40 pages • 1 hour read
Thirteen Days
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AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses
Afterword Summary
The Afterword, by Richard E. Neustadt and Graham T. Allison, begins with an analysis of the nuclear threat in the modern age and the moral issues that accompany initiating such devastation. Analyzing alternative courses President Kennedy might have pursued in place of a blockade, they detail one sequence of events that could have resulted in a nuclear exchange and identify several other potential trigger points for nuclear launch. In their analysis, if Kennedy had tolerated the missiles in Cuba, he may have risked further Russian aggression elsewhere in the world, especially around Berlin, which would have been much more difficult for the United States to manage.
According to Neustadt and Allison, the deliberations, shifting positions, and developing circumstances make it difficult to completely and accurately chronicle Ex Comm. They outline the development of the American response, providing additional information about the specific positions and perceptions of individual participants. Neustadt and Allison provide a detailed analysis of the composition of the committee and “the extraordinary role” played by Ex Comm (114).
Aside from the President, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was the only other elected official who attended Ex Comm meetings. President Kennedy did not even notify Congressional leaders of the crisis until the afternoon of his televised speech to the nation. Neustadt and Allison analyze how the system of checks and balances established by the Constitution has evolved as the modern President relies more on appointed advisers and Cabinet officials than Congress. They argue that Ex Comm effectively became the system of checks and balances on the President during the missile crisis.
The Cuban Missile Crisis illustrates the reasons that many “Presidents have sent troops to battle without declarations of war” as Congressional involvement would have compromised the secrecy, flexibility, and time that were essential to President Kennedy’s management of the situation, according to Neustadt and Allison (133).
Examining legislative proposals to limit Presidential authority to conduct various military operations that were under consideration at the time of publication, they conclude that the measures are “concretely political,” and motivated primarily by the unpopularity of Presidents Johnson and Nixon’s conduct in Vietnam, rather than “constitutional” efforts to address checks and balances between the White House and Congress (144).
Afterword Analysis
Richard E. Neustadt was a historian, specializing in presidential power, and former White House Adviser to Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. Graham T. Allison is a political scientist, specializing in U.S. national security issues, who also wrote a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both were on the faculty of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Written in 1971, the Afterword is a sophisticated academic analysis of President Kennedy’s exercise of executive power during the Cuban Missile Crisis and an examination of key issues facing the modern presidency.
Neustadt and Allison dismiss the post-crisis interpretations that minimized the risk of nuclear war, arguing that these are based on unrealistic predictions of Soviet responses and that Robert Kennedy’s book clearly demonstrates the United States on the brink of nuclear disaster. As Arthur Schlesinger concludes in the Foreword, although without the benefit of the information available to him nearly thirty years later, Neustadt and Allison conclude that the evidence supports President Kennedy’s actions in the crisis.
Writing at a time when there was significant concern about presidential overreach of power resulting from military actions ordered by President Johnson in Vietnam and President Nixon in Cambodia, Neustadt and Allison place President Kennedy’s actions in historical context. They argue that the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrates the reasons Presidents have avoided Congressional involvement in these cases: secrecy, flexibility, and time are essential to a President addressing a crisis and would be compromised by Congressional involvement, particularly in situations that carry the threat of nuclear war. In their analysis, the need for secrecy during the missile crisis precluded President Kennedy from consulting Congress. They argue that a modern President relies more on aides and advisors for checks and balances on his decisions than on elected members of Congress, and that Ex Comm effectively served this function for President Kennedy.
According to Neustadt and Allison, the deliberations, shifting positions, and developing circumstances make it difficult to completely and accurately chronicle Ex Comm. They regard Robert Kennedy’s memoir as an important contribution to the historical record and provide additional information detailing the specific contributions of individual participants.
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