Thirteen Days Page #3

KENNY:

We hit a Nazi buzz bomb field in '45.

(beat, incredulous)

It looks like a rocket base...

He puts his hand out to touch the image, then turns and looks

to the President, knowing what they must be.

BUNDY:

On Sunday morning, one of our U-2s took

these pictures. The Soviets are putting

medium range ballistic missiles into

Cuba.

Shock. Silence. Kenny glances to the other men.

LUNDAHL:

They appear to be the SS-4: range of a

thousand miles, three-megaton nuclear

warhead.

KENNY:

Jesus Christ in Heaven...

INT. WHITE HOUSE OPERATOR'S CENTER - DAY

A bank of WHITE HOUSE OPERATORS work the switchboard, fingers

flying, voices overlapping in a babble of:

VARIOUS OPERATORS

Please hold for the White House...Mr.

O'Donnell for Secretary McNamara...

White House Operator... please hold...

INT. KENNY'S OFFICE - DAY

Kenny carries the phone with him as he paces hard from his

desk to his window.

KENNY:

The principals are assembling in an

hour. See you then.

Kenny hangs up. The President enters. A beat. And in that

beat, there's a void. The two men are off their emotional

stride, trying to grope their way out of shock.

THE PRESIDENT:

Where's Bobby?

Kenny nods, acknowledging the feeling

KENNY:

Should be here any minute.

THE PRESIDENT:

Good.

And we glimpse the chemistry of these guys by Bobby's

absence. It's like they're missing their third wheel.

THE PRESIDENT (CONT'D)

Good.

BOBBY (O.S.)

Where the hell are you?

The President and Kenny hear him out in the hall. And the

tension goes out of them instantly.

THE PRESIDENT:

In here!

They turn to the door as BOBBY KENNEDY, 37, the President's

younger brother/Attorney General, enters. Bobby shuts the

door behind him, falls into Kenny's chair, and clearly

grappling with his own disbelief, is hushed.

BOBBY:

Jesus Christ, guys. What the hell's

Khruschev thinking?

THE PRESIDENT:

Did you have any indication of this from

Georgi? Any possible warning or sense

of motivation?

BOBBY:

(shaking his head)

Complete snowjob. And then we went out

and told the country they weren't

putting missiles into Cuba.

(beat)

By the way, you realize we just lost the

midterms.

KENNY:

Who gives a sh*t about the midterms now?

The Soviets are putting nuclear weapons

ninety miles away from us.

BOBBY:

You mean there's something more

important than votes? Didn't think I'd

live to see the day, Ken.

The President paces away, grim.

KENNY:

Jesus. I feel like we've caught the Jap

carriers steaming for Pearl Harbor.

INT. WEST WING HALLWAY - DAY

The President strides down the plush hallway, Bobby and Kenny

flanking him. Unconsciously, all three men assume the same

gait:
confident, powerful, no longer disoriented.

And before our eyes, the three men's game faces appear, and

they become the hard-ass leaders of the United States.

Secret Service Agents throw open the massive double doors to

the Cabinet Room.

INT. CABINET ROOM - CONTINUOUS

And they enter. The group of men at the long, ornate

Roosevelt-era table, rise as one.

GROUP:

Good morning, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT:

Good morning, gentlemen.

And the doors close on the eighteen men of EXCOM: The

Executive Committee of the National Security Council. They

are the legendary "Best and Brightest."

The President makes his way down the line: shakes hands with

Secretary of State DEAN RUSK, 53, distinguished, with a soft,

Georgian accent, a distant reserve.

THE PRESIDENT (CONT'D)

Dean, good morning.

RUSK:

Mr. President.

The President leans past him, grasps the hand of the

Secretary of Defense ROBERT MCNAMARA, 46, a gifted managerial

genius... the price of which is a cold, hard personality.

THE PRESIDENT:

Bob. Bet you had a late night.

MCNAMARA:

Sleep is for the weak, Mr. President.

OFF TO THE SIDE, Kenny greets Vice President LYNDON JOHNSON,

54, and ADLAI STEVENSON, 62, Representative to the U.N.,

intellectual, well-spoken.

KENNY:

Lyndon. Adlai.

The silver-haired war hero and politically savvy Chairman of

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, GENERAL MAXWELL TAYLOR, 50s,

shakes the President's hand.

THE PRESIDENT:

Max.

GENERAL TAYLOR:

McCone's been notified and is coming

back from the West coast. Carter's

here, though.

He gestures to GENERAL MARSHALL CARTER, Deputy Chief of

Operations for the CIA. Carter nods to the President.

THE CAMERA PANS OVER THE OTHERS.

DOUGLAS DILLON, ex-banker, Secretary of the Treasury.

ROSWELL GILPATRIC, studious Deputy Secretary of Defense.

PAUL NITZE, 55, the detail-driven facts man, Assistant

Secretary of Defense.

GEORGE BALL, 50s, Undersecretary of State. Eloquent, a man

of conscience.

U. ALEXIS JOHNSON, Deputy Under Secretary of State.

EDWARD MARTIN, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin

America.

LLEWELLYN THOMPSON, laid back, rumpled Soviet Affairs

Advisor.

DON WILSON, Deputy Director of the USIA.

The President sits down at the center of the table, Rusk and

McNamara to either side, and the others resume their seats.

Bobby takes one of the over-stuffed chairs at the table.

Kenny finds one along the wall behind the President, under

the windows to the Rose Garden to TED SORENSEN, 30s, the

President's legal counsel and speech writer. They greet each

other coolly.

KENNY:

Ted.

SORENSEN:

Kenny.

The room falls silent. The President looks across the table

to GENERAL CARTER.

THE PRESIDENT:

Okay. Let's have it.

GENERAL CARTER:

Arthur Lundahl heads our photographic

interpretation division at CIA. I'll

let him and his boys take you through

what we've got. Arthur?

Lundahl, standing at the end of the room with briefing

boards, steps forward with a pointer.

LUNDAHL:

Gentlemen, as most of you now know a U-2

over Cuba on Sunday morning took a

series of disturbing photographs.

SWINGING THE POINTER AT A BOARD SMASH CUTS US TO:

EXT. MISSILE SITE - LOS PALACIOS, CUBA - DAY

The sweltering Cuban countryside. Shouting SOVIET ROCKET

TROOPS, stripped to the waist, glistening with sweat, machete

a clearing under scattered, limp palm trees.

LUNDAHL (V.O.)

Our analysis at NPIC indicates the

Soviet Union has followed 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 this missile system is the

SS-4 Sandal. We do not believe these

missiles are as yet operational.

A bulldozer TEARS through the undergrowth. FILLING THE

SCREEN. A 70-foot long MISSILE TRANSPORTER creeps along in

the bulldozer's wake like a vast hearse with its shrouded

cargo.

INT. CABINET ROOM - DAY

Lundahl raps his second board: a map of the United States,

Cuba visible in the lower corner. An ARC is drawn clearly

across the U.S., encompassing the entire Southeast.

LUNDAHL:

IRONBARK reports the SS-4 can deliver a

3-megaton nuclear weapon 1000 miles. So

far we have identified 32 missiles

served by around 3400 men, undoubtedly

all Soviet personnel. Our cities and

military installations in the Southeast,

as far north as Washington, are in range

of these weapons, and in the event of a

launch, would only have five minutes of

warning.

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