regime and the removal of American missiles from Turkey and Italy. To this day the US has kept its promise not to intervene against Castro and not to allow anyone else to intervene against Castro. After Kennedy's death, his successor Lyndon Johnson assured us that he would keep the promise not to invade Cuba." When Kennedy accepted his terms, Khrushchev wrote: "You (JFK) also gave (Khrushchev) assurances that the so-called 'quarantine' would be lifted immediately and that Cuba would not be invaded by the US or by other countries in the Western Hemisphere." While this was true, it was also true that the US planned to replace these missiles with more powerful ones. This was misleading, because the Jupiter missiles in Turkey had already become obsolete and the Kennedy administration had decided to remove them before this crisis, with the date set for April 1963. The land-based Jupiters were replaced by longer-range and more powerful submarine-launched Polaris missiles. In fact, the US gave up nothing of major strategic importance.
- #006
This was the first film shown at the White House by President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, on February 1, 2001. Members of the Kennedy family, members of Congress, and personal friends of the President and First Lady attended the historic screening.
- #007
In his memoirs, Robert Kennedy did not mention that at the start of the crisis he was one of the "hawks" in the administration calling for an attack on Cuba. Most of the hawks wanted to carry out some kind of air strike to destroy the missile sites, but there was a "super hawk" position supporting a large-scale invasion of the Caribbean island, and that was the position RFK initially took.
- #008
According to the filmmaker's commentary, Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp, who play John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy respectively, would get into arguments with each other off-screen as the Kennedy personalities to help protect their characters.
- #009
The real Ted Sorensen, President Kennedy's speechwriter, is standing in the first cabinet meeting scene.
- #010
Because the Soviets were later able to use Cuba as a port of call for their nuclear-armed submarines, it was possible to fire from Cuba while a nuclear weapon was in port. However, they could just as easily be launched at sea. The first US nuclear-armed submarine was launched in 1959. The first such Soviet submarine was launched in 1961, a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is notable that the first of these was K-19, a vessel that would later suffer a devastating radiation leak, as depicted in the film K-19: The Widowmaker (2002).
- #011
All of the old 1960s F-8s shown in the film are real aircraft used by the Philippine Air Force.
- #012
Because of the hysteria during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Nixon secretly put DEFCON 2 into effect during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the Soviets began transporting nuclear weapons from the port of Alexandria.
- #013
The destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy (DD-850) was loaned to the production company by the Battleship Massachusetts Foundation in Fall River, Massachusetts. In addition to being named after Kennedy's brother, who was killed in World War II, it had actually been part of the Cuban Blockade. The ship was moved to Narragansett Bay for filming. It is normally displayed in Fall River. It portrayed both itself and the USS John R. Pierce (DD-753). Active-duty Navy and Navy Reserve personnel wearing period uniforms served aboard the ship to film the movie. Although its engines were not operational and it had to be towed by tugboat, some of its systems, such as radar antennas and gun mounts, were made semi-operational.
- #014
John F. Kennedy may have caused the Cuban Missile Crisis by ordering the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, which forced Castro to seek nuclear protection from the Soviet Union to deter a future invasion. It is now known that the Kennedy administration was still planning a military invasion of Cuba as late as August 1962. Although Eisenhower provided air support for the 1954 Guatemalan coup, Kennedy refused to provide air support for the Bay of Pigs invasion.
- #015
When Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp were cast as JFK and RFK respectively, they would call each other on the phone to work on their Boston accents weeks before filming began. According to the special features on the film's DVD version, they called this playing "Dueling Kennedys."
- #016
In 2001, Kevin Costner screened the film for Fidel Castro in Havana.
- #017
Robert Kennedy called for a large-scale military invasion of Cuba when the crisis began.
- #018
One of the film's subplots is the tense and distrustful relationship between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and various officials of the Kennedy administration. One of the most contentious of these relationships was that between Secretary of Defense McNamara and Admiral George Anderson, shown in a scene in which they have a heated argument about the rules of engagement. The two men were known to thoroughly dislike each other; McNamara regarded Anderson as a hawk and insubordinate, while Anderson saw McNamara as unqualified and meddlesome. In the end, McNamara decided he was fed up with Anderson trying to persuade President Kennedy to dismiss him. Although Kennedy decided against outright firing him, he chose not to reappoint Anderson as Chief of Naval Operations and instead appointed him US Ambassador to Portugal. It was primarily his falling-out with McNamara that forced Anderson into early retirement.
- #019
For many years after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Robert Kennedy in 1968, Kenny O'Donnell suffered from severe depression. He and his wife died in 1977 under the effects of alcoholism.
- #020
Kennedy refers to Barbara W. Tuchman's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Guns of August, which describes the forces that dragged the nations of Europe onto the slippery slope of world war. The book had been published just a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, some sixty years later, the book ranks among the most authoritative works on the subject. JFK's timing in reading that book was perfect.
- #021
Christopher Lawford, who plays Commander William B. Ecker, is the real-life nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.
- #022
The F-8 aircraft used in the film were real planes once flown by the Philippine Air Force, but they were actually non-operational at the time. During filming, the aircraft were being towed.
- #023
After the meeting with the Soviet post commander, a look is taken at the teletype message dated October 26, 1962. As Robert McNamara describes in the documentary The Fog of War (2003), Khrushchev's letter to Kennedy reads in part: "… we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more we pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot…".
- #024
Martin Campbell and Francis Ford Coppola were considered to direct. Campbell turned down an offer to direct The Mask of Zorro (1998).
- #025
Christopher Lawford, the real-life nephew of John and Robert Kennedy, had to apologize to Steven Culp when he first saw him as Robert Kennedy, because he was overcome by how much he resembled his real-life uncle.
- #026
The plane that carries the President to Connecticut is a real VC-137 (Boeing 707) Presidential aircraft used by President John F. Kennedy. However, the 707 shown was not in service until a month after the Cuban crisis. At that time another 707 with a different color scheme was used.
- #027
As a result of the resolution of the crisis, the Kennedy administration also ended its support for anti-Castro fighters in Cuba.
- #028
Actor Steven Culp also played Robert F. Kennedy in the film Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996).
- #029
While in the car with Kenny, Bobby says he hates being seen as a ruthless person. This was a reputation he had earned. He softened considerably after following his brother's leadership in supporting the civil rights movement, which made his election to the Presidency in 1968 quite likely. Before that, he was known to have sought a political path by supporting McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunt.
- #030
Bruce Greenwood would later play Pres. Kennedy's Secretary of Defense (and close ally) Robert McNamara in the film The Post (2017).
- #031
Steven Culp lost about 15 lbs to play the thin Robert F. Kennedy.
- #032
Kenny O'Donnell's joke about returning to Lyndon's ranch and shooting deer from an open car is based on a real event. In November 1960, Johnson invited Kennedy to his Texas ranch and took the newly elected President deer hunting. However, there is no evidence that the two shot deer from an open car.
- #033
Bruce Greenwood, who plays John F. Kennedy, was 44 years old when the film was released, only one year younger than JFK was during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- #034
Director Roger Donaldson and star Kevin Costner had previously worked together about thirteen years earlier on the spy film No Way Out (1987).
- #035
U2 pilot Major Rudolf Anderson was posthumously awarded the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Purple Heart and the Cheney Award (an Air Force medal for extreme courage in hazardous situations). He was one of eleven U2 pilots flying over Cuba during the crisis, and was on his sixth flight over Cuba when he was lost.
- #036
After the crisis, President Kennedy ordered a limited number of paperweights to commemorate the event. They were small and rectangular, with a wooden base and a cast brass plate on top in the shape of a calendar page from October 1962. The dates covering the crisis, from October 16 to October 28, were written in bold letters. They were given to a handful of key players in the event.
- #037
When longer-range missiles were discovered, it was stated that they could reach anywhere in the continental United States outside Seattle. During the promotional campaign before the film's premiere, several posters were created showing nuclear missiles advancing toward landmarks in US cities, including the Space Needle in Seattle.
- #038
Universal Pictures had originally planned to make the film with Phil Alden Robinson directing, but shelved the project as production approached. Kevin Costner managed to revive interest in the project at New Line Cinema.
- #039
Kevin Costner considered directing before handing the reins to Roger Donaldson.
- #040
This is the second film about President John F. Kennedy in which Kevin Costner plays someone other than Kennedy. The first was Oliver Stone's JFK (1991).
- #041
Robert Kennedy mentions the nuclear-resistant government shelter at Mt. Weather. A Hollywood version of this shelter appeared in the science fiction film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Located in Frogtown, Virginia, the cave is a massive man-made cavern carved out of half-a-billion-year-old solid basalt. It was designed to house and feed 200 people for a month or 2,000 people for several days. It remains in use as FEMA's command center and was most recently used for a possible government evacuation after the 9/11 attacks.
- #042
Actors Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp play John F. Kennedy and his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy, respectively. In real life, however, Culp is actually a year older than Greenwood.
- #043
Costner has no ear for accents, which shows in two of his films, and this is one of them. The other was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), in which he plays an English lord and does not even noticeably attempt the accent.
- #044
This feature film was originally pitched as a project for writer-director-producer Lawrence Kasdan, who directed The Big Chill (1983), a film with a soundtrack full of 1960s Motown classics and a story about a reunion of 1960s graduates.
- #045
This is the vehicle Kenny uses to go see his son's football practice. It is a 1963 Mercury Monterey Custom Breezeway four-door hardtop. A unique feature is the rear window that opens downward, allowing free airflow with all the windows closed. Having all the other windows open was uncomfortable because it tended to draw in exhaust fumes. This feature is the reason for the odd angle of the window that slides down behind the rear seat. Had it been designed at a normal angle, it would have greatly reduced trunk capacity.
- #046
Steven Culp and Dylan Baker did their undergraduate studies together at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
- #047
This is lead actor Kevin Costner's second feature film centered on former American president John F. Kennedy. The first was Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), made and released about nine years earlier.
- #048
In a 2001 interview with 6degrees, Roger Donaldson said of his background research for the film: "… I was interested in knowing what the reality of it was for some of the people who experienced it, and one of the things I managed to do was to capture many of the people who were part of the real story. I managed to find the man who flew the first low-level photo flight over Cuba, I managed to find John F. Kennedy's speechwriter Theodore Sorensen, people like Robert McNamara, whom I spoke to, are still alive, and each of these people reiterated that at the time they believed this was going to happen, they thought there really would be a war and were convinced it would be a nuclear war, and they had a sense of inevitability about it, they accepted that there was nothing they could do to stop this thing from happening, and now you talk to someone like Robert McNamara and he says, 'I don't know how it didn't happen.'".
- #049
The film, starring Kevin Costner, was dropped by Universal because of its high cost but was picked up by Sony Pictures at an estimated cost of 55 million dollars.
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