Thirteen Days (book) the time. Thirteen Days (book) Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis is Robert F. Kennedy's account of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The book was released in 1969, a year after his assassination. "Thirteen Days" describes the meetings held by the Executive Committee (ExComm), the team assembled by US President John F. Kennedy to handle the tense situation that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union following the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, from Florida. Robert Kennedy, who was the US Attorney General at the time, describes his brother John's leadership style
Cuban Missile Crisis Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer. The 1962 United States elections were under way, and the White House had for months denied charges that it was ignoring dangerous Soviet missiles from Florida. The missile preparations were confirmed when an Air Force U-2 spy plane produced clear photographic evidence of medium-range (SS-4) and intermediate-range (R-14) ballistic missile facilities. The US